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Hansa Anastigmat Enlarging Lens 75 mm f/4.5 - manufacturer?
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 30, 2022 11:17 pm    Post subject: Hansa Anastigmat Enlarging Lens 75 mm f/4.5 - manufacturer? Reply with quote
According to some information I found so far "Hansa" was a trademark of Omiya Photo Supply, a Tokyo based distributor of photographic equipment which probably got most famous for being a part of the "Hansa Canon", one of the first cameras by the company Seiki-Kōgaku, which would go on to call itself Canon later on.

Omiya Photo Supply also distributed a number of enlargers under the "Hansa" label and subsequently a variety of different enlarging lenses seem to have used that name as well for a long time. Many of the newer variants of these "Hansa" lenses look like they fall under the "same lens under various labels" category, I recently found one of these that seems significantly older. While Omiya Photo Supply ceased to exist more than a decade ago, the "Hansa" name is still around, used by a company that split from the remains (if I got that right) and produces/distributes photographic accessories. I've reached out to that company for answers, but I don't have high hopes of receiving any significant information honestly...

The lens is labeled "Hansa Anastigmat Enlarging Lens 1:4.5 F=75mm" and it looks like this:





As far as I can tell it is uncoated and I'm pretty sure it's a Tessar design. My rough estimate would be that it may be from the 1950s or even a bit earlier, but I'll gladly admit I don't know a lot about that stuff. It's not labeled "Made in Japan", but I guess it's likely that it was.

So I was just wondering... does anyone here know about some old "Hansa" enlargers and lenses and have an idea who the manufacturer could be?

I've only tried the lens for a little bit so far and of course it's not spectacular in any way, but given its age, it really did surprise me in a positive way and I enjoy its rendering.

Bright here, bright now! by simple.joy, on Flickr


Anticipation of precipitation by simple.joy, on Flickr

Grow, little one, grow! by simple.joy, on Flickr

Can't screw over shadows by simple.joy, on Flickr


PostPosted: Sat Jul 30, 2022 11:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
This review might be of interest for you. I used a later f3.5 version of Hansa enlarger lens.


PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2022 6:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
alex ph wrote:
This review might be of interest for you. I used a later f3.5 version of Hansa enlarger lens.


Thanks a lot - very interesting indeed! Do you remember where you read the rumor about Canon being the manufacturer? It‘s not impossible I guess, but given that Canon only ever produced one single enlarging lens it would be very unusual for them to make various for other manufacturers, don‘t you think?

Nikon seems to be a possibility, because they made the lens for the "Hansa Canon" camera, but it‘s hard to tell because I don‘t have any of the later Hansa enlarging lenses myself.


PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2022 9:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
I could difficultly find the precise reference I saw back then. There is a bunch of forum discussions over the years where Hansa is fuzzily related to Canon, for example here, with further speculations regarding the origin.

An article in camera-wiki gives more details about Omiya you mention, without precising if they were producing accessories themselves or were just a distributor. Meanwhile you can easily find MF DSLR lenses, from wide 28mm and tele 105mm up to mirror 500mm ones marked Hansa (where the Hansa mark looks like a pure distributor trick), as well as earlier wooden shutters and enlargers (which may look a bit more more like original production).

In some possible universe I can imagine a Canon division selling high quality and not too expensive stuff under a different brand name, thus expanding their market presence to equipment with different mounts. But the variety of items marked Hansa give a better idea of a distributor who commands to many different suppliers.

What is certain, Hansa enlarger lenses, both 50mm and 75mm, are good quality ones and are well usable for various digital scenarios.


PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2022 5:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
alex ph wrote:
I could difficultly find the precise reference I saw back then. There is a bunch of forum discussions over the years where Hansa is fuzzily related to Canon, for example here, with further speculations regarding the origin.

An article in camera-wiki gives more details about Omiya you mention, without precising if they were producing accessories themselves or were just a distributor. Meanwhile you can easily find MF DSLR lenses, from wide 28mm and tele 105mm up to mirror 500mm ones marked Hansa (where the Hansa mark looks like a pure distributor trick), as well as earlier wooden shutters and enlargers (which may look a bit more more like original production).

In some possible universe I can imagine a Canon division selling high quality and not too expensive stuff under a different brand name, thus expanding their market presence to equipment with different mounts. But the variety of items marked Hansa give a better idea of a distributor who commands to many different suppliers.

What is certain, Hansa enlarger lenses, both 50mm and 75mm, are good quality ones and are well usable for various digital scenarios.


Thanks a lot - that's all very fascinating, particularly that it doesn't even seem clear if all Hansa lenses were by the same distributor... I guess that's the downside, when there's such an obsession with german-sounding brand names.

Good to hear that even the later models hold up as well. While I don't have any of the lenses labeled that way I own two lenses that look somewhat similar... a "Computar 50 mm f/3.5" and a "Saunders EL 75 mm f/3.5", both likely triplets and made in Japan. Perhaps Kowa is also a possible producer of those, given the connection to the Computar brand.


PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2022 10:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Please share your further findings on the origin of these various enlarger brands. That could be interesting to trace them down to original producer.


PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2022 11:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
alex ph wrote:
Please share your further findings on the origin of these various enlarger brands. That could be interesting to trace them down to original producer.


Yes of course! I'll gladly do that if I can manage to find anything substantial.

16:9 wrote:
...


You may have already looked a lot more into these "Prinz/Soligor/Computar etc." 50 mm and 75 mm lenses and probably know much more about it. Have you been able to find any hint on the manufacturer of these lenses? That might help a lot in finding out who made the newer "Hansa" ELs.


PostPosted: Mon Aug 01, 2022 9:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Hansa rebranded lenses of this type, distributed in the US by P.R.O, (note lettering and packaging details) can be dated positively to at least 1976 - likely earlier.
https://deltalenses.com/index.php/product/hansa-105-4-5/

My understanding is that the only connection between Canon and Hansa derives from Omiya Photo Supply Co using 'Hansa' as a house brand for products they commissioned for resale - for instance, in the 1930s, the Tokyo-based distributor labeled Canon cameras 'Canon Hansa' but I'm not aware of any evidence that Canon made lenses for Hansa to re-sell in the 1950s and later periods.

The similarity of these later models to generic Japanese enlarger lenses points away from Canon, too - who haven't been suggested as the original manufacturer. I'll look into this a bit more, though, because there seem to be many unknowns.


PostPosted: Tue Aug 02, 2022 7:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
16:9 wrote:
Hansa rebranded lenses of this type, distributed in the US by P.R.O, (note lettering and packaging details) can be dated positively to at least 1976 - likely earlier.
https://deltalenses.com/index.php/product/hansa-105-4-5/

My understanding is that the only connection between Canon and Hansa derives from Omiya Photo Supply Co using 'Hansa' as a house brand for products they commissioned for resale - for instance, in the 1930s, the Tokyo-based distributor labeled Canon cameras 'Canon Hansa' but I'm not aware of any evidence that Canon made lenses for Hansa to re-sell in the 1950s and later periods.

The similarity of these later models to generic Japanese enlarger lenses points away from Canon, too - who haven't been suggested as the original manufacturer. I'll look into this a bit more, though, because there seem to be many unknowns.


Thanks a lot for your input!

The lens on this old Hansa enlarger (https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/22908839_vintage-hansa-patent-enlarger) looks kinda similar to the one I have, even though it's hard to tell without a better image... The enlarger looks very old. On the Canon history site there's also an ad, where the "Hansa Canon" and an enlarger are shown next to each other (https://global.canon/en/c-museum/history/story02.html), so it really looks like it dates back to a time, when that relationship could have been active still.



So it would be really interesting to know if Canon was involved in making this lens, or who else could have been.


PostPosted: Sun Aug 07, 2022 11:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
A small update:

I was pretty much able to confirm that this lens and the 105 mm version, were used on one of these early Hansa Patent enlargers, thanks to an actual owner of such a device. Unfortunately he didn't have any idea on the maker as well, but it was mentioned on another forum that the most likely candidate (in case this was made in Japan) would have been Nippon Kogaku (Nikon). I'm not aware of any Nikon enlarging lenses from that period (around 1936) but if you know any, please let me know, so I can compare them. Three things which instill some doubt in me in regards to that possibility:

1.) So far I haven't seen any historical Nikkor lens which looked like that
2.) It's not marked Nippon Kogaku or Nikkor, while the lens on the Hansa Canon is, as far as I know
3.) It's not marked "Made in Japan".

So another possibility is, that it was a foreign made lens. If that's the case would a German manufacturer have been the most realistic possibility, given the probably complicated political situation around 1936?
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