Verito and Reinhold Wollaston Shootout

[jp]

JohnnyPelvis is missing out in this battle of the soft lens commerce conspiracy. Galli has sold a verito or two and is amassing a fortune, outside of the sin city desert playground of the mob, from selling at least a Struss a week as fast as his government surplus lab will turn out mexican hat glass from magnifying glass, Reinhold meanwhile has a deal with me. I get hookers and cocaine every time I sell ten wollaston meniscii, and life is good. This IT job of mine is just a front as I'm really just running around with cameras and Zumba women in Vacationland, pushing sewer pipe lenses on doctors and telecom lawyers and profiting from the free use of forums like LFF and APUG, which isn't quite free; everything has a price. Galli is filling garages with model A's, Reinhold wants another steel building full of antique BMW motorcycles, and I'm not saying where my money may or may not be going.

Be warned; replicating this may not produce the same results, which could be massively different if you are off by 1/3 stop of aperture or the light is a little more harsh or soft. It's all a learning experience.

I was at the beach the other day, waiting for a cocaine bail to float in, and had two lenses on me and was looking for some surprise and learning from the lenses.



First up is the 190mm wollaston meniscus at f6.3. The F6.3 and F6.6 stops were provided to me gratis by Reinhold.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/1375969...n/photostream/

Then the 8.75" verito at F4.5 (midway between f4 and 5.6).


http://www.flickr.com/photos/1375969...n/photostream/

Here's what I see. Lots of white powder on the rocks, with some missing. The Wollaston seems to have a fatter depth of field. It was shot at a slightly smaller aperture, but it seems like a pretty fat depth of field. I choose aperture on soft lenses for diffusion first and depth of field is not a major consideration. Go up to 8x10 if you want zero depth of field AND soft. I tried to make the diffusion about the same with these photos.

Evidenced by the shadow and or mossy area of the rock in the upper left, the verito seems to slightly blob masses of light and dark more. It could be the result of slightly thinner DOF. If you're into abstraction, this is good. If you're into notan, this is good. How's the notan on my images here?

Both handled the foreground about equally.

The rock in the mid-focus of the image seems a little fuzzier on the verito, and a little chalkier on the Wollaston. Maybe I should start using descriptive terms like used by beer/coffee/wine snobs? It starts off chocolatey and ends with fruity undertones with a cotton candy finish. Not very hoppy.

Which should you buy? It's sort of like which handgun to buy when they are all expensive and look alike. It's good to have both. More is betterer. I don't know which image is better.

[Ari]

Jason,
Did someone hack your account, or did that cocaine actually arrive?

Great lead-up, but does this mean if we want a Verito-like look at rock-bottom prices, we need look no further than Reinhold's glass?

Will Jim Galli no longer light his Cohibas with $100 bills due to a fall-off in lens sales?

[jp]

Ari, people will want expensive lenses, just like expensive cigars and steaks. It's all cheap stuff compared to new glass from Zeiss/Nikon/Canon. There was a crazy thread that was shut down by the mods on APUG where antique lens traders were villified.
In theory, one could make money on veritos by buying low, using them, and selling high, just like the housing market a few years ago. You can't really resell a used Reinhold lens for big bucks as it's not historical or out of production. In practice, you get better photos by getting a lens and using it for a few years rather than a few weeks.

[Ari]

In practice, you get better photos by getting a lens and using it for a few years rather than a few weeks.

Point well made, my tongue-in-cheek reply notwithstanding.

I'm for anybody who knows how to turn something almost unwanted into a viable commerce, be it lenses or houses or pizzas.

[Lachlan 717]

190mm @ f6.3 versus 222mm @ f4.5. Seems like comparing a Shiraz to a Cab - same colour liquid, but quite different beasts.

I don't understand the handgun simile, but, that being said, I agree: I don't know which image is better. I'd like to see more comparison images (i.e. additional subjects), as well as a colour image of the subject taken through a "normal" lens so as to understand what's being shot.

Regardless, it's just good knowing that knucklehead JohnnyElvis CAN'T contribute to this thread!!

[Adamphotoman]

I like the second image but not because it was made with the Verito. More because the foreground is sharper and the fall off in the background is soft. The first image is sharper in the mid to background and the fore ground is soft.

They were shot differently so the comparison is not quite fair...

[Jim Galli]

Fun to look at! Fun to read! I like the Verito one better. It's woolier. And since Johnny the elf isn't here, I'll mix spel a fuw woords un he behalv?

Time has passed. I've got a gigantic pile of Struss lenses, but I have to let them trickle out one at a time so I can keep the prices inflated and the mystique piqued.

But the bigger story is . . . . how did I get all this stuff that I'm robbing everybody blind with?? Well, here is the tale. Truth, of course, is always stranger than fiction;


The True Story of the Nevada Lens Mine

Think about it? How do SO many ecclectic antique lenses end up in
Tonopah Nevada? It's like the Bermuda Triangle of old photo lenses.

We've had some fun throwing around the Nevada Lens
Mine myth but the truth is even stranger.

I've decided to come clean because no one will believe me anyways.
But before I start, think about it. How do so many ecclectic antique
lenses end up in the middle of nowhere? I think I'm up to about 250.

As some of you know, I work in the Nevada desert at a Gov't installation.
Over time I began a rapport with what we'll call for lack of a better term,
the little green men. Turns out they're friendly, and they're bored.
So here's the thing...

They're pretty well locked up...unless...someone with the right
combinations turns them loose. We talked about it quite a while
over cribbage and bad coffee until Floyd came up with an
interesting idea. Time travel. Yep, that's right, time travel. The
folks in Los Angeles with their huge long lenses get all worked into a
lather if they go out for a joy ride in the present, but what if........
hmmm......just might work. What if they slipped through a crack,
went out on a little joy ride, and came right back in through the same crack.
No one would be the wiser if we were careful right?

I was holding a 24 point hand of 4's 5's and 6's and feeling pretty smart so I
said, "OK, but it'll cost you". What? What did I require? Here's my plan
I said. Say you're in 1951 Baltimore. I want you to bring me back some cool
old forgotten large format lenses. Bingo! No problem said they.

So with one small slip, that's how we've done it. I type in a code, out they go
for as long as they like, in whatever year they like, and then they slip back in
before the boss gets done stinking up the crapper.

So what was the one slip? My fault totally. You know that little incident in
Roswell? Yep, my fault. I had heard about some 210mm Xenotar's and got a
little greedy. OOPS! Cost a bunch of your tax dollars to cover that one up.
Sorry 'bout that. So now we stick to relatively banal places. This group you're
looking at in the classifieds this weekend came from 1946 Cleveland. Some old
pro had just died and this stuff was long since old and out of use. The green guys
left all the stuff anyone would notice, and brought me back these.

So there you have the true and complete reason that so many antique lenses
find their way to Tonopah, Nevada! Happy shooting

[David A. Goldfarb]

For this shot, I think the meniscus looks better than the Verito at the selected apertures, but the Verito is pretty variable between wide open and f:8, and it might be more interesting with a little less diffusion, say around f:6 or 7. And then if you're in the diffuse-focus zone with a Verito, there is also some control you have by choosing the focus point.

My own experience with meniscus lenses is that they don't offer as much control, but I haven't tried one as fast as Reinhold's.

[jp]

For this shot, I think the meniscus looks better than the Verito at the selected apertures, but the Verito is pretty variable between wide open and f:8, and it might be more interesting with a little less diffusion, say around f:6 or 7. And then if you're in the diffuse-focus zone with a Verito, there is also some control you have by choosing the focus point.

My own experience with meniscus lenses is that they don't offer as much control, but I haven't tried one as fast as Reinhold's.

My particular verito, diffusion changes REAL fast and far between 4.5 and 6.3ish. True some soft lenses have a focus point that's not 1/3 foreground 2/3 background which is also a consideration (like the kodak 305)

190mm @ f6.3 versus 222mm @ f4.5. Seems like comparing a Shiraz to a Cab - same colour liquid, but quite different beasts.

I don't understand the handgun simile, but, that being said, I agree: I don't know which image is better. I'd like to see more comparison images (i.e. additional subjects), as well as a colour image of the subject taken through a "normal" lens so as to understand what's being shot.

Regardless, it's just good knowing that knucklehead JohnnyElvis CAN'T contribute to this thread!!

I'll get Jim to tell his green men to go back and get me something closer to 190mm.

The gun thing.. Lots of enthusiasts would fret over which to buy, or buy both, and then not use them much and not be skilled with them because that's where the results come from.

[goamules]

Nice job, thanks. As another lens collector, scholar, and shooter who was dared to make a comparison, I have a few comments too. The sputtering, hair tearing perpetrator of the original dare made a lot of predictions based on emotion, jealousy, and personal attacks. I'll make my hypothesis based on my understanding of optics.

This test masks a lot of differences. I'd like to see a composition where comparisons between how they differ will be more apparent:

1. The Wollensak Verito is rectilinear, the "wollaston" is not. Shots straight on, with easy to see straight lines would show the difference better than white snow shot at an angle. Wide open, the wollaston will have distortions that the Verito does not.

2. The Verito is an achromat, the "wollaston" is not. Early soft focus lenses and some famous ones like the Struss and some Pinkhams were also made in an era when film worked mostly in one band of the light spectrum. Shots taken with orthochromatic film or wetplate would reveal a huge difference in your test.

3. Related to the above, the Verito softness comes from Spherical Aberrations. The wollaston from mostly Chromatic. Color fringing, in black and white or color, will be a significant difference in specular highlights. A shot of glassware, backlit foliage, or even a nice portrait will reveal significant differences. So would color photographs.

4. The focusing method of the Verito is "what you see is what you get" whereas single meniscus lenses have an actinic light factor. If you focus by eye, you are averaging all the chromatic aberrations, and seeing more softness, but early ortho film and wetplate showed less. If you focus based on your knowledge of this, will have more softness, on film, from a single meniscus than what they eye sees.

Those are just a few things I can think of at the moment before my morning coffee. But I'd love to see (like all of us) a comparison Portrait, with lighting in the classic soft focus style, to see the highlights, skin tone, and such. And a landscape with trees or buildings, where the rectilinear distortions of the wollaston would be more apparent.

By the way, I doubt anyone has shot a real Wollaston, they are too rare and had too many defects to be used for more than the first year of daguerreotype photography. But they did have a distinctive grind profile. I wonder if anyone who owns the modern made one can tell us if the profile matches the original? Is the manufacturer buying or grinding to this profile?