"Richard Knoppow" wrote in message
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"Thor Lancelot Simon" wrote in message
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In article ,
wrote:
The curious thing is that Wollensak's prices were no
lower than Kodak's for their "premium" lenses. I think
there was some sort of design blunder made on the design
for the Raptar/Optar lenses used on press cameras and the
Enlarging Raptar lenses, which are also pretty bad.
Kodak's Ektar lenses are uniformly excellent as are the
Enlarging Ektars. Even Ilex lenses, also not cheap by any
means were head and shoulders better than Wollensak. Now,
another curiosity is that the Optar lenses made by
Wollensak for the Series-D Graflex are excellent. A
different design even though still a Tessar. They were
offered as an alternative to the Ektar lenses for these
cameras but the price was about the same.
I think Wollensak got the reputation for being cheap
because they made a lot of OEM lenses for cheap cameras.
So did Ilex for that matter.
Wollensak shutters OTOH are excellent and, since they
use all hair-springs, can be rebuilt with new parts.
I'll also add that the telephoto lenses made by
Wollensak for press cameras are quite respectable. These
were sold directly as Tele-Raptar and by Graflex as
Tele-Optar.
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Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA