PDA

View Full Version : B&L 5x8?



cyrus
8-Oct-2011, 19:17
Can anyone tell me anything about the attached Bausch & Lomb 5x8 Series Ic lens in Universal shutter? I see references on the web to 5x7 not 5x8. How's the coverage for a 5x7 camera? Thank you.

Fotoguy20d
8-Oct-2011, 19:30
From a Bausch 1910 catalog. It's a Tessar so not a huge amount of coverage but should give you a bit more than the 5x7 version would.

Dan

Steve Hamley
8-Oct-2011, 19:52
Cyrus,

From my B&L list, it was made in 1931.

From the cameraeccentric site it will cover 5x8 at f:4.5, and 6-1/2 x 8-1/2 stopped down. The focal length is 8-15/32" or lets just call it 8-1/2" or 215mm.

That would make it covering 64 degrees stopped down, which is good for a fast tessar. Typically you would see 56 degrees for a f:4.5 tessar and about 63 for a f:6.3 tessar like the IIb or a Kodak Commercial Ektar.

Personally I like B&L lenses. All of them I've seen were very well made and nicely finished. And i like tessars too, and i think you've got a nice lens.

Cheers, Steve

cyrus
8-Oct-2011, 20:14
Thanks im going to put it on a Seneca Improved 5x7 which was 23" bellows draw.

cyrus
8-Oct-2011, 20:32
Thanks Steve
BTW how can it have been made in 1931 when the rim says "Pat. Feb 24 1903"?

"Bausch-Lomb Tessar Series Ic Pat. Feb. 24. 1903 No. 2773929"

don12x20
8-Oct-2011, 22:11
Patent date isn't build date...its the date the US Patent Office granted patent (or alternatively you might see a pat. filed date)

cyrus
9-Oct-2011, 01:03
isn't this interesting - first time I've seen a patent date declared so boldy on a lens - which was made 30 years after the patent issued? Patents only last 20 years - at least today that's the case and I doubt that they lasted longer back in 1930, so by the time the lens was made in the 1930s the patent it proclaimed must have expired already.

Michael E
9-Oct-2011, 02:30
I have a B&L Tessar IIb 5x8. It carries the same patent date, but opens up to f 6.3. On the side of the front rim it says 8 1/2 in. This would make it a 216mm lens. The later Carl Zeiss Jena Tessars 4.5/210mm were rated at 55°, 250mm image circle.

Michael

Michael E
9-Oct-2011, 02:32
From my B&L list, it was made in 1931.


Steve, could you give me a manufacturing date for my lens? The serial # is 811087. Or is this list online somewhere?

Thanks,

Michael

Oren Grad
9-Oct-2011, 08:54
I have a 5x8 IIb with the number 8845. It seems odd that there would be such radically different numbers.

There is what purports to be a B&L date code list here (http://forum.mflenses.com/bausch-and-lomb-date-code-serial-number-scheme-t20524.html), but the numbers make no sense for either my lens or Michael's.

Fotoguy20d
9-Oct-2011, 09:40
Or any of mine. I have two Graflex cameras (RB Auto & Compact) with serial numbers that put them in the mid 1920s and B&L 5x7 Tessars with SNs in the low 3 millions.

Dan

goamules
9-Oct-2011, 10:54
I have a 5x8 IIb with the number 8845. It seems odd that there would be such radically different numbers.

There is what purports to be a B&L date code list here (http://forum.mflenses.com/bausch-and-lomb-date-code-serial-number-scheme-t20524.html), but the numbers make no sense for either my lens or Michael's.

Add a zero to the end of each number and they make more sense, and are probably pretty accurate. It's the only list that's every been put out, but somehow a digit got filtered off. This list, with a zero added, makes most lenses fall into the right time period. The OPs 800,000 for example would be about 1911, which looks about right for that compound shutter.

Fotoguy20d
9-Oct-2011, 11:03
Still doesn't explain the 3-million serials (circa 1940 from the list) on two mid-1920s graflex cameras. One might have been replaced but two seems unlikely.

I'd be curious to see what's the largest non-alpha B&L number anyone has. I'll look further but so far it's around 3.2 million.

Dan

Oren Grad
9-Oct-2011, 11:22
So I just went around the house digging up B&L Tessars from their hiding places. Here's what I've got:

3 1/4 x 4 1/4 B&L-Zeiss Ic in barrel 1144373
3 1/4 x 5 1/2 B&L IIb in Volute 3055911
5x7 B&L Ic in barrel 2652876
5x8 B&L IIb in barrel 8845
6 1/2 x 8 1/2 B&L Ic in barrel 3198509

Of these, the numbers on at least the postcard and 5x8 lenses are not plausibly explained by the table. The quarter-plate one is awfully clean for what would be a mid-teens vintage, but maybe I just got lucky. The 5x7 and WP numbers make more sense.

goamules
9-Oct-2011, 11:46
All my B&Ls dated using this list, from 1907 Unar to 1928 Plastigmat seem to match pretty well with when the catalogs say these were available. I think people changed lenses into better shutters a lot, as they became available. On the cleanliness, I have a couple of pre-civil war lenses that look practically brand new. Your lenses from the teens should be brass, not black lacquer. My pre 950,xxx ones are anyway....

Oren Grad
9-Oct-2011, 12:00
My postcard IIb looks awfully like a factory mount in Volute. Was that focal length even still offered in 1940, as the table would imply?

And what's with the four-digit number on the 5x8 IIb?

A quick browse of B&L Tessars currently on eBay shows a couple of other anomalies:

* 5x7 B&L Zeiss Ic in Volute, serial number 1287961, but with the leading 1 looking as though it was inscribed over a "2".

* A B&L Ic labeled with a modern "240mm", but S/N 2789217.

Also, apropos of the largest non-alpha S/N, a 10x12 Ic with S/N 3216865.

EDIT: Yes, my quarter-plate Ic is indeed in a lovely brass-ringed mount. So we'll call that one for the list.

goamules
9-Oct-2011, 12:51
You know, I'm beginning to not trust this list either. I have a Protar V 5x7 3,22x,xxx that is a 1920s volute! What, in 1940 they put a lens in a 20 year old shutter? Oh well, hard to tell mfg dates on all these millions they made I guess.

Steve Hamley
9-Oct-2011, 19:07
, The OPs 800,000 for example would be about 1911, which looks about right for that compound shutter.

If it makes any difference in dating the lens, it's a dial-set Ilex shutter.

Cheers, Steve

cyrus
9-Oct-2011, 21:55
If it makes any difference in dating the lens, it's a dial-set Ilex shutter.

Cheers, Steve

I was wondering about that but on the dial it says "Universal" and I don't know much about historical shutters.

Steve Hamley
10-Oct-2011, 05:20
"Universal" means it's a self-cocking shutter in Ilex language, "Acme" means you have to cock it.

Cheers, Steve

E. von Hoegh
11-Oct-2011, 07:00
Can anyone tell me anything about the attached Bausch & Lomb 5x8 Series Ic lens in Universal shutter? I see references on the web to 5x7 not 5x8. How's the coverage for a 5x7 camera? Thank you.

It won't work on 5x7. It's for 5x8 ONLY.







:D

domaz
11-Oct-2011, 10:00
You know, I'm beginning to not trust this list either. I have a Protar V 5x7 3,22x,xxx that is a 1920s volute! What, in 1940 they put a lens in a 20 year old shutter? Oh well, hard to tell mfg dates on all these millions they made I guess.

People are putting new lenses into old shutters nowadays all the time. You don't know the history of a lens that old- someone could have bought it as a barrel lens and had it machined into an old shutter they had lying around. Same thing people do today.

PS- My 5x7 Speed Graphic came with this lens in a barrel. Obviously no need for a shutter on a Speed Graphic.

cyrus
11-Oct-2011, 10:25
It won't work on 5x7. It's for 5x8 ONLY.

:D

That's what I thought! Now the camera format police are after me!

Seriously I was wondering what sort of movement it would have, and was "5x8" a reference to film format it would cover

E. von Hoegh
11-Oct-2011, 10:36
5x8 is an "obsolete" format, unless you have divider boards for your 8x10. It'll work fine on 5x7, just put some black tape over the "5x8". Probably a pretty nice lens. :)

valdormar
9-Mar-2017, 14:26
Just received this jewel in the post today. Any knowledge about this lens?
5x8 Bausch and Lomb ZEISS TESSAR Series 1c f/1.2
http://nothinggoes.com/lens/DSCF9567.JPG

Louis Pacilla
9-Mar-2017, 15:58
I posted this on another thread in which you showed your new to you lens. It's scale reads in US scale & not F stops so US 1.2= f 4.5. All or all but the VERY longest FL Tessar Ic's have a maximum aperture in F 4.5. Great little lens BTW!

valdormar
9-Mar-2017, 16:18
It's scale reads in US scale & not F stops so US 1.2= f 4.5. Great little lens BTW!
Thanks Louis Pacilla for this information.