Has any know of a Howard Beach or information on the Beach lens made by Wollensak? There is one for on ebay. The seller quoted a brochure saying it was a portrait lens... thanks
Has any know of a Howard Beach or information on the Beach lens made by Wollensak? There is one for on ebay. The seller quoted a brochure saying it was a portrait lens... thanks
Whoever Howard D. Beach was, he made some very nice portraits. If you hunt around on the net, you can find portraits of Native Americans from a 1901 Exposition in Buffalo as well as portraits of Sadakichi Hartmann, such as the one above from 1914.
I searched eBay for "Wollensak Beach" and was surprised to find two listed, the soft-focus you mention and a sharp version. I had earlier looked at the "Lens Collectors Vade Mecum". There wasn't much information there and what little there was had a contradiction. It dated the introduction at 1928 and said that the "front glass curve was made asymmetrical to soften the image". This apparently explains the use of the term "Multifocal".
It is odd that there are a number of Wollensak products about which rather little information is available. This is true of their latest products as well as some of the older ones.
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