W. Watson & Sons

[Jan Pedersen]

Fell in love with a 15" W. Watson & Sons Landscape Meniscous lens and ended up with the highest bid.
Anyone on the Forum have any first hand knowledge about Watson lenses?
According the the VM Watson made some good lenses but searching for additional information did not come up with much.
I will ask the lens when i get it but until then i am just curious.
Thanks.

[Steven Tribe]

This is a nice period cone lens. There have been a series of cone lenses this year with a similar design, different UK sellers' names but all of these were from the 1890's as opposed to this nice Watson. The achromatic meniscus pair will be Chance glass which is usually problem/bloom free.

[Jan Pedersen]

Steve,
Thank you for the reply. There is now some concern over the lens element in this Watson, it appears that it focus at 10.5" and not 15" and the lens element also looks small. The seller is thinking that it could be a front element from another lens.

Any chance that someone on the Forum have photos of a W Watson Meniscus lens?

Thanks.

[Steven Tribe]

The rear landscape lenses I have seen - less than 15" though -(Dallmeyer and Lancaster) fill the rear element. 15" would have a coverage of about 12x15"! If the rear thread is an exact inch measure than it would have been easy to fit an RR element from another UK maker as standard threads were becoming popular (mostly flanges - but also cell threads). I can't find any photos either!

[Jan Pedersen]

Fortunately this is an honest seller and he did not want to ship something that aparantly has been altered. Instead i have a Swift & Son 16" Portable View lens coming. This is also a Meniscus lens, and maybe a little overkill for 8x10, time will tell.

[Steven Tribe]

The same quality and a cute engraving included! I think this is the model with an f8 for composing.

[Steven Tribe]

Since last I contributed, I too, have become the owner of a Swift Portable View meniscus landscape lens but 12" serial no. 3145. With a nice focussing aperture of f10.
How is yours?

[Jan Pedersen]

Steven, The 16" that i got is almost to good to be interesting, glass was a little dirty but cleaned up nicely. I have only exposed one sheet so far but will take it out this weekend and hopefully get something i can show.
It seems to cover 8x10 pretty well. The serial number is in the same range as yours.
Have fun and post an image taken with the lens.

[Steven Tribe]

My posting will have to be a winter landscape as this has joined another objective (a huge RR) which needs reglueing this autumn before use. Interesting breakdown of the balsam with a central "hole" and striations out to the side - makes a change from yellow edge rings. Very nice glass and super solid brass construction.

[Jim Galli]

Steven, The 16" that i got is almost to good to be interesting, glass was a little dirty but cleaned up nicely. I have only exposed one sheet so far but will take it out this weekend and hopefully get something i can show.
It seems to cover 8x10 pretty well. The serial number is in the same range as yours.
Have fun and post an image taken with the lens.
Did you uncork it? I love the look of some of these with no aperture at all hindering them. J

[Jan Pedersen]

Jim, I did try but the front is rock solid. Don't want to put to much force on it to unscrew the aperture and risk to brake it. A soaking in lighter fluid would perhaps help but i don't think the iris material would like that so i will keep it in original shape.

[Steven Tribe]

Jan, I doubt the aperture can be removed without a risk of total damage. My Swift landscape has a very small grub screw opposite the aperture indicating "notch" and is fused. My other Swift (RR) with an identical style aperture design has a similar tiny screw in the same impossible location near the barrel.
As far as getting interesting results with "open" landscape lenses, I would have thought that the f.10 of the Swift (only recommended as a focusing aperture by swift) would have been enough. But perhaps the theory - big apertures/big changes - only applies to early landscape lens made before the RR revolution. Dallmeyer listed their late landscape lens as a New Rectilinear Landscape lens - perhaps they rationalised their lens production and used a single RR cells in later landscape lens production? .