[LargeFormat] Geronar

[Michael Briggs]

On 14-Feb-2004 philip lambert wrote:
> Recently I have seen a number of large format Geronar lenses in good
> condition going cheap on eBay. I understood this to be Rodenstock's cheap
> label. Are such lenses capable of giving sharp results?  There is no shutter
> so it looks like f32 for half a second. I would be using rollfilm on a Sinar
> so we are not talking about the field of view so much as the definition
> here. Philip Lambert


I have never seen a Geronar not in a shutter.  Perhaps there is confusion with
the similar name Apo-Gerogon.   There have been a lot of Apo-Gerogons on ebay
recently, and they were not sold by Rodenstock in a shutter.

The Geronar is Rodenstock's standard coverge, economy view camera lens.  It is
still made in the 150 f6.3 and 210 f6.8 versions. (Also sold as the Caltar 
II-E.)  There used to be a 300 mm focal length.  These are triplets.  There was
also a 90 mm f8 Geronar-WA, which used 4 elements.

The Apo-Gerogon was Rodenstock's wide coverage process lens.  The intended use
was for process cameras (typically vertical) that needed less distance between
the film and copy, and thus a shorter focal length lens, and thus a
wide-coverage lens.  The intended application was the same as for
Schneider's G-Claron. They are symmetrical and of 6 elements in 4 groups and
were made in focal lengths from 150 to 360 mm.  

The Apo-Gerogon is said to be hard to adapt to a shutter.  I don't know whether
this is true.  If you want a cheap lens that can be exposed using a hat, it
would probably work well.

--Michael