“...Archer collaborated with Ansel Adams to codify the Zone System, which is a photographic technique for determining optimal film exposure and development.[14] The technique is based on the late 19th century sensitometry studies of Hurter and Driffield, and provides photographers with a systematic method of precisely defining the relationship between the way they visualize the photographic subject and the final results. Although it originated with black-and-white sheet film, the Zone System is also applicable to roll film, both black-and-white and color, negative and reversal, and to digital photography. Archer and Adams formulated the system while teaching together at the Art Center School in Los Angeles.[15]
Ansel Adams went out of his way to give Archer equal credit for the Zone System: "I take this opportunity to restate that the Zone System is not an invention of mine; it is a codification of the principles of sensitometry, worked out by Fred Archer and myself at the Art Center School in Los Angeles, around 1939-40."[16]”
Wikipedia
Bob I agree completely with wikipedia, but that "divine ray" descended from sky in 1927, it was April, AA was 14 years old, collaboration with Archer was 12 years later.
"He changed to the red filter, with this dramatic result. He described this episode as his first visualization"
http://anseladams.com/new-modern-rep...ace-half-dome/
Well, let me recitify, with the Adon AA "invented" visualization, not the ZS. Visualization + Hurter_Driffield = ZS, I guess.
Mark, marketing isn't everything but it counts for a lot. So does presence in the market. S.O.M. Berthiot has been part of the French military-industrial complex since 1912, stopped making civilian LF lenses (except process lenses) around 1951 and stopped making lenses for small format cameras in the early '60s. They never had much of a presence in the US. Although they were probably the most important French lens maker of their time their products were poorly documented, especially after WW II. Small wonder that few of us here are very aware of Berthiot's products.
When I was chasing lenses seriously I put a lot of effort into learning which little-known lenses were good, easily/inexpensively put to use and priced interestingly lower than well-known equivalents. There aren't many such. Process lenses, Boyer Beryls (Dagors), f/14 Perigraphes and some ILex lenses and that's nearly it. There are good practical reasons why we love our Super Angulons and equivalent lenses from, in alphabetical order, Fuji, Nikon and Rodenstock and don't look beyond them.
Not sure if the full aperture of f6.8 for the Angulon is a great advantage. Yes it does make focusing easier due to the image being brighter on the GG, still that Angulon needs to be stopped down to f16 or smaller for image circle and image quality. If the f14 Perigraphes deliver good optical performance at f16 and smaller, that full aperture of f 6.8 of the Angulon might only be a modest advantage. Similar would apply to the wide angle Dagor with a full aperture of f8 / f9.
During the early years for my view camera adventures, the wide angle lenses used were wide angle Dagors and wide field Ektars. At some point during the later years of 1980's, the Rodenstock Grandagons happened and never went back until more recently with the 165mm Angulon (while small, it has limitations and advantages like any other LF lens).
These vintage wide angle lenses appear to have similar optical layout:
The f6.8 version of Perigraphes is a "Dagor" variant?
As for install into a shutter, that same old thing about using a Sinar shutter does a nice job of taking care of that.
Many years ago tried a Protar Ser. V, f16 on 8x10. Tiny lens in many ways yet it covers 8x10 stopped down to f32. Have that 8x10 color transparency some where. Optical performance, it's not a 155mm f6.8 Grandagon, but quite surprising given the physical size of the Protar Ser. V.
Bernice
S.O.M. Berthiot got into the cinema zoom lens battle with Angénieux. Over the course of time and all, Angénieux ended up being the French cinema zoom lens brand. About that point in time, Angénieux then had to contend with Cooke (UK) which also made excellent cinema zoom lenses.
While Zeiss got a lot of notoriety for their lenses used in the Apollo space program, it was a Angénieux f0.95 lens that produced the video images of Neil Armstrong stepping on to the moon. The video quality is marginal due to the power allotted to that video camera of 2 watts. That was all they could afford for the video camera.
http://www.fdtimes.com/pdfs/articles...History-A4.pdf
Space flight lenses operates in an extremely harsh environment. From being blasted by high energy particles to special lubricants that function in hard vacuum and a lot more.
The third lesser known optical company that took part in the NASA space flight program of that era was Canon.
Bernice
Bernice, I'm not sure how Lacour-Berthiot slipped past Goerz' Dagor patents, but most of their Eurygraphes and both Perigraphes are double anastigmats with cells that contain three cemented elements. Very much like Dagors. Read my Berthiot article.
Before WW I quite a few lens makers produced 6/2 double anastigmats. Fabre mentions many of them and there are discussions in the Bulletin de la Société Française de Photographie, of which many issues are available on-line. See the Berthiot articles references for links to it and to other French photographic journals.
About S.O.M. Berthiot vs. Angénieux. Berthiot devoted most of their development effort from the mid-1920s-on to cine lenses, was in that market long before Angénieux was founded. Berthiot claims to have been the first to market with a cine camera zoom lens. As I said, Berthiot abandoned the civilian market in the mid-60s.
Indeed there are; especially when making any significant enlargement.
But as an overly-obvious observation, those of us who contact print or use alternative processes can be very happy with much older lenses that, though not up to modern "Stepford Lenses" standards of perfection, still provide the image quality we want, along with quirks and histories we enjoy.
And of course, when you get into enjoying the various aberrations... it's all good!
"I love my Verito lens, but I always have to sharpen everything in Photoshop..."
When I wanted a good, cheap wide angle lens for the 8x10 format I went for a Wollensak Velostigmat Wide Angle Ser. III F9.5 61/4" Focus No. 284751 in a working Betax shutter. Cost exactly $100 on eBay. Lens is uncoated but more than plenty sharp for contact prints at f32 and f45. Imperfect memory hints that the optical design dates from 1909.
Photography:first utterance. Sir John Herschel, 14 March 1839 at the Royal Society. "...Photography or the application of the Chemical rays of light to the purpose of pictorial representation,..".
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