Found a sales brochure from the 1980s in the bottom of a filing cabinet. I don't think Yamasaki or Shiro are still in operation but the lenses are still out there and working.
Found a sales brochure from the 1980s in the bottom of a filing cabinet. I don't think Yamasaki or Shiro are still in operation but the lenses are still out there and working.
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,..".
More Congo lens data recovered from faded and uncollated photocopies 1980s vintage.
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,..".
Thanks. Useful information. I had 90; 120; 400 mm lens. Nice, light, sharp.
This is very nice to see in one place. Thank you.
But there is an older? f/4.7 and 6.8 congos too not mentioned here.
Also not mentioned - 500mm f/9.5 Tele-Congo in Copal 1. 67mm filter, 70mm front cap, 51mm rear cap, overall length 150mm, image circle 160mm at f/22, 515 grams including caps and mounting flange, flange focal length 287mm.
This information comes from the old Congo Lenses site on the Wayback Machine here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20120419...o/index_e.html
Interestingly, the archived site doesn't mention the 500mm f/8 in Copal 3 listed on one of the pages Maris provided. There may be other discrepancies, I didn't check carefully.
I've used my 500 once - my recollection is that I had a tiny bit of vignetting at f/22 with no movements so either the quoted image circle is generous or I just didn't have my lens perfectly centered.
Another one that doesn't show up anywhere is the 260mm f/10 Apo-Congo offered in (at least) a Seikosha SLV #0 shutter. Kerry Thalmann sold one on this list a few years ago.
https://www.largeformatphotography.i...Size-0-Shutter
There was a longer APO-Congo, maybe 320mm f/9, on eBay a year or two ago but I passed on it because as I recall it had serious fungus. I believe it was in a #1 shutter.
Last edited by Steve Goldstein; 5-Oct-2021 at 17:17.
I'm not sure that the Soft Focus and the complex (non-tessar design) Alto-W lenses labelled Congo were actually made by Yamasaki. They could very well have been bought in and re-badged.
The image quality on the lens lists posted here is not so good because the original 1980s materials are photocopies made with blue toner on grey paper. I guess the information was considered somewhat proprietary and blue on grey would tend to defeat the photocopiers and fax machines of that era.
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,..".
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,..".
I have both the 150mm and 200mm Congo SF lenses. They are excellent, share some of the characteristics of their more famous ancestors, the Cooke Series II
At one time I owned and used a 400mm or a 500mm (can't remember which) Tele-Congo lens on my 4x5. Congo rated either focal length OK to cover 5x7, but in my experience my lens sharply covered the 4x5 format with just a wee bit of movement possible. Never used the lens on a 5x7. The projected image may have covered 5x7, but I'd doubt the corners of the 5x7 were all that sharp.
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