Mystery: 55/5.6 Graflex Eurygon in Graphex shutter

[Dan Fromm]

http://web.archive.org/web/201608262...-/272326558806

Its new to me. All Google found on it is offers to sell.

The lens in the archived listing above is on a Super Graphic board so presumably it covers 4x5. Can anyone tell us anything about it?

[Mark Sampson]

You probably know this already- but Graflex did sell a 58mm Rodenstock lens to fit the XL medium-format camera. And people adapted it for 4x5, ~25 years ago when the widest lens available for that format was 65mm. So perhaps there is some connection there. And at some point in the 1960s Graflex began offering Rodenstock lenses labelled "Optar", presumably after Wollensak went down. (The ones I have seen were in that unreliable 1/1000sec. leaf shutter on Super Graphics.)

[Dan Fromm]

Yes, I have a 58/5.6 Grandagon. It has a large rear element, much larger, proportionately than the Eurygon's.