Question Re Regular vs Universal Heliar

[Richard K.]

Is the regular (non-Universal) Heliar primarily a portrait or landscape lens? If used as a Portrait lens, is any wanted softness controlled by adding spherical abberation (i.e. using the lens wider open) as opposed to whatever the floating element in the Universal does? What does it do? I guess my question is: will the Universal give a much different Portrait rendering than non-Universal? In what way? Which do people find more desirable? Thank you...

[carverlux]

Is the regular (non-Universal) Heliar primarily a portrait or landscape lens? If used as a Portrait lens, is any wanted softness controlled by adding spherical abberation (i.e. using the lens wider open) as opposed to whatever the floating element in the Universal does? What does it do? I guess my question is: will the Universal give a much different Portrait rendering than non-Universal? In what way? Which do people find more desirable? Thank you...

Richard,

Both Heliars are more portrait than landscape because while they contribute some detail smoothing primarily through under-corrected residual spherical aberrations, they do not offer significant Gaussian highlight "glows" in the way seminal landscape lenses do, such as pure achromatic doublets like the Pinkham Smith Series I, Dallmeyer Bergheim or Spencer Port-Land.

Some will say - what about the Kodak 305 and 405 Portrait lenses? In using them, they feel more landscape than portrait to me because when used near wide open as one would in a portrait studio, they render glows so beautiful that you can only please a portrait client who wants very few facials details but a lot of "glows" and suppression of dimension.

Back to the Heliars.

The Universal Heliar moves the middle element back and forth which actually changes the focal length of the lens. This has the effect of throwing all aberrations calculated to work out with the lens in the original sharp position far enough out for the consequential spherical aberration to take over and render the focus "softer". The Cooke "knuckler" Portrait lenses - Series IIE and Series VI - were built on the same principle.

Both the Universal Heliar and Cooke "knuckler" lenses render more softening effect than their earlier counterparts (the non-Universal Heliar, early or late formula, and earlier Cooke Series II Portrait lenses) but you have to judge whether "more" is to your taste. For portraits, my personal perference is actually the earlier lenses - the pre-1904, original-formula Heliar and the uncoated Series II Cookes; and for landscapes, the P&S Series I doublet.

Carver

[Richard K.]

Wow! That's what I call a good thoughtful answer to a post!! Thank you Carver.

[Steven Tribe]

What a lovely answer! I suppose you could add the Graf Variable to the group that change focal length with "softness" adjustment. I have just checked my Universal (I haven't used it in earnest yet) and the change in focal length is very marked. Why didn't Voigtländer provide double F scales like the Graf Variable?

[Steve Hamley]

So for the knuckler and Universals, do you all (in practice) refocus after the softness adjustment?

Cheers, Steve

[Richard K.]

So for the knuckler and Universals, do you all (in practice) refocus after the softness adjustment?

Cheers, Steve

And also for the Series II Velostigmat?

[Ken Lee]

Perhaps I am missing something, but I have used regular Heliar lenses for landscape photography.

Stopped down past f/8, they are quite sharp with no special abberations, and give results just like modern designs.


http://www.kenleegallery.com/images/landscapes/55.jpg
Sinar P, 210mm Braunschweig Heliar
4x5 TMY, Pyrocat HD

[carverlux]

So for the knuckler and Universals, do you all (in practice) refocus after the softness adjustment?

Steve,

Yes, I do. These two lenses are like distant cousins (to put it in a politically correct way) so they behave similarly. What I do is to first find the softness that I like then re-focus. In effect, it is like finding the right focal length with the "zoom" ring on a zoom lens before re-focusing the lens sharply.


Perhaps I am missing something, but I have used regular Heliar lenses for landscape photography.

Ken,

I was responding to the reference to "landscape" being a synonym to "pictorial landscape", contemporary with the style which many of that era were after: soft, glowing specular highlights with dark shadows that held few if any details in the shadows. The work of Alvin Langdon Coburn, Clarence White and F. Holland Day showed fondness for this approach and their vision required something special to provide. I therefore answered Richard's question in that vein...and yes, you did make a very lovely landscape with your Heliar!


And also for the Series II Velostigmat?

Richard,

The Velostigmat Series II is not a distant cousin of the two lenses you asked about. It is a Tessar design so the way it works is different. In the VeloS2, the front element is moved slightly off (further away) its point of intended optimization to achieve the soft focus effect by allowing some spherical aberrations to exist in the system again.

Unfortunately, the unintended consequence (at least for this design) is that some chromatic aberrations also creep in, further complicating the final photograph especially if it was not first filtered with a deep yellow filter like that used on the Eidoscope or Nicola Perscheid.

Carver

[Dan Dozer]

Hi Richard,

One thing to note is that the Heliar is not really a soft focus lens. It normally renders your image pretty sharp. However, many people feel that the way it renders the out of focus areas in the image produces a very nice look for portraits. As already stated the difference between the Heliar and the Universal Heliar is that the Universal Heliar has the capablity to move the position of the inner lens thereby rendering the soft focus look. Some people have wondered if you can physically unscrew partly the middle lens element in the Regular Heliar to achieve a soft focus look. The general though is that the depth of the threads might not allow you to move the middle lens enough to make much difference. I've never tried that before with my Heliar so I don't really know if it works or not.

I use my Heliar all the time on portrait work, but would also not hesitate to use it on landscapes either.

An interesting soft focus lens that hasn't been mentioned is the Eidoscope which achieves it's soft focus look not by re-positioning any of the lens elements, but by opening up the irus. It is sharp focus at about F10 and below and opening up softens the look to wide open at F4.5 which is really soft. The down side of the Eidoscope is that you really need to focus the lens partly closed down and if you're working in low light levels that might be a problem.