coverage of Oscillo Paragon 80mm?

[jimdesu]

Hi there,

 

I have an 80mm Oscillo Paragon f/1.3 (in an Ilex #3 that I need to

get CLA'd), and I can't find any info either here or on Google as to

what the coverage of this lens is wide-open. Does anyone know?

 

thanks in advance

 

James

[dan_fromm2]

Oh no, not another oscilloscope lens question!

 

I had one. Made for an oscilloscope camera, covers 3 1/4 x 4 1/4 at somewhere between 1:2 and 1:1. Won't cover 4x5 at infinity. Not optimized for infinity. Might be useful for closeup work on 4x5. Basically just another fantasy. Impressive paperweight, though.

 

And the shutter is useless for anything but front-mounting. This because (look at it, I could be mistaken) it is not threaded externally at the rear, so can't be held to a lens board with a retaining ring.

 

The world calls for a really inexpensive LF wide angle lens, and no one answers.

 

Cheers, regrets,

 

Dan

[john_shriver]

They are computed for very close macro work (around 1:1), with high speed, for low resolution film (Polaroid ASA 3000), to picture a beam whose spot size is 0.2 to 0.5 mm. So they don't need to be super sharp -- speed was the whole point.

 

But, the focal lengths are too short for practical macro work on a view camera. (No room for lights.) So they aren't even useful as macro lenses.

 

Some of them do have rear threads on the shutter, the older of my two Tektronix oscilliscope cameras (a C-12) does have unused mounting threads. They are big shutters, and usually have flash sync. But they don't have a boost speed, since you don't need high speeds for this use. (Highest speed on my Alphax in the C-12 is 1/100.) Of course, they are such large shutters (I'm guessing number 3), one wouldn't expect high shutter speeds.

 

Certainly, oscilliscope cameras ARE a drug on the market, quite hard to sell, especially if they use Polaroid roll film (long discontinued). I bought my first one not knowing the Polaroid roll film was gone. (How could Polaroid stop making the film, that was the profit center!) Then I bought another camera (Tektronix C-27) just to get the pack film back. (I actually have oscilliscopes to use mine on, and they are just great for that! If you can bear the cost of Polaroid film...)

 

Modern oscilliscopes, sadly, run Windows, and you just connect them to a printer, or print over the network...

[tito sobrinho]

Several years ago, at a general flea market I found an 80 Oscillo like yours. The vendor new about it as he pointed out the "great" lens aperture, but told me that I could return it, if it didn't work. Assuming that I would be able to use it on my 985 Horseman, I mounted it on a Horseman lens board. What I saw was just a small blurred circle on the ground glass, and I could not get it in focus. Well, I gave it back!

[dan_fromm2]

John, thanks for the correction. I was thinking of Ilexes, not Alphaxes.

 

Cheers,

 

Dan