Any info/experience with a Micro Raptar 115mm/12.5?

[ic-racer]

Barrel looks like the Enlarging Raptar barrel. It is a unique focal length compared to the Enlarging Raptars.

[Keith Fleming]

Could it be off an old microfilm camera--or even a microfilm reader for reading reels of microfilmed documents.

I spent a good bit of time in the 1980's on microfilm readers going through historical documents researching a volume on one year of the Vietnam War. The lenses on those machines enlarged the image onto a roughly 8.5X11-inch ground-glass type screen.

However, the one lens I examined back in that era was a 50 mm Componon enlarging lens on a microfilm camera in a government lab that had been closed down. Other agencies were scavenging through the left-over equipment. The lens had a screw-mount of about 29 mm, and I later learned there were adapter for using such Componon lenses on enlargers taking 39 mm screw-mount lenses. At my own historical center, researchers like me were discouraged from examining the innards of the microfilm and microfiche machines.

Keith

[Vaughn]

Thanks! I do not think a microfilm reading lens would need an adjustable aperature -- especially going down to f32. But at this point your guess is as good as mine.

[Louis Pacilla]

Hey Vaughn, my guess would be that it's Wollensaks version of the B&L Photomicrographics set of lenses.

[Dan Fromm]

Lou, all of B&L's Micro Tessars except the 158, which is f/6.3, are f/4.5.

F/12.5 is an unusually small maximum aperture for a high performance macro lens. 100 - 120mm macro lenses from, in alphabetical order, CZJ, Leitz, Nikon, Reichert and Zeiss Oberkochen are all at least two stops faster.

FWIW, I've had a 50/4.5 Micro Raptar for years. The barrel is enameled black, otherwise it looks just like an Enlarging Raptar; these beasties are usually in chromed barrels.

Micro Raptars may have been intended to compete with Micro Tessars (late ones are engraved Macro Tessar) but they seem to be much less common in the market for used lenses and, if I recall correctly, aren't mentioned in any of my books on photomacrography. Some of them, all fixed aperture, seem to have been intended for microfilm readers. Until someone turns up Wollensak documentation or promotional literature on them they're all mysteries.

[Bob Salomon]

Lou, all of B&L's Micro Tessars except the 158, which is f/6.3, are f/4.5.

F/12.5 is an unusually small maximum aperture for a high performance macro lens. 100 - 120mm macro lenses from, in alphabetical order, CZJ, Leitz, Nikon, Reichert and Zeiss Oberkochen are all at least two stops faster.

FWIW, I've had a 50/4.5 Micro Raptar for years. The barrel is enameled black, otherwise it looks just like an Enlarging Raptar; these beasties are usually in chromed barrels.

Micro Raptars may have been intended to compete with Micro Tessars (late ones are engraved Macro Tessar) but they seem to be much less common in the market for used lenses and, if I recall correctly, aren't mentioned in any of my books on photomacrography. Some of them, all fixed aperture, seem to have been intended for microfilm readers. Until someone turns up Wollensak documentation or promotional literature on them they're all mysteries.

Left out M Componons.

[Vaughn]

Thanks, everyone!