Lenses that satisfy
 

"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message
.com...
On 10/1/2010 6:35 AM Cheesehead spake thus:

I've been re-acquiring glass, in small quantities, to
jump back in
after my short hiatus from shooting.
What I found myself doing was being more picky.
Early on I tested out various lenses and found some good
and some not
so good, at least for me.

For 4x5 I have 2 lenses: 135/4.5 Ysarex and 210/5.6
Caltar HR.

Instead of the Ysarex (about which I admittedly don't know
much), have you ever considered instead using the good old
reliable Kodak Ektar 127mm? Got one with my Crown Graphic
and have gotten excellent results with it. You could pick
up a good specimen from a certain little online auction
site for not very much.

The Rodenstock Ysarex is a decent lens of the Tessar
type. These were offered as standard equipment on Linhof
cameras and on the late Speed Graphic cameras. They are
perfectly respectable lenses.
The Ektar series are quite remarkable lenses, very well
corrected for color since Kodak was using them to sell color
film. Kodak Enlarging Ektars are also excellent lenses. The
f/4.5 and f/4.7 (the funny stop is because of the shutter
size) are Tessar types but the f/3.5/3.7 for the Medalist
camera and for small press cameras, is a variation of the
Heliar.
I no longer remember who buit the Caltar lenses for
Calumet but they are Plasmat types similar to the Rodenstock
Sironar and Schneider Symmar.


--
--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA

Lenses that satisfy
 

Quoth "Richard Knoppow" :
....
| I no longer remember who buit the Caltar lenses for
| Calumet but they are Plasmat types similar to the Rodenstock
| Sironar and Schneider Symmar.

I read that the Caltar HR in question would be made by "Topcon" (?)
Though most would be Rodenstock, or Schneider like my Caltar S II.

Donn

Lenses that satisfy
 

"Donn Cave" wrote in message
diainc...
Quoth "Richard Knoppow" :
...
| I no longer remember who buit the Caltar lenses for
| Calumet but they are Plasmat types similar to the
Rodenstock
| Sironar and Schneider Symmar.

I read that the Caltar HR in question would be made by
"Topcon" (?)
Though most would be Rodenstock, or Schneider like my
Caltar S II.

Donn

I am not sure who Topcon was. AFAIK it was a trade name
used to market equipment in the US that may have been made
by any of several manufacturers. I think late Caltar lenses
were made by Rodenstock, some earlier ones were made by
Ilex, there may have been others. Ilex was capable of making
good lenses but mostly made OEM lenses for small camera
manufacturers and, of course, shutters.


--
--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA

Lenses that satisfy
 

Quoth "Richard Knoppow" :
....
| I am not sure who Topcon was. AFAIK it was a trade name
| used to market equipment in the US that may have been made
| by any of several manufacturers. I think late Caltar lenses
| were made by Rodenstock, some earlier ones were made by
| Ilex, there may have been others. Ilex was capable of making
| good lenses but mostly made OEM lenses for small camera
| manufacturers and, of course, shutters.

Topcon was originally Tokyo Optical Company, according to the
infallible online oracles.

Before the Caltar name, Ilex-Calumets were presumably made by Ilex.
I have a couple that are my favorites, single coated Tessar type
I believe, in Ilex shutters.

Donn

Lenses that satisfy
 

"Donn Cave" wrote

Topcon was originally Tokyo Optical Company, according to the
infallible online oracles.

---------------------

Topcon made/marketed a 35mm SLR in the 60's. A classmate had one.

Lenses that satisfy
 

On 10/25/2010 1:37 PM Howard Lester spake thus:

"Donn Cave" wrote

Topcon was originally Tokyo Optical Company, according to the
infallible online oracles.

---------------------

Topcon made/marketed a 35mm SLR in the 60's. A classmate had one.

I remember that. It was somehow associated with Beseler, wasn't it?
Beseler Topcon?


--
The fashion in killing has an insouciant, flirty style this spring,
with the flaunting of well-defined muscle, wrapped in flags.

- Comment from an article on Antiwar.com (http://antiwar.com)

Lenses that satisfy
 

"Howard Lester"

I remember that. It was somehow associated with Beseler, wasn't it?
Beseler Topcon?

The US Navy used Beseler Topcons. The story is the Navy procurement
department thought they were US made, being Beseler products ...

--
Nicholas O. Lindan, Cleveland, Ohio
Darkroom Automation: F-Stop Timers, Enlarging Meters
http://www.darkroomautomation.com/da-main.htm
n o lindan at ix dot netcom dot com

Lenses that satisfy
 

On 10/31/2010 4:29 PM Nicholas O. Lindan spake thus:

"Howard Lester"

I remember that. It was somehow associated with Beseler, wasn't it?
Beseler Topcon?

The US Navy used Beseler Topcons. The story is the Navy procurement
department thought they were US made, being Beseler products ...

Except that Howard Lester didn't say that; I did. Might want to check
attribution more carefully in your replies.


--
The fashion in killing has an insouciant, flirty style this spring,
with the flaunting of well-defined muscle, wrapped in flags.

- Comment from an article on Antiwar.com (http://antiwar.com)

Lenses that satisfy
 

On Mon, 25 Oct 2010 15:33:48 -0500, "Donn Cave"
wrote:

Topcon was originally Tokyo Optical Company, according to the
infallible online oracles.

As far as I know Topcon is still in business, but not manufacturing
any photographic equipment.

The name Topcon is derived from "Tokyo Kogaku", which translates to
"Tokyo Optical (company)", just as Nikon (and Nikkor) is derived from
"Nippon Kogaku" - "Japanese Optical (company)", and Ricoh is derived
from "Riken Kogaku". The last one requires a little bit of
explanation.

The name "Riken" is another of those contractions which the Japanese
are so fond of - it is short for "Rikagaku Kenkyosho", which means
"The Laboratory of Physical and Chemical Research", a state-owned
research laboratory from which Ricoh was spun out.

As it happens, I spent two years in the mid-nineties working as a
post-doc at Riken, in the optical engineering laboratory - which was
"hikari kogaku" in Japanese. However, in this case, the word kogaku
means "engineering", while "hikari" means light.

Japanese has a great number of homonyms - words which are pronounced
the same, but with different meanings. One of these words is "kogaku",
which in some contexts means "optical", and in other contexts means
"engineering" - the difference is clear in written communications
where different Chinese characters are used. Apparently quite a few
people did a double take when the phone was answered with "hikari
kogaku".

To get back on topic. One of my colleagues at Riken had a brother who
worked at Topcon, and I was informed that the company was still very
much in business, but concentrating on optical instrumentation rather
than photographic equipment.

Topcon was one of the main players in the 35mm SLR market in the 60's
and early 70's, being one of the main competitors to the Nikon F with
their "Super D". They have a claim to having been the first company to
offer TTL (through-the-lens) metering, with the other contender being
the Pentax Spotmatic. As far as I understand it, Pentax were the first
to show a prototype, but Topcon was the first to actually bring it to
market.

Topcon withdrew from the photographic market around 1980.

- Helge Nareid
Norseman in Aberdeen, Scotland
--
- Helge Nareid
Nordmann i utlendighet, Aberdeen, Scotland
For e-mail, please refer to my website.
Website: http://www.nareid-web.me.uk/

Lenses that satisfy
 

"Helge Nareid" wrote

As far as I know Topcon is still in business, but not manufacturing
any photographic equipment.

Thank you! It was fun to read all that, especially since I started out in
photography around 1960 when all those great 35mm cameras were in
production. You brought back fond memories. My first SLR was a Pentax H1a.
Since it didn't have a built-in meter as did the Spotmatic, I used a $10
hand held selenium meter from Sekonic. That meter was the one I first used
when I started shooting with 4x5 in 1989. I may still have it.