Antique Lenses: Buying Advice?

[sper]

I've seen some really great images made with old brass lenses, and I'm thinking

about purchasing one. Can anyone give me some advice on making this kind of

purchase, what to look for, lens recommendations etc....

 

I shoot 8x10 out of a Deardorff. I'm looking for something in the 300-360mm,

"normal" range.

 

(Also, I'll admit I'm partially attracted to how cool it would be to own a 19th

century lens with waterhouse stops. The brass is so pretty...)

[colin carron]

Here is a shot with a nice old Ross Extra Rapid portrait lens from the 1880's. It is a Rapid Recilinear in design, with two symetrical achromatic doublets. This gives a nice sharp central area with a slight blur increasing towards the edge of the image. All Rapid rectilinears have the same chacateristics and make good portrait lenses. They are usually f8 but the have pushed the boat out on this one to f5.6. Standard iris on this example.

 

http://www.photo.net/photo/2914062

[larry h-l]

Jim Galli has some fine examples on his site: http://tonopahpictures.0catch.com

 

He is a regular contributor over on the apug.org site. Nice folks there.

[frankz]

This won't really be a response to your question, but it's close.

 

The old lenses are something I want to explore, but there are so many lenses, so little money (God alone knows what it would cost to sample a bunch of these old brass things), and certainly not enough time.

 

I've purchased a couple of books on photo-optics design (both old and new). Many of these lenses are available through Edmund Scientific and could be mounted in a barrel of aluminum (or brass), a plate for mounting threaded and made, then mounted to the nearest available LF camera. I'm in a position to do this as I've been a diemaker/moldmaker as a trade for 35+ years (basically, my own personal S. K. Grimes).

 

Should be able to manage a few simple configurations that will simulate the old-timey focus on a pinhead but nothing else type of LF photos with this. Edmund also sells apertures of various sizes that could be incorporated into the design or the waterhouse variety could be simply made. The old guys (Brady, et al) no doubt had to do much improvisation and this probably contributed as much to the desired quality as did the lack of computer designed glass.

 

Let the experimentation begin!