Gentlefolk,
I don't know where Kerry Thalman finds this stuff, but all he has to do is show me an item or two and I'm hooked. I'm a financially poorer man for it. But happier, I might add.
The most recent Madness revolves around Docter Optics lenses. I have taken delivery of a 150 Germinar W f/9, 210 Tessar f/4.5, 240 Germinar W f/9, and 300 APO Germinar f/9.
The 150 and 300mm lenses are brilliant. I just love 'um for their resolution and contrast. In the process of doing a real world "test of 200mm-ish lenses, I found the 240 Germinar W to also be brilliant from wide open all the way down, and the 210 Tessar to be shockingly good starting around f/5.6.
I have started compiling a page of Docter Optic goodies at: http://www.hevanet.com/cperez/test/Germinar.html
I believe Kerry still has a couple of the 150 and 300mm lenses, and perhaps more than a few 240's. It might be worth looking him up. The Germinar W lenses are what Schneider could or should have produced with the GClaron series of lenses; the Germinars are multi-coated and provide similar 80 degree coverage when stopped down to at least f/22. And the APO Germinar is such a delight that I don't care that it's only single coated.
Stay tuned for my 210mm "real world" Big Mash-Up test. Already there are a few surprises (to me at least, this from inspecting the negatives under a 10x loupe). I am feeling more confident than ever that lens aperture shape strongly influences the "texture", "rendition", and "smoothness" of out of focus areas. But more on that after I have had a chance to spend a few hours in the darkroom printing the results.
I thought y'all might like to know. There are some really great optics out there. :-)
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