[LargeFormat] Bausch and Lomb Portrait Lens

[Clive Warren]

At 11:43 pm -0700 12/4/02, Les Newcomer wrote:
big snip
>
>Now after I typed all that, I found in "Handbook of Photography c1939, B&L
>made a Plastigmat Portrait lens.  Which has only a minicus front element and
>an achromat rear cell (plano-concave cemented to a convex)
>
>It has a field of view of 40 degrees, speed of f5.6 and were made in focal
>lengths ranging from 9-18.

Les,

You are the fountain of all knowledge when it comes to these old 
lenses. Thanks for all that info. Exactly what was required :-)

The 15" f5.6 E.F Plastigmat Portrait lens here has a cemented rear 
cell - I know this because there is about 1/8" separation in the 
balsam running around the outside of the rear cell - nothing to worry 
about.

The E.F probably stands for Effective Focal Length.

I had guessed that the front cell was a simple single element and am 
intrigued to discover that it is a Protar design. The diaphragm is 
very close to the front meniscus element.

I just took the beast outside and from the ground glass cannot see a 
soft focus effect - but I probably need to focus on a definite 
subject ie a person rather than foliage to really check this out.

The lens has no shutter and I was surprised not to find a Packard 
attached to the back of the lens board, nor any evidence of one that 
may have been removed. I guess this was a lens cap shutter 
arrangement but would have thought that film speeds were fast enough 
in the 30's to warrant some form of shutter. Particularly given the 
fast speed of the lens at f5.6 How do you think it was used in the 
studio?

Having looked through the ground glass I find that it is in fact a 
5x7 back - doh!

So am looking for a 4x5 and 8x10 back now :-)

Cheers,
        Clive