Wollensak Oscillo-Anastigmat 75mm f/1.9

[blotafton]

I found a strange Fairchild Polaroid oscilloscope camera for sale online for a very low price. The lens on it turned out to be a beautiful piece of engineering. It feels well made and is heavy, 418g. And has 15 aperture blades if I counted correctly. Unlike the similar lens called Raptar this Anastigmat has a more or less flat field and normal bokeh which makes it usable for taking photos. The arm that cocks the shutter seems to be broken or turned inside the lens, which is strange. I managed to arm it by inserting a a tiny screwdriver.

I find the images it makes as beautiful as the lens itself. It has low contrast and ok sharpness all the way out to the edges. According the blog spiral-m42.blogspot.com the lens has a 6/4 design. And my test photos look similar to a scaled up 6/4 normal lens. Almost like a Pancolar.

So far I don't have an adapter and have only taken pictures at f/1.9 due to the difficulty in changing the aperture while holding lens and camera together.
But I managed to get some photos to share with you.


If you have photos or interesting information feel free post here!


#1 The text at the top says Belongs To The Swedish Radio. What could they have used it for?


#2

#3

#4


#5


#6


#7


#8


#9


#10


#11

#12


#13

[jamaeolus]

Now THAT is what I call nervous bokeh! Well done!

I saw another oscillo something 75 mm 1.9 on e-bay. What is the oscillo reference?

[blotafton]

[alex ph]

Wow, what an interesting lens, thanks for sharing!

It makes think of the early XX century photos, with thin dof and artistic plasticity of the background. What makes the difference from a more modern double Gauss, is a sensibly weaker subject isolation, especially given the longer focal distance and the speed. That makes it close in character to projection triplets. But with some distinctive plasticity.

I easily imagine a pretty series of shots taken with this lens in BW. If you don't mind, I converted one of your shots as following:

[kds315*]

[blotafton]

[luisalegria]

For taking pictures of oscilloscope crt screens, to make a record of signal traces.
These were standard accessories for analog oscillosopes since the 1930's.

Swedish Radio certainly had an electronics lab, so why not.

I had one of these Wollensaks, and several others, Kodak and Ilex, and a couple of cameras, a Fairchild with a Polaroid back and a custom-made 1950's 4x5 unit used by Los Alamos labs (nuclear weapons research).

The Wollensak couldn't quite cover 6x6 at infinity, as I tested on my Speed Graphic. These lenses are designed for very close focus of course, where they would have much greater coverage.

They had to be fast lenses due to slow films and low light.

[visualopsins]

My period in electronics began just after 'scopes acquired fast trigger circuitry which made the photo method largely obsolete. I don't remember seeing any of the cameras at the large corporation with hundreds of electronics engineers where I worked for several years.

Anastigmat means corrected for sa, coma, & astigmatism, i.e., the field is flat, not curved, like most (all?) Macro lenses.

The CA correction color balance seems biased toward green, as would be beneficial to photographing fast green traces...my guess.

[alex ph]

Blotafton, in fact a very good sharpness, thin DOF and a large space for experiments with BW processing. Take all your pleasure in that!

P.S. With blotafton's permission I played with the shot to see how it stands exposure and contrast play. Boosted both to get stonger accent on the eyes.

[blotafton]

[luisalegria]

On the matter of coverage, since this depends on how close you focus, it could be it does cover 6x6 at portrait distance.

This is an old trick in large format where coverage problems are always a big deal due to movements. The closer your subject the bigger the image circle.

Infinity focus probably is not the best use of this lens.

[benadamx]

[blotafton]

[blotafton]

New samples with spring greenery. Lovely rendering in my opinion.

#1 Flare test.



#2


#3


#4


#5


#6


#7