Some Soft Focus Lens Sales Information

[Steven Tribe]

UK auction + internet.

Cooke 2a F3.5 9.5" - concealed in box - but we were 2 that asked the question and fought it out! A perfect size for 4x5" and 1/2 plate.

£480 plus auction fees plus postage.

I hope someone isn't too angry that the bargain disappeared. I had set my limit at £300 - but I forgot.

[Steven Tribe]

Commission was at 20% - so $ price was 900.

[Emil Schildt]

Bausch and Lomb Zeiss portrait Unar No 8 12 inch f4.5

765$ from this board

[tuant]

One of the most expansive lenses I have ever seen--1862 Voigtlander Petzval with a serial number of 10000. Voigtlander made that for the 1862 London Expo and then collected by museum since. It weighs 14 1/2 kg and measures 18 1/2 " tall. Sold for 23995 dollars to a collector I know. I am not sure about you guys but I think money can bring me a lot of happiness if I could have that kind of chance

Tuant

[Steven Tribe]

This is a well known lens. A "sechszöller"- that is, 6 inches (German inches!) across the front glass. Dated to 1862 and last seen sold at auction for 15,000 Euros some time ago.

But not a soft lens!

[Gundlach]

This is a well known lens. A "sechszöller"- that is, 6 inches (German inches!) across the front glass. Dated to 1862 and last seen sold at auction for 15,000 Euros some time ago.

But not a soft lens!

Details Please! Some of us might not be familiar with this lens. Focal Length? Speed? Thank You! G

[Steven Tribe]

It is, in fact, a standard first series Voigtländer Petzval (just on the boundary between those with or without the need for chemical focus adjustment!) with the standard size number 9.
Here is a copy of the 1861 catalogue.
Serial number 16,000 from 1864 was a bit larger - total length 72.5cm, weight 100 kilos. This was an "achtzöller" - well over 20cm glass diameter.

I see that it wasn't sold at the auction I mentioned - there were no bids at this starting price/minimum.
Still not a soft lens.

[tuant]

Thanks, Steven! So that was No. 9 of the first series? I did have the chance to take apart an even longer Voigtlander Petzval. It was so long that the whole lens was joined in the middle with screws and weighed around 30lbs as well. This one is probably a little fatter than that. I know both owners and maybe some day, I will use both to shoot a plate of 2424 aluminum plate just to compare. A friend also showed me a Cooke F2 8 1/2" Unikum lens. I heard it was a super rare lens. There are so many fun toys out there but so little money in my pocket

Tuant

[Mark Sawyer]

If the lens needed an adjustment for chemical focus, that indicates significant chromatic aberration, which was later an alternative to spherical aberration in achieving soft focus. On modern panchromatic film, it might be considered a soft lens, even though it wasn't originally meant to be. (I'd love to see a portrait made with this lens wide-open on modern film.)

Similarly, early landscape lenses were very soft used wide open, though they were meant to be used closed down to give a conventionally sharp image. Only much later were very similar lenses made to be used wide-open as soft-focus lenses, (and the list of those lenses reads like an all-star roster of pictorialist optics...)

Which again opens the debate of "what qualifies as a soft focus lens?" The Cooke RV was meant as a general view lens, but the early Pictorialists discovered it was a wonderful soft lens used wide open with the front aperture removed. So the Cooke RVP and later Cooke Portrait Achromat followed with a more open front aperture. The optics were the same, but which would be a "soft" lens, and which wouldn't?

[alex from holland]

It is, in fact, a standard first series Voigtländer Petzval (just on the boundary between those with or without the need for chemical focus adjustment!) with the standard size number 9.
Here is a copy of the 1861 catalogue.
Serial number 16,000 from 1864 was a bit larger - total length 72.5cm, weight 100 kilos. This was an "achtzöller" - well over 20cm glass diameter.

I see that it wasn't sold at the auction I mentioned - there were no bids at this starting price/minimum.
Still not a soft lens.

I have measured my no8 several times, but it has a focal lenght of 23.5".
But the glass size is correct. Did they made other series ass well?