Taylor Hobson Cooke VIIb

[Tony Lakin]

Hi
I have a few Taylor Hobson lenses including a 158mm VIIb for which I paid approx. £50 ex shutter, when I saw the price this went for I was shocked , does anyone else think this is crazy.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Rare-Taylor-Ho...QQcmdZViewItem

[Walter Calahan]

Crazy man, but the marketplace does find its level.

[Hugo Zhang]

With a coverage over 100 degrees, it is a rare lens and a perfect WA lens for 11x14. It might even cover 7x17. Lens and Repro has a 8" WA Ross asking for $1,500. I am not at all surprised at the ending price. WA lenses of 150mm are not hard to find.

[Struan Gray]

Kerry isn't usually noted for wild irrationality. Perhaps he'll chime in. :-)

Some of the single coated British lenses from the 50s-60s are sleepers. The revival of larger sheet film sizes being used in the field is waking them up. Lucky for those with good car boot sales in their area.

[Tony Lakin]

Hi again
I had not noticed thet Kerry was the winning bidder so I guess that the price is ok, my only further comment is that I have a 210mm computar in a Copal shutter which covers 11X14 but with no movement for which I paid approx. £300, will the VIIb have greater coverage than this?

[CP Goerz]

I've had a few of these lenses from the smaller 160mm to the 212mm version that Mr Wisner gave hs stamp to and found them all to be very low in contrast, I mean flat ! Good luck to anyone who shoots with that pig.

CP Goerz

[Jim Galli]

I have 3. 158mm 200mm and 222mm. I've used the 6 1/4" the most. I would note mixed results. For low contrast scenes it has a fine sharp look but with a very bright scene it flares badly in the center. It is a lens that would take on an entire new personality with even single coatings. I'll be interested to follow Kerry's findings. Both my 6 1/4 and my 8 3/4 have had the flare problem. Who could you send these to for a modern coating?

[Tony Lakin]

I have 3. 158mm 200mm and 222mm. I've used the 6 1/4" the most. I would note mixed results. For low contrast scenes it has a fine sharp look but with a very bright scene it flares badly in the center. It is a lens that would take on an entire new personality with even single coatings. I'll be interested to follow Kerry's findings. Both my 6 1/4 and my 8 3/4 have had the flare problem. Who could you send these to for a modern coating?

Hi Jim
unfortunately in the UK we do not have an equivelent to S K Grimes for shutter mounting of barrell lenses, aperture engraving etc., however we do have an excellent re-polishing and coating service, I bought a Computar 210mm on the bay which was a bit cloudy so I sent it to them and had it stripped recemented, repolished and a single layer coating applied to the outer surfaces, the cost was very reasonable and the results are superb, incidentally a few Months ago I conducted a survey on this forum to ascertain how much interest there would be in a modern version of the Cooke 158mm VIIB, this may yet happen, these thing take time (the lens would not be manufactured by Cooke).
Here is a link to Optical Instruments (Balham) Ltd.
http://www.optil.co.uk/
Best wishes

[Jim Galli]

Hi Jim
unfortunately in the UK we do not have an equivelent to S K Grimes for shutter mounting of barrell lenses, aperture engraving etc., however we do have an excellent re-polishing and coating service, I bought a Computar 210mm on the bay which was a bit cloudy so I sent it to them and had it stripped recemented, repolished and a single layer coating applied to the outer surfaces, the cost was very reasonable and the results are superb, incidentally a few Months ago I conducted a survey on this forum to ascertain how much interest there would be in a modern version of the Cooke 158mm VIIB, this may yet happen, these thing take time (the lens would not be manufactured by Cooke).
Here is a link to Optical Instruments (Balham) Ltd.
http://www.optil.co.uk/
Best wishes

Excellent resource, thank you. I will look into it plus I have a WA Dagor that has gone to pieces and is probably worth de-cementing - re-cementing because of the value of the piece. To address your original question I think the VIIb would have some more useful coverage that the 210mm Computar. I believe the Computars are near 90 degrees to the Cooke's 100.

[Jason Greenberg Motamedi]

I had a very bad experience with Optical Instruments, and would recommend extreme caution before sending them anything.

I have recently been using Arax in the Ukraine (http://araxfoto.com/) for recoating and can recommend them, with the usual caveats that both recoating and the postal system are risky. Of course, for a valuable lens you can't do any better than Focal Point (http://www.focalpointlens.com/)