Apo Saphir Boyer F/10.0 300mm

[Abbazz]

Boyer is a French lens maker founded in 1895. The Établissements Boyer have produced a number of fine lenses for photography, cinematography and also for industry and the military. If you are interested in Boyer Lenses, I recommend you read the very nice writeup by Dan Fromm and Éric Beltrando about Boyer (available both in English and French).

One of the most famous lens produced by Boyer is the Apo Saphir. It's a five element in three group (Heliar formula) process lens, specially formulated for high quality repro work. As its name suggests, the lens has apochromatic correction, and comes in different focal lengths, ranging from 50mm to 2500mm. I have read (but is it really true ?) that this lens was so sharp and had so few defects that it could be used to make counterfeit money looking as good as the real thing! Therefore, the owners of an Apo Saphir had to register it before the French Customs, in order for the Customs officers to be able to track down the lenses in circulation.

I have recently acquired a 300/10 Apo Saphir to use on my 13x18 Linhof Technika. I couldn't resist trying the lens on a DSLR, just to see what it could deliver -- don't forget that lenses designed for large format coverage often have less that stellar resolution when used on high density sensors, like those found on modern DSLRs. Of course, I used my universal iris lens holder to mount the lens in front of a vintage Pentax *ist D. In fact the pictures came out rather well for a fifty years old 300mm lens used in front of an outdated 6MPix sensor (click on a picture to see it full size):















The mandatory neighbor's TV aerial is remarkably free from aberrations:



This is the lens itself :





Cheers!

Abbazz

[LucisPictor]

I guess it's pretty amazing to see that lens on large format!

[Gerris2]

Beautiful results from this old lens! It is remarkable you can fit the large plate into the iris of your universal iris lens holder.

[ManualFocus-G]

What a fantastic job! Photos look nice and crisp...I miss France

[Abbazz]

Thanks guys!

[pich900]

Superb results with this great French lens....The lens is quite heavy so I was wondering how it can stay stable when attached to your lens holder .....Anyway, I have also this lens and I did not find yet a good solution to used it on bellows, my only samples are with the lens attached with some black tape directly on the mount of the bellows ....
here are two test/samples with mine :


this one is in full resolution and without any PP:


Quite impressive resolution from this lens .....

[Abbazz]

[danfromm]

Eric's calculations find that the Apo-Saphir is aberration free over roughly 30 degrees at f/22. At larger apertures it is very very good but not quite the best available. I've shot my 300/10 Apo Saphir (s/n 614259) against a 305/9 Apo Nikkor. They're equal from f/16 down, at larger apertures the Apo Nikkor is a bit better.

Eric and I weren't able to make as good a Boyer chronology as we wanted. My 240/10 Apo-Saphir (s/n 689511) came with a QC slip dated 10/64, so there's one good data point. Another 240 (s/n 775003) seen on eBay had a QC slip dated 12/67. Seb, yours (778364) was probably made in 1968.

IMO, Apo-Saphirs are still underappreciated and underpriced. Their biggest drawback for use on LF cameras is that few of the ones sold in barrel have cells that will go into a standard shutter.

Good snag, Seb. I'm glad to see that someone else realizes they're good for more than holding papers down.

[ManuallyYours]

Superbe ! Just amazing lens and pictures.

How do you mount this lens on your dslr ?

[Laurence]

I am blown away and msemerized by the usage you guys get out of these wonderful vintage lenses!
Abbazz, that third image (blue Grape Hyacinths?) has some wonderful bokeh.

pich900, that image of the wilting roses is simply gorgeous.

Love to see you guys doing this. Someday I hope to have the time to delve into things like this.

Best,
Larry

[patrickh]

+1


patrickh

[Abbazz]

[rbelyell]

awesome work, both of you. i'm stunned by the rose.

i have an old bakelight boyer 6x6 that ive never used--these make me want to put a roll through her!
tony

[Abbazz]

[Abbazz]

[danfromm]