Bausch&Lomb Rapid Rectilinears for Kodaks

[luisalegria]

Bausch&Lomb was one of the usual lens suppliers to Kodak for forty years.

Before B&L licensed the Tessar design from Zeiss, its most common product was the Rapid Rectilinear (known elsewhere as an Aplanat), a four element-two group symmetrical lens that was and still is quite capable of excellent sharpness, but rather small aperture.

Kodak used these on a wide variety of cameras.

I have four of these. I picked them up in different lots, and I am not certain what cameras they came from.



L-R

marked 6 3/8" (162mm) f/8 in Unicum (also a Bausch&Lomb product) pneumatic shutter for a Rochester plate camera, probably one of the Premo models (the Rochester company was later absorbed by Kodak).
This is labelled "Planatograph", but it is a Rapid Rectilinear. Actual FL seems closer to 8" (203mm). This probably covered 4x5 or perhaps 5x7. Maybe from @1893-1903

Marked Bausch&Lomb Rapid Rectilinear, not marked for FL, but the lens seems to be the same as the previous, in a Kodak-branded "Automatic" pneumatic shutter but possibly Bausch&Lomb-made also. This seems to have come from a Kodak plate camera or one of the larger roll-film folding cameras, @ 1904-1914

@5.5" (135mm?) f/8 in Kodak ball-bearing (mechanical timing) shutter with provision for pneumatic release (thats that strut on the right), but the pneumatic cylinder is missing. I think its from about 1904-1914 or so, and could have been on one of several plate or larger roll-film folding cameras, perhaps the Pocket Premo (3 1/4x4 1/4 plates).

4" (100mm?) f/8 in Kodak ball bearing shutter. This tiny lens/shutter is the perfect size and shape for one of the famous Vest Pocket series (127 film); but the focal length seems rather long for that. It also couldn't have been on the strut-folding types of VP's as it would have required a different shutter release. The VP's had meniscus lenses on the usual models, and premium lenses like the Bausch&Lomb RR's on the "Special" models. Maybe it was on one of the flat-bed type VP's. The design of the Eastman Kodak logo seems to indicate its from the 1920's.

Three of these are actually marked f/4, but thats in the old "Uniform System" used in the US and UK. f/4 in that system is the same as the modern f/8

[Nesster]

Gorgeous brass!

I have one similar to your mini, it's pretty good on bellows...