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Explore the world of vintage lenses through repair notes, real test shots, and detailed archive threads packed with images.

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Zeiss Protar V 112/18 in Sydney
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Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 5:31 pm
Post subject: Zeiss Protar V 112/18 in Sydney
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Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 5:31 pm
Post subject: Zeiss Protar V 112/18 in Sydney
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Hi all,

Just an old picture, scanned from a print made at the time.

Lens: Carl Zeiss Jena, Protar Series V No.2, 112/18 at f/36, No.15 filter.
Camera: Bender 4X5 Monorail with unpleated wide-angle bellows.
Film: APX100 processed in Rodinal 1:25, Jobo rotary processing.

The camera was placed at about waist height, first applied front rise to get height of pylon, then applied front swing to get length of Sydney Harbor Bridge in focus; this combined movements really taxed the covering power of the lens, and the top of the pylon is just starting to break-up.

Printed on Agfa Multicontrast Classic, glossy finish, scanned on a very old Relysis Infinity flatbed scanner.




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Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 9:13 pm
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Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 9:13 pm
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Very nice!!


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Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 2:49 am
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Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 2:49 am
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Very nice, indeed, Seele! Is the Protar a Tessar-type lens?


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Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 3:31 am
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Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 3:31 am
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Thanks Klaus and Katastrofo!

The Protar is the original true anastigmat, sold under the same name by Zeiss, and then Zeiss adopted the trade name Protar.

First made in 1890 it was in three series: Series III, IV and V with maximum apertures f/7.2, f/12.5 and f/18 respectively. A year later, Series I, II and IIIa appeared with respective maximum apertures of f/4.5, f/6.3 and f/9, and in 1893 came Series IIa at f/8.

These Protar lenses are markedly asymmetrical consisted of two cemented groups around the diaphragm. The four-element, all air-spaced asymmetrical Unar came after that, and the Tessar of 1902 is a combination of the front half of the Unar and the rear half of the Protar.

Hope this is of some interest.


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Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 3:51 am
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Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 3:51 am
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Thanks, Seele, I find it very interesting how different lenses evolved.


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Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 10:23 am
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Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 10:23 am
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That's a monumental photo... I feel sad about the effects digital has on the true amazing detail-within-detail you can get from large format photographs. But then, the image is disseminated more widely, and at least we get to see it.

Do you still do 4x5?


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Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 2:39 pm
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Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 2:39 pm
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Nesster wrote:
That's a monumental photo... I feel sad about the effects digital has on the true amazing detail-within-detail you can get from large format photographs. But then, the image is disseminated more widely, and at least we get to see it.

Do you still do 4x5?


Thanks Nesster for your kind words.

I still do 4"X5" abeit less regularly, and even less colour; I do have a colour version of the same picture, replicated on another occasion and that looked agreeable too; I moved the camera a bit to exclude the street lamp on the right, and I still do not know the picture benefitted from it. After all I do have a bit of an arsenal of large format lenses including some odd - and rare ones such as the Ross Concentric which can be quite challenging and yet rewarding to use.

Funny you should mention digital here: for the last few days I have been re-cataloging my old colour transparencies, including a travel story I did in 1996 for a magazine; nothing special, just 35mm Fuji Sensia (which I actually preferred to Provia). If I took the pictures on the most advanced digital camera available at the time, and assuming the image files are still accessible, they will not even be saleable today due to the comparatively low inherent image quality. But if I wish I can sell these pictures again in digital format, just scan them with an up-to-date scanner, and I can do it yet again ten, twenty or thirty years down the line too. Perhaps, in a few years' time, the pictures taken with the EOS 5D II (or whatever high-end digital camera) would be deem unusable. Who knows.


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Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 2:50 pm
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Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 2:50 pm
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Twisted Evil The obvious solution: someone ought to make a film 'contact printer' for digital files, using at least 120 roll film, or 4x5 sheets. A reverse drum scanner! This way current photographs will be usable in the future.

Otherwise - I see that periodically over the years, one will have to re-copy thousands of digital images into whatever the new/current algorithm and storage devices are.


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Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 4:02 pm
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Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 4:02 pm
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Nesster wrote:
Twisted Evil The obvious solution: someone ought to make a film 'contact printer' for digital files, using at least 120 roll film, or 4x5 sheets. A reverse drum scanner! This way current photographs will be usable in the future.

Otherwise - I see that periodically over the years, one will have to re-copy thousands of digital images into whatever the new/current algorithm and storage devices are.


Nesster,

Such a device, known as "film recorder", was extensively used in the early days of digital photography, where film images were scanned, put on the computer for manipulation, and then put back on film. In that sense, the digital phase was for image manipulation only.

However, say a 2-megapixel image can be put on film and then the film is processed to make a transparency. You can certain scan that transparency to produce a huge file, equivalent to say 20-megapixel but the original raw data would still not be there despite the film image and the greater resolution of the final digital image.

But the copying of files, be it text or images to newer storage data is pretty much a matter of course for any computer user. Apart from the obvious need to make sure that the data remains intact, it is also necessary to ensure that the data will remain accessible: you do not want to get an alert saying "this file was created with an early version of ___ (insert software name) and cannot be opened".
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