Hi all,

At what point did decent, affordable, wide angle lenses show up? My understanding is that common prewar lenses were mostly Tessars in the normal to long range, with a handful of dialyte and slow convertible designs for wide angle use. (Here I'm thinking of the usual Kodak Ektar suspects in 5.5", 6", 7", and 8".) I know that the 127mm Ektar, while common on 4x5 Speed Graphics, didn't have good quality coverage at the margins, presumably because that wasn't a strength of the Tessar design.*

I also know that there are a boatload of modern Plasmats from the big four that (apparently) were selling like reeeeely expensive hotcakes in the 1970's and 1980's. So, what changed, and was there ever a time for "good deals" in the 28mm to 35mm equivalent range?

Will

*I'm deliberately not talking about the wide angle Commercial Ektars designed for 8x10. I can't see that the adjective "affordable" ever applied to them!