A few snaps from a £20 lens.

[Amund BLix Aaeng]

A couple of scans from the beautiful B&L 8x10 1c it got I few days ago. Not the full negs, as the Epson 4870 won`t scan a full 8x10 sheet...
Both shot wide open, 8-10 second exposures.
Sharp in the middle, and getting fuzzier at the edges, cool!

[cyrus]

This would be great for certain portraits.

[Jim Galli]

I have the identical early 12" BL 1C like Amund and mine is just boringly sharp. Yes, it has wonderful creamy tonality wide open like you would do for a portrait but certainly nothing like what Amund is getting. Curiousity piqued, I went and grabbed the lens to see what might cause an anomaly. Mechanically it would be nearly impossible to reverse anything accidentally or change anything at all. Amund, are both glasses present up front? Does it focus at 12" at infinity like you would expect? I thought perhaps if the rear group was de-cemented, but that's difficult at best and maybe impossible as BL was advanced enough that the rear group is "rolled" in so it cannot be removed from the barrel.

[Dan Fromm]

Jim, someone recently posted very similar results from, IIRC, a 105 Tessar on a folder. On APUG, I think. Sharp in center, fuzzy elsewhere.

He eventually reported back that the lens was out of collimation. The explanation struck me as odd, but I suspect it was a cell spacing problem.

[Amund BLix Aaeng]

I have the identical early 12" BL 1C like Amund and mine is just boringly sharp. Yes, it has wonderful creamy tonality wide open like you would do for a portrait but certainly nothing like what Amund is getting. Curiousity piqued, I went and grabbed the lens to see what might cause an anomaly. Mechanically it would be nearly impossible to reverse anything accidentally or change anything at all. Amund, are both glasses present up front? Does it focus at 12" at infinity like you would expect? I thought perhaps if the rear group was de-cemented, but that's difficult at best and maybe impossible as BL was advanced enough that the rear group is "rolled" in so it cannot be removed from the barrel.

Yes there seem to be something wrong with my example, but it doesn`t seem to miss anything to my eye, here are some shots of it.
Not that I want it fixed

[Amund BLix Aaeng]

One more

[Amund BLix Aaeng]

And yes it does focus at infinity at 12".