[LargeFormat] Wollensak Extreme Wide Angle Lenses

[Tim Atherton]

Hi Clive,

Mine is coated for one thing - as I understand it the little pink @ sign
(with a w inside) = "Wollcoated" - Wollensak's trade name for their single
coating, as well I can pick up the tint of the coating in the reflections.

Also, the 12.5 is no harder to focus, because it actually opens up to f9 (or
wider). Or at least my version in the Rapax shutter does. When it's opened
up to 12.5, you can see that the aperture is nowhere near fully open. You
just remove a tiny retaining screw and it allows the aperture to open
fully - which by the looks of it is wider even than f9. There's no problem
with a dim ground glass. I probably wouldn't take pictures at that fully
open aperture (might be a nice effect...) but it certainly helps with
focussing.

I'm shooting transparency, and as well as looking nice and sharp (I haven't
done any side by side comparisons, but it looks sharp enough under the loupe
compared to my other lenses) it's also pretty "snapy"/contrasty in its look.

It does look like it's construction is 2+2


tim




> -----Original Message-----
> From: largeformat-admin@f32.net [mailto:largeformat-admin@f32.net]On
> Behalf Of Clive Warren
> Sent: Monday, April 21, 2003 5:21 AM
> To: largeformat@f32.net
> Subject: [LargeFormat] Wollensak Extreme Wide Angle Lenses
>
>
> At 23:19 20/04/2003 -0600, Tim Atherton wrote:
>
> > > awful. My Super-D Graflex has a 190mm Optar, made by Wollensak,
> > > which is again an excellent lens. Who knows?
> >
> >As is my Wollensak 159mm 12.5 Anastigmat Extreme WA - a great
> little lens.
> >
> >tim
>
> Tim,
>
> Essentially your f12.5 WA Wolly is a protar lens - I have always wondered
> about the faster version. I have the f9.5 version which is called a
> Wollensak Velostigmat Wide Angle Ser III which is a bit easier to focus
> than the f12.5 version. I have read that the lenses are of a different
> construction. Counting the reflections, the f9.5 has four elements in the
> front and rear groups. The protar design would have two elements in the
> front and rear groups.
>
> Looking at the 5x7 version (marked Wollensak 5x7 Series IIIa EX.W.A
> f12.5  4 5/16") of your 8x10 Wolly lens this does indeed have two
> elements
> in each lens group.
>
> I would assume that the f12.5 version has better contrast than the f9.5
> version if only because there are fewer lens elements in the
> f12.5 version
> and both lenses are uncoated. I seem to recall seeing a version in an
> alphax shutter that was coated and I think this was the f9.5 version.
>
> Cheers,
>             Clive
>
>
>
>
>
>
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