Early Wray Lenses

[pgk]

As posted on an UK LF website:

Wray were another of those British lens manufacturers who started making photographic lenses somewhere around the 1880s - maybe - the exact date is vague. I own several Wray camera lenses; all are barrel lenses in brass, and all share the same mounting thread which is also used by some Taylor Hobson lenses so I think it is one of the RPS 'standard' threads. This is handy because it means that I have been able to make an adapter to mount them all in front of a Copal 3 shutter.
Three are Rapid Rectilinear lenses for 5" x 4" of around 6" focal length. One uses Waterhouse Stops, one uses a lever iris diaphragm and one uses a rotating aperture controlled diaphragm. All take the same sized cap - though I only have one for all three. I'll try to post images at some point, however the most interesting of these is the rotating aperture because it is an extremely early lens (s/n 1XX) and has clearly had the rotating aperture control retro-fitted because part of the engraving has been truncated and cut in half when the control was fitted. By the look of it, this was probably carried out by Wray as it is a very good match in appearance with other parts of these lenses. I'm fascinated to think that it was possible to have such major surgery carried out to what was a 'standard' lens and it shows how much such items were valued. Wray built some wide-angles during the same period (WAL - Wide-Angle Landscape, and WAR - Wide-Angle Rectilinear) which I'm looking for in the same thread mount. Any further information or comments would be welcomed.

https://www.largeformatphotography.i...attach/jpg.gif

[mdarnton]

In these days the idea of custom work and updating from a big factory seems strange, but it used to be very common. Leica sold a service of updating their old models with current features, often very extensively, and may even still do this with things like switching viewfinders from various stock models. Graflex would make you whatever you wanted, as long as they could assemble it from a range of standard parts using their normal cabinetry methods.

[andrewch59]

I have a 10X12 f8 ser 1854, which takes waterhouse stops, one of the first lenses I owned.

[pgk]

Thanks. I'd be interested in collating some early serial numbers and trying to work out their dates. As ever there is poor information about when Wray started making photographic lenses. Later their Symmetrical appears on numerous cameras and is plentiful so I assume that having found a good income generator they went into mass production. Their early lenses look almost like they were one-offs or if not were made to customers requirements and specifications with regard to the aperture system fitted.

[Andrew Plume]

You've probably seen this:-

http://www.earlyphotography.co.uk/si...nses.html#Wray

regards

Andrew

[pgk]

Thanks Andrew I have. My minimal researching suggests that Wray initially produced to order because as with some other makers, each early lens seems to have been different to many others. I still can't find out precisely when Wray started building photographic lenses; there are varying estimates from the 1870s to late 1880s. The RPS Photographic Journal (https://archive.rps.org) has two relevant entries though. The first refers to an exhibition at 5A Pall Mall East in London in October 1886 at which "apparatus on the table" included lenses by W Wray. The second from January 1888 has a reference to someone stating that he was using a Wray Wide-angle 6x7 (inches I assume and referring to wide open coverage?) to cover 10" x 8" stopped down and another to cover 10" x 12". So the latest date from which Wray had started making photographic lenses would presumably be 1886, although it could still be earlier.

Wray seem to have been instrumental in promoting aperture diaphragms by all account except oddly, many of their early lenses are built for Waterhouse Stops or use wheel apertures. I do wonder if photographic lenses were made sporadically from somewhere in the 1880s until they finally became a profitable arm of the business and were then produced in much larger numbers?

[goamules]

That's interesting to know about their threads matching some TTH. I know about their Patented thread, where the flange is marked and it takes exactly 3 turns to screw in. I don't know about a "RPS standard thread". Is there anything written on that you can link to?

[pgk]

I'm still looking into the RPS threads information - searching through the Journal takes time. Try: http://www.earlyphotography.co.uk/site/lens_mounts.html and go down to 'Threads'. It appears that Wray too adopted a 'standard' thread system and it was used for a long time because I have lenses from Wray from the 1880s and from 1920ish, and from TTH from around the 1950s, all of which use the same flange thread. The proposed 1881 RPS thread fits in with the start up of manufacturing photographic lenses by Wray just after this date because it would certainly make sense to be an early adopter of a new 'standard' which might potentially become very widespread.

[goamules]

All the major British lens makers had standardized threads by the 1870s. You can use the same flanges for many types of Dallmeyers, for instance. However, I never heard they were standardized among each other. Also, the TTH was a patented thread. It was so marked and I've NEVER seen any other maker that used it, at least during the 19th or first half of the 20th century. If your Wray's happen to fit, it's surprising, but probably accidental.

[pgk]

I think TTH patented the chamfered start up of the thread. Many threads used were of 'Whitworth' type so there could have been coincidental use, but I suspect not in this case. The British camera and optical manufacturers were somewhat incestuous with many interlinking relationships. Somewhere TTH and Wray probably had some connection somewhere I'd guess and the spin off could well have been some degree on commonality of thread usage. FWIW I have come across almost certain coincidental thread usage - the thread used for the front of one Grubb lens happened to be the same as the flange thread on a Ross lens - probably a pure coincidence because its not used on any other Grubb lens I've come across as yet (again probably 'Whitworth' type threads).