Is the Ilex Seminat a soft focus lens?

[Mark Sawyer]

Mark, you obviously don't understand Ebay. 105mm Tominon's are wide angle lenses for 4X5, and Seminat's are whatever some guy 3 years ago said they are

BTW Verito's and Veritar's are NOT petzvals. Vitax and Vesta are. I don't know what a Seminat is either and I don't like Ilex lenses enough to buy one and find out. Triplet perhaps? Maybe someone will read this and tell us.

Hmmm... I was going by by Ernest Purdum's <i>Soft-Focus Lenses and Techniques</i> on the groups home page, which says,:

"A still earlier Wollensak product was the Verito. Except for the two smallest sizes, this was an f4 lens, the back group of which could be used by itself. It may have been a Rapid Rectilinear type, but more likely a Petzval."

I'm amazed by how little we know, or maybe by how much disagreement there is over such things. You and Ernest both have more knowledge than me on such things. I'm just trying to figure it all out... (One of the Wollensak catalogs calls the Verito a "rectilinear" design, so it could well be a Rapid Rectilinear...)

Yes, ebay does have some pretty bad information about things at times, but the Seminat seems to always be listed as soft focus, even by some sellers who should know what they have. From Jay Tepper, on the Belgian ebay site, another "Soft Focus Seminat" listing:

http://cgi.benl.ebay.be/6-f3-5-Ilex-...mZ150106267631

[Ernest Purdum]

Well, since I am a guilty party here, I'll try to clarify the bad information on the Verito. Since I wrote that article, I've learned a lot more about Wollensak lenses in general and Verito's in particular (some learned from Jim Galli). Here we are:

Verito f4, f5, and f6. Judging by the number that show up regularly on eBay (I just found six), this must have been by far the largest production item of Wollensak's named lenses. Like the Veritar, It has a single meniscus in front and a cemented pair in the rear. It is convertible, the rear cell being usable alone. It was made in nine sizes from 5" to 18" focal length and the largest size could be fitted with an "extension lens" increasing the focal length to 22 1/4". Edward Weston was amongst the users. The two smallest sizes, designated "A" and "B" rather than by number, were f6. All the others were f4, except for some of the very first examples, which were f5. It is sometimes lumped in with Petzval types, but both the design and the results are quite different.

I'm still trying to reduce my ignorance concerning Wollensak lenses, particularly their production just before they ceased business. Any help will be most gratefully received. It will eventually result in an article on Wollensak lenses. The paragraph above is a draft for that article.

[Jim Galli]

I asked Jay Tepper the same question and he said he really didn't know, but that he'd seen them advertised before on Ebay as soft focus.......

The Verito I think is a rectilinear doublet at the back with a simple diopter in the front. I tried to make one myself with a single element from a 13" beck RR and a #3 diopter. I ended up with a very nice soft 7" lens that acted somewhat similar to a Verito but not exactly. The Wolly engineers probably introduced some other aberrations for softness. I'm just guessing here. The Veritar was supposed to be a similar design but re-corrected for good color renditions as the Anscochrome age had arrived.

Maybe if we chatter on long enough some ancient pro will chime in and tell us the seminat was just a cheap lens that the school portrait photographers liked because the freckles didn't show up much?

[Mark Sawyer]

I asked Jay Tepper the same question and he said he really didn't know, but that he'd seen them advertised before on Ebay as soft focus...

This is what I'm starting to think, that someone mis-identified it, and it snowballed...

Maybe if we chatter on long enough some ancient pro will chime in and tell us the seminat was just a cheap lens that the school portrait photographers liked because the freckles didn't show up much?

I'm hoping so, though by now I think I'd be disappointed in learning that yes, it's just another cheap general-purpose lens...

Still, for all the debate over which lens is best, there's a reassurance that even the "worst" and cheapest lenses are more than sufficient to make the most wonderful photographs. Measuring the quality of a lens in line pairs per millimeter is like measuring the quality of a person by their bank account or stock portfolio...

And there, I'd be on par with my $30 Seminat...

[Jody_S]

But no one knows what a Seminat is...

Being the curious type, I bought one to find out. 5" f3.5.

Preliminary investigation consisted of shining a flashlight on it, and comparing to similar lenses. It appears to be a bog-standard Tessar, but the spacing between the front elements seems to me to be larger than even my Wolly Velo II adjustable soft focus.

There is 1 guy online who has posted some images, I think they definitely qualify as 'soft focus', or possibly just 'junk':

JOHN NANIAN: Ilex seminat

[jnantz]

Being the curious type, I bought one to find out. 5" f3.5.

Preliminary investigation consisted of shining a flashlight on it, and comparing to similar lenses. It appears to be a bog-standard Tessar, but the spacing between the front elements seems to me to be larger than even my Wolly Velo II adjustable soft focus.

There is 1 guy online who has posted some images, I think they definitely qualify as 'soft focus', or possibly just 'junk':

JOHN NANIAN: Ilex seminat

LOL

might be junk, just like the guy who wrote the article said .. that guy is clueless.

[Hugo Zhang]

Out of curiosity, I bought the same lens thinking it might be a soft focus lens a few weeks ago. It is not. John posted some soft focus images with his Seminat lens years ago, but now I think his lens is the exception rather than the norm. I paid a price to learn this lesson.

[Jody_S]

LOL

might be junk .. that guy is clueless.

I searched the forum and saw that you used one of these, that's largely why I bought it. But none of your images are showing up for me, the only pics I found taken with the lens were from the link I posted.

I'm not sure why some of the images are the way they are, I think he was just out of focus for some of them. If that was intentional, then fine. I just got my lens today, I haven't looked at anything on the ground glass yet, much less a developed photo. Not even sure if it covers 4x5.

[Jody_S]

Out of curiosity, I bought the same lens thinking it might be a soft focus lens a few weeks ago. It is not. John posted some soft focus images with his Seminat lens years ago, but now I think his lens is the exception rather than the norm. I paid a price to learn this lesson.

Well I paid $30 for mine, I wasn't risking much. I originally clicked on it for the shutter, before researching the almost unknown 'Seminat'. I think an f3.5 Tessar is going to be somewhat soft wide open no matter if the lens was intended to be or not. That's why I used to use Rolleiflexes with the 3.5 Tessar.

[Mark Sawyer]

I've learned a fair amount about lenses in the 16 years since I started this thread, but I still know pretty much nothing about the Seminat...