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Look What My 135mm Graflex Optar Did!


shotz

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<p>Posting this because it was such a surprise.<br>

I shot a photo of a highway overpass on I-84 on Christmas Day of 2014. The exposure was 2 seconds so the cars really don't register at all. FP4 was the film, HC-110 the developer, in case that matters.<br>

When I did my scan I noticed something that surprised me. My very inexpensive, uncoated, old lens - with no "heritage" or "mystique" captured detail that astounded me. You can get one of these for fifty bucks on eBay any day of the week. The contrast on this photo is low because the scene is low contrast - all gray. I could have developed for 15% longer and gotten higher contrast or tweaked the settings in PhotoShop.<br>

You can see and read signs in the distance in this scan that were barely discernable from my position with the unaided eye. These are specks in the overall image. I was very surprised. My cheapie old lens has superpowers!<br>

Has this ever happened to you? Have you shot with some old unremarkable glass and found it did something special? Have you discovered a gem for under a hundred bucks that outshines the $1,000 jewels from some old German lens maker?</p><div>00d9ad-555267584.thumb.jpg.0fae771001c5cd4dc46a4c58e2f1673d.jpg</div>

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<p>That was the go to lens for the Speed Graphic, and many great photos were taken with it. I have one on a Speed Graphic that was the Press Camera for The Phoenix Gazette newspaper. They handle low contrast shooting light, better than high contrast scenes. In most cases its the skill of the photographer and not how much a lens cost that make a quality photo. I have some old barrel lenses that are not even coated that still make great photos with fantastic detail. </p>
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<p>If it's an Optar, it's probably coated. Nevertheless, old American Tessar-formula lenses are my favorite, and I've been on a bit of a buying spree of them. They're plenty sharp unless you push them too much on coverage (unlike modern lenses, they'll project a wider image than is actually sharp, and you can get into that zone if you use a lot of movements, or lenses that are too short for what you're doing), and they have a real smooth quality combined with that sharpness that I think is just a bit of unharnessed diffusion in a good way. In the center they can out-resolve modern lenses. Optars, Raptars, Paragons, B&L Tessars-- they're all great and too cheap for what they are. I have a couple of modern lenses, but once I discovered Tessars they haven't been seeing any action at all--they look too edgy to me now.</p>

<p>12" Ilex Paragon, wide open at f6.3 on 5x7: creamy smooth photo goodness-- <a href=" Eric

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<p>The Wollensak Raptar was renamed Optar when produced for Graflex Corp. .<br>

The Wollensak Rapax shutter was renamed Graphex when produced for Graflex Corp. .<br>

The Crown and Speed Graphic cameras were made by Graflex Corp. .<br>

The 135 Optar was the standard lens on the 4x5 Crown and Speed Graphic.<br>

I have yet to see a bad 135 Optar.<br>

The Raptar/Optar was introduced in the late 1940's possibly 1947 along with the introduction of the Pacemaker line of Graphic cameras.<br>

This 1949 tell all the printed info on the Raptar/Optar line of lens:<br>

http://www.cameraeccentric.com/html/info/wollensak_3.html</p>

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<p>The basic rule of coverage for Tessars is that they have a good image circle about equal to the focal length, and so 135mm is really about 20mm too short to be its best on 4x5. Press cameras were sold with lenses that were functioning as wide angles, which is pushing things for a Tessar, but the press guys didn't mind. Sometimes you even see them with 127mm, which is really a 3-1/4x4-1/4 lens. Something around 162-165mm is a commonly-sold normal length in American Tessars for 4x5.</p>

<p>Nice thread <a href="/large-format-photography-forum/00NzIq">here</a> by the way.</p>

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<p>David Bebbington - There is not vignetting from the lens. The corners are very well illuminated and then I darkened the corners in PhotoShop because I liked the way it looks. That was me, not the lens.</p>
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<p>Congratulations on the camera/lens, I'm not surprised to see the good performance. It always astonishes me when people are shocked that professional equipment from the past gives good results by modern standards since the human eye hasn't evolved over the last hundred years or so. Today's lenses are certainly better at lower price points, but people continue to have similar standards for what looks "sharp" to the eye in a print. In the past photographers used larger film to meet those standards, since film improved greatly in sensitivity and sharpness over the years along with lens technology. But a lens like the Optar from the late 1940's would certainly be expected to make a good image unless it had been damaged somehow. </p>
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  • 2 weeks later...
<p>I once took a photo of my daughter, full length against a background of an open field across the highway from our house. The lens was a $25 Russian Panda Industar 61 on a FED body. In her eyes is a highlight. I was flabbergasted when I looked at the highlight with a good loop and was able to discern myself in the reflection as well as an image of my car and a telephone pole hundreds of feet away. The film was generic 35 mm Ilford 400 in D 76. Too bad I can't access the print now.</p>
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  • 2 weeks later...

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