Interest in a new Hypergon?

[Nodda Duma]

Jason,

According Goerz's 1913 catalog, they made two types of Hypergon: one with star diaphragm which had a coverage of 135 degrees and the other one was a Hypergon without star diaphragm which had a coverage of 110 degrees.

Are you making your Hypergon with 130 degree coverage without a star diaphragm?

https://www.cameraeccentric.com/stat...fs/goerz_2.pdf

You can calculate from the focal lengths that we're producing the 135 degree variant. Narrower than that is not interesting. Re: the star diaphragm: Read second paragraph of OP.

what a fun project ! if I did UWA work I'd be all over it like white on rice!
so it looks like my interest is living vicariously through others . my 2cents, I'd include the fans as an "add on" (if possible)
some people love to keep things authentic looking even if it was a modern replica of said object of desire made 100 years later
(and serves no need other than being bling, who doesn't like bling?)

We've poked at this and as far as we can tell, the parts to add the whirly-gig would increase the cost by 50% - 100%. IMO that would kill the project. I plan to take a closer look during detailed design, but a much more elegant and satisfying solution is an apodizing filter to better correct the light fall off. It gets closer to what Goerz originally intended vs what they were able to achieve at the time due to limitations of technology. Think of it as my professional nod to what their lens designer wanted.

[Mark Sawyer]

The Hypergon's spinner/propellor/whirly-gig came before the neutral density center-filters were invented. Goerz recommended an exposure with the rotating thing-a-ma-jig eight times the overall exposure. But at f/45, that gets well into reciprocity failure times, so it depends on what film you're using. Exposing everything together with a center filter would simplify things greatly, as it all becomes one exposure, and while there's still reciprocity failure, it's all happening evenly in one exposure. Example: with the pinwheel, you may have an overall exposure of 2 seconds, which turns into 5 seconds with RF, and a 16 second exposure with the fan, which turns into 90 seconds with RF. With the Center Filter, it's just one exposure with one RF factor.

It might be nice to make a few extra filters for owners of the original Hypergon, especially those who have one that lacks a working windmill.

Question, will it be AR coated?

Best wishes on the project's success!

[jnantz]

We've poked at this and as far as we can tell, the parts to add the whirly-gig would increase the cost by 50% - 100%. IMO that would kill the project. I plan to take a closer look during detailed design, but a much more elegant and satisfying solution is an apodizing filter to better correct the light fall off. It gets closer to what Goerz originally intended vs what they were able to achieve at the time due to limitations of technology. Think of it as my professional nod to what their lens designer wanted.

ouch ..
good luck finding an elegant modern cost effective solution to that age old issue of the dreaded fall off
from what I remember a smoke ringed center clear gelatin faux center filter sometimes does the trick
but you will end up with black lung by the end of production!

[Bernice Loui]

There will be camera issues with supporting/using this uber wide angle lens.

Majority of flat bed folder cameras cannot be compressed enough to bring a lens of this short focal length to focus at infinity.

~38mm for 4x5
~75mm for 8x10

This would demand/require the front of the flat bed camera to drop out of the len's angle of view on top of being able to compress enough to focus these lenses to infinity.

Then there is the shutter issue. If this lens is in barrel only, even fewer flat bed field folders will be able to use this lens. Granted the exposure aperture will be small allowing the possibility of using the lens cap as the shutter.

Know the majority of view camera users today are light weight flat bed field folder centric.. The scenario of a customer/user of this lens discovering there is no possible way the revised Hypergon can be used on their favorite field folder is a very real problem and could rapidly tarnish the reputation and market acceptance of the revised Hypergon..


In the case of Sinar Norma, no issues at all..

The 5x7 Norma easily compresses to less than 38mm from lens board to ground glass including the Sinar shutter. Flipping the rail clamp around puts the front of the camera completely out of the uber wide angle of view for the Hypergon. Difficulty will be current majority is resistant to monorail cameras for various reasons.





Alternatively, a specialized wide angle camera is made specifically for this Hypergon. The speciality camera could be not a lot more than a box with a Packard shutter or similar, ground glass/film holder rear and the focus could be essentially fixed due to the uber wide angle of the Hypergon.

Curious, how are optical Apodizing filters made? Could a variant of Apodizing filter be made as an alternative to the common ND center filters used to correct for light fall off of Biogon style wide angle lenses?


Bernice

[Hugo Zhang]

There will be camera issues with supporting/using this uber wide angle lens.

Majority of flat bed folder cameras cannot be compressed enough to bring a lens of this short focal length to focus at infinity.

~38mm for 4x5
~75mm for 8x10

This would demand/require the front of the flat bed camera to drop out of the len's angle of view on top of being able to compress enough to focus these lenses to infinity.

Then there is the shutter issue. If this lens is in barrel only, even fewer flat bed field folders will be able to use this lens. Granted the exposure aperture will be small allowing the possibility of using the lens cap as the shutter.

Know the majority of view camera users today are light weight flat bed field folder centric.. The scenario of a customer/user of this lens discovering there is no possible way the revised Hypergon can be used on their favorite field folder is a very real problem and could rapidly tarnish the reputation and market acceptance of the revised Hypergon..


In the case of Sinar Norma, no issues at all..

The 5x7 Norma easily compresses to less than 38mm from lens board to ground glass including the Sinar shutter. Flipping the rail clamp around puts the front of the camera completely out of the uber wide angle of view for the Hypergon. Difficulty will be current majority is resistant to monorail cameras for various reasons.





Alternatively, a specialized wide angle camera is made specifically for this Hypergon. The speciality camera could be not a lot more than a box with a Packard shutter or similar, ground glass/film holder rear and the focus could be essentially fixed due to the uber wide angle of the Hypergon.

Curious, how are optical Apodizing filters made? Could a variant of Apodizing be made as an alternative to the common ND center filters used to correct for light fall off of Biogon style wide angle lenses?


Bernice

True. We made two box style 16x20 wide angle cameras many years ago for two owners of 150mm Hypergon lens.

[Bernice Loui]

Another example of how lens choice drives camera choice and how any given camera must have the ability to properly support the lens to be used.

Bernice

True. We made two box style 16x20 wide angle cameras many years ago for two owners of 150mm Hypergon lens.

[Dugan]

Should work with a portrait camera and a recessed lensboard...

[Nodda Duma]

Bernice that’s a good point. I’ll suggest to the customer an option would include a custom superwide body for those who need it. Hugo, it’d be interesting to know whether Chamonix could do a run of them at a reasonable price point.

That said, I can run a Hypergon on both my Tachihara and pretty sure I can use it on my 2D since the rear standard can run all the way out. Those are fairly common camera types.

[Bernice Loui]

Think sheet film version of the Zeiss Hologon camera...

like this:
https://coelncameras.com/products/ca...-15mm-olc-1197







Bernice

[Corran]

I have a Sinar Handy that could be made into a dedicated 4x5 Hypergon camera fairly easily with just a new front plate. The 3D-printed Mercury Camera I have that fits the 38mm XL and 47mm XL also would likely work, though I'm not 100% sure on the minimum body extension on that as it was made with those lenses in mind (38mm XL has ~52mm FFD). I'm certain he could produce one with a short enough body if needed.

Related, I just found this today:

https://www.japanexposures.com/shop/...8-m-mount.html

I had no idea MS-Optical had come out with this. Honestly 19mm isn't that exciting on 35mm/FF digital these days. But as a pancake lens, I see the appeal (I do really like my MS-Optical 35mm Perar).