Boyer Saphir 100/4.5

[luisalegria]

My Perle is stranger than that !

Its a very tiny thing.



Its actually marked "6.5cm f/6.8 Perle Wide Angle", as I said, its in a Cronos shutter. I have mounted it on my Busch Pressman model C, on a lensboard I made to suit, and on the groundglass it seems to barely cover 6x9, it certainly vignettes with any movements.

I have seen the references to the f/9 Perle, but whatever this one is, its not that version. It does not have the same angle of coverage for certain.

The Cronos shutter is itself a bit odd to find on such a lens. Cronos was an Ernemann brand, and died out when Ernemann was brought in to the great Zeiss Ikon merger. Cronos shutters were mainly used by Ernemann for its own cameras, with some small number used by other makers. Also curiously this tiny shutter has a PC flash socket, though that was probably a much later modification.

So this lens must date from before or perhaps shortly after 1926. Now, what camera would be using a wide-angle lens for 6x9 (or 6.5x9) format around 1926? The German style miniature plate cameras (6.5x9) mainly had fixed lenses. The Voigtlander Bergheils and some others had interchangable lenses, but as far as I know these were supplied exclusively by the manufacturers and not by third parties. And I don't know of any other medium-format cameras of the time that did. By the late 1930's of course the Linhofs and mini-Speed Graphics created a small market for these, but mine seems to predate them.

[danfromm]

Luis, thanks for posting the image of your Perle.

As you pointed out, Boyer Perles are f/9 and yours is f/6.8. Boyer Perles' front elements -- the rear too, they're more-or-less symmetrical -- are nearly hemispherical. Yours is much flatter.

Do you know your Perle's design type?

I've seen Perles like yours offered, have never found out who made them. There's a 90/6.8, see www.flickr.com/photos/goyaboy/sets/72157625035723965/detail/

Re your question about interchangeable lens 6.5x9 cameras, good point but, for example, Zeiss offered short f/18 Protars and Lacour-Berthiot short f/14 Perigraphes before WW I. I have no idea which cameras these lenses were intended for, but they were made and examples are still around.

Cheers,

Dan

[luisalegria]

Thank you, that is what I understood to be the case.

This lens seems to be a double-anastigmat, 4 elements in 4 groups much like the Wollensak 90/6.8 I have, with a similar angle of coverage. I can't separate the cells however, so I am not entirely sure.

Your Flickr example seems to be a similar lens also.