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Rathenower Optische Werke Visionar 1.9/168
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PostPosted: Thu May 19, 2011 1:47 am    Post subject: Rathenower Optische Werke Visionar 1.9/168 Reply with quote
Hi folks

Same seller I bought the Rectimascope anamorphic adapter from also had had a matching Rathenower Optische Werke Visionar 1.9/168 projection lens for sale too so i grabbed that for the grand sum of 1.50euros!

It's a huge thing, full of dirt and fungus, gave it a good clean and need to get some cold cream tomorrow to clear up the fungus which luckily seems to be just on the rear and front elements.

Seems to have a pale gold coating on front and back elements at least, some of the inner elements seem to have pale purple coatings.

I can't find any info about this lens, other than it is a movie projection lens (35mm or 70mm though?) and my example has the 1Q mark for top quality East German product.

So what I'm wondering is can this lens be adapted for use as a camera lens?

Has anyone adapted a movie projection lens like this before?


PostPosted: Thu May 19, 2011 4:11 am    Post subject: Re: Rathenower Optische Werke Visionar 1.9/168 Reply with quote
iangreenhalgh1 wrote:
Has anyone adapted a movie projection lens like this before?

What a beast! I haven't tried anything that large, but I *have* mounted smaller projection lenses for dSLR and FF SLR use. It's base must be around 95mm diameter, eh? Fitting that to a bellows or helicoid or similar mount will not be easy, not impossible either. Maybe with pipe fittings...

But because you'll significantly narrow the light path, the lens will no longer be f/1.9 -- probably closer to f/4.5. To avoid that, you'd have to mount it on a 4x5in or larger LF camera with a custom lensboard. Are any shutters large enough for that? Or use printing paper instead of film, and a black cloth over the lens, something antique like that. Good luck!


PostPosted: Thu May 19, 2011 4:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Yes, it is huge, the barrel diameter is, as you say, around 92mm, no external thread.

No idea how I am going to go about trying to mount this thing to try it on my EOS, some serious metalwork required methinks.

As I paid 1.50 for it, no great loss if I destroy it in the process...

I have managed to successfully adapt a much larger and heavier Docter Optics zoom lens from a Gretag printing machine, however, it seems to only have a razor thin DOF and only produce a sharp image a couple of cm from the front of the lens. I still have hopes of utilising it for some extreme macro work at some point...

Anyone have any idea what the distance is between the rear of a 35mm movie projection lens and the film plane is?

The rear element of this lens is set back a good 5cm inside the rear barrel so if necessary I can shorten the lens to obtain infinity focus, it would help to know how far the rear element needed to be from the sensor before I start cutting it up, however!
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