Speaking of Ektars

[frank_a._bridges]

Who manufactured the Kodak Commercial Ektars?

[michael_briggs2]

Kodak.

 

It was a different era, when things were much more likely to be made in America.

[donald_brewster]

Yes, Kodak. Kodak was quite vertically integrated back then. Kodak even had their own glass plant to maufacture the optical glass for their lenses, rather than relying on outside vendors.

[christopher perez]

Kodak was the traditional sand to finished product company back then. Not only did they do nearly all of it themselves, the did it using US labor, US QA, and US distribution.

 

Kodak Commercial Ektars remain some of the finest lenses ever made.

[michael_briggs2]

<p>Here's a biography of a lens designer who worked for Kodak for 25 years: Rudolf Kingslake: <a href="http://oemagazine.com/fromTheMagazine/jul02/kingslake.html">http://oemagazine.com/fromTheMagazine/jul02/kingslake.html</a>.</p>

 

<p>His book <b>A History of the Photographic Lens</b> is excellent and not too technical, and should be interesting to any LF photographer interested in lenses. Unfortunately, the price seems to have gone up.</p>

[richard_ilomaki]

Frank et al.

 

A little anecdote. Kodak did not actualy make the paper for prints, but had it made at a mill in Temiskaming Quebec. There was a special tank for the water used to make it 'tho. The water was specially treated to remove uranium, present in parts per Billion, as the decaying radioactive Uranium would streak the emulsion.

 

They also had custom feeds made for the cattle that sacrificed their connective tissue for the gelatin. This was needed to make sure the gelatin was to specification. Or so I recall from a Kodak ad in Scientific America of the early 60s.

 

Sic transit Gloria Mundi!

[conrad_hoffman]

So the answer to the question would be sorta like "What color was George Washington's white horse?"

[paul_e._cassidy]

Frank an interesting factoid is that unlike today's modern lens users who run away from a cleaning mark. . . so the myth goes, when bubbles formed in the lens glass it was seen as a sign of purity obtained from reaching the high heat needed for the glass to boil bubbles! Photographers of the era saw this as premium instead of defective. My 12" Commercial Ektar must be really pure optical glass for there are bubbles in the front and rear elements! If it effects my image I can't see it.

 

Enjoy,

Paul

[frank_a._bridges]

Thank you for the info. I own Kingslakes book, but I just assumed the actual production was farmed out to B & L .

[john_shriver]

At the Kodak Hawkeye Lens Works in Rochester, NY. I was lucky enough to take a tour there in August 1975. Saw lens grinding machines at work. Discussions about glass making. They showed us the platinum crucibles used to melt the really exotic glasses that would be contaminated by a ceramic crucible. (They kept them locked them up in a safe.) A very nicely done tour, and not dumbed down, it was certainly the least popular of the tours that Kodak offered at the time. Souveneir was a cast condenser lens for a Carousel projector. (The marginal note I wrote on the slide below is "Great tour!")

 

I also took a tour of the Kodachrome processing line at Kodak Park. Didn't see anything, of course, the lights were out.<div></div>

[david_m]

Even back then LOTS of Kodak products were made overseas. The Retina/Retinette cameras were made in Germany. The Kodak Instamatic 500 was made in Germany. Kodak film and cameras in the UK were made in the UK not in the USA. A Kodak camera from early 80's (VR35) with Ektar lens was made in Japan. Kodak USA made lenses were great but the same could not be said for the cameras and shutters which were mostly junk.

[jtk]

Kodak made lenses for the Hassleblad 1000 in Rochester. The Swedes wanted the best.

 

Commercial Ektars in good condition are better than Schneider Symmars (Schneider lagged until they introduced Symmar S)... not to mention Caltars.

[michael_briggs2]

The question was about Commercial Ektars, which were last made in the 1960s.

 

Kodak made cameras at all price levels. Of course the ones that sold the most were designed to a low price.

[dave_s]

>>Commercial Ektars in good condition are better than Schneider Symmars

 

John, is there any evidence for this, or is it a personal impression?

[pmarcus]

I believe that Ilex made some of the later lenses in the Commercial Ektar line. Lynn Jones would know.

[jtk]

Dave, In my experience in San Francisco in the seventies (friendships with a dozen top studio commercial photogs...and my own careful decision to use Nikon lenses) Symmars were spoken of as soft, actively avoided in favor of just about everything else: Commercial Ektars (especially for 8X10), Nikon, Fuji, Rodenstock were all popular. I think Schneider was distrusted until the Symmar S.

 

Symmars were popular with the Ansel groupies for price and convertability. Good inexpensive lenses, if you think of them as several lenses.

[dave_s]

Maybe I'm an Ansel groupie-- I have a couple of 1960s Symmars, never really wanted to upgrade to anything more modern in those focal lengths.

 

Your experience is interesting-- I would have thought the performance of a Commercial Ektar would be pretty much indistinguishable from the Symmar, at least at the preferential apertures for a plasmat. I would have guessed the Commercial Ektar would beat the Symmar at f/8, but the Symmar would beat the Ektar on angular coverage. Thanks for the information.

[kelly_flanigan1]

SYMMAR; is an old Schneider trademark; going back to 1914; 91 years. The trademark was used for more that one type of optical design. The trademark is for a roughly symmetrical lens; often better for closeups than infinity. The Ektar name is for kodak premium lenses; and overs many different lens designs. A Symmar versus Ektar debate is like a Ford versus GM debate; with no year or model mentioned; and can have many answers.

[dave_s]

Kelly, the comparison was specifically between convertible Symmars (i.e. before the Symmar-S), and Commercial Ektars. I think the Commercial Ektars all had similar (Heliar-type) design, didn't they? I could be wrong.

[kelly_flanigan1]

Hello dave; the third edition of "kodak lenses" c 1948 shows "kodak commerical ektar lenses" as a classical Tessar design; on page 57; with a 8.5; 10; 12; and 14 inch all F6.3 lenses. It says when used wide open; the image on the ground glass should not be larger than 1/3 the subject size. it says at smaller aperatures; you can go 1 to 1. The older 1940 book calls the same looking 14" F6.3 Ektar; just an Ektar; there are no Commerical ektars mentioned in the 1940 book.

[dave_s]

This is very cool-- I thought they were all five-element Heliar-types. I'm surprised that a tessar design would outperform a Symmar-- in the corners, anyway. And of course the angle of coverage wouldn't compare with a Symmar.

[Aoresteen]

John Kelly,

 

Just a minor point on the Ektars: The Ektars were made for the Hasselblad 1600F. When the 1000F came out, Hasselblad switched to Zeiss optics. Of course, some left over stocks of Ektars were sold with 1000F bodies while Zeiss ramped up production.

 

In the mid 70's I used a 1955 1000F with a 1949 80mm f/2.8 Ektar. Terrific lens!

 

On my 6x9 Cambo 23SF I use a 5 element Heliar type 105mm f/3.7 Ektar lens that is outstanding.

[jtk]

Note that I described my impression of the decisions and attitudes of a bunch of successful studio photographers in a hot photography market about the time the Symmar S appeared. I think I accurately summarized their lens decisions.

 

For perspective on lens prices, my modest $450-650 day minimum (one demanding shot or maybe a dozen simple catalog shots) was low end, the heavy guys got $2000-3000...happily I got two or three days every week cc 1980, when new lenses only cost $400 and studio space cost $1200-3000. We could afford almost any lens we wanted, so a student-identified lens like Symmar or, later, Caltar wasn't often chosen. Talking here about new lenses, not antiques...with the exception of Commercial Ektars and various Goertz lenses.

 

Commercial Ektars had cachet, beyond their performance. Same with Goertz lenses generally, even uncoated ones. Speed wasn't much of a concern because everybody used multiple-300W lamp heads on 2000WS or more, and we shot lots of Polaroid.

 

Some used special f9 lenses occasionally, to impress nerdy art directors :-) For the same sort of reason one guy kept a series of battered Porsche Speedsters (periodically wrecked and rebuilt) in the entry of his studio and another kept a couple of Vincent Black Shadows. One guy had a 20' square Koi pond in the basement of his studio, next to his darkrooms.

 

As you know, the normal lens for tabletop and other studio work is longer than "normal." For example, 210mm on 4X5 would be relatively short for most food work. Coverage isn't much of a question with extreme movements when you use long lenses.

[mark_sampson]

All the Kodak Ektar lenses were made by Kodak, in the Hawkeye plant shown above. They quit making lenses for large format around 1965, at least I've never seen a newer one. That was at the low ebb of large-format photography, and I'm sure sales were few. Ilex made many of the shutters used with these lenses, but that's all. The later Ilex-Caltars were introduced to fill the market niche abandoned by Kodak, and were made into the mid-70's. As far as Ektars vs. convertible Symmars, I'll leave that to the testers. I've made plenty of sharp photos with both types of lenses.

[jtk]

Ektars and Commercial Ektars are different beasts. In general the Commercial Ektars are a lot sharper than press-type Ektars.

 

Similarly, Wide Field Ektars were better IMO than Angulons (not speaking of Super Angulons).

 

Symmars from the 60s-70s were fine, adequate for art photography, but other lenses of that era were distinctly better for demanding studio applications.

 

Schneiders have rarely been at the apex of lens performance but they've always been useful. Some have been very good, Symmar S among them, and of course Super Angulons. I have a humble 150 Xenar that's plenty good for its rocks-and-trees purpose...a fast press-camera lens, perfect for my 2X3 Century between its fast 85 and fast 250.