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Wray High Resolution Lustrar f5.6 7 inch
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 7:15 pm    Post subject: Wray High Resolution Lustrar f5.6 7 inch Reply with quote
I picked this up for a pittance in barrel mount and judging by the orientation of the aperture scale text, it was sold as an enlarging or copy lens; however, there is zero optical difference to the ones sold for use on camera. It's in superb condition, glass is excellent and the coatings are undamaged. Smile



The Lens Vade Mecum gives quite a bit of detail on this lens: (I have highlighted the section specific to this lens)

Quote:
High Resolution Lustrar

These were intended to be a Q15 lens of very high sharpness due to the use of a limited maximum aperture.

They seem to have been offered in 3 series but without the Series always being marked on the product, as
follows:
Series 1 This has not been seen but may be an f8.0 lens, but without coating.
Series 11 f8.0 max. These were sold up to about 1959. The launch seems to be in B.J.A. 1951, p215 as an 200mm lens at £27.00, and they were a really sharp lens with high colour correction: but Series 11 is not mentioned there, and in B.J.A.1954, p212 the series II is 'recomputed', and has a particularly high stability with change in conjugates, ie it works well over a wide range of magnifications from camera work to enlarging, the example noted being a 8in lens for 1/2plate. There is no criticism of the sharpness of the original, rather
the suggestion is that it was maintained and extended over a wider range. They seem to be externally hard coated and a 8in lens has been seen at No 197,95x, with '8inH.R.' filled in red paint.They are Q15 or as in Layout 010. Typically these have been heavily used and are often not in good order now. In use, they seem dark to focus.
Series 111 f5.6/f8.0 These were made in 3.25, 6.0, 7.0, 8.0, 12in at least, and replaced the f8 series. This type was suitable for a wide range of magnifications, and it was suggested to use 7.0in for 5x4in at infinity. (B.J.A. 1959, p264), 8in (by 1960), 10in (B.J.A. 1960, 256) and the 12in was noted later in B.J.A. 1963, p149. The increased aperture makes for easier focusing and composing, but the best quality of the lens is still at smaller apertures, and f8.0 or less is to be used for exposure. Careful colour correction was a good
feature. This was then a very high quality lens if used properly, especially in the studio, though some users said the contrast was not up to the best international standards. It was good value and an excellent performer, especially at the price eg. £42.50 in 1960 for the 10in f5.6, and evidently sold well. Today, it can also be used for copying and as an enlarger lens. They have been noted as 6in lenses in barrel mounts at No346,37x (twice!), 7in at No335,27x; 354,70x, and 10in at No274,21x: and a later one is in a Compur at No296,36x, with red fill to the '8in H.R'. which is absent at No347,73x and on the 6in lenses. It was also noted at Nos 356,16x,
354,70x, 354,69x. They can still be a useful purchase for use on large format cameras if in good order. Sadly the coating internally seems to be fairly soft and is easily marked in cleaning. They are not marked Series 111 although they could really qualify as this. One was noted on an ex-Police Berthillon Gandolfi camera No3/70, as a H.R.Lustrar f5.6/7in No335,27x: and at 323,67x and 337,76x on other Gandolfi cameras.


I mounted the lens on a set of bellows on my NEX-3 and shot it at both f5.6 and f8. I found that it performs precisely as the LVM describes - very high sharpness, good colour correction but slightly lower contrast than the best. This quality is apparent at f8, at f5.6, the corrections are less good and spherical aberration and coma are evident with reduced contrast. I bought this lens to use on 2x3 and 4x5 film cameras so I am delighted with my purchase and it is an excellent performer and a useful purchase as stated in the LVM.

BTW a 'Q15 type' is a 4 elements in 3 groups with a cemented rear doublet, a tessar basically.

Here are two series of four images, first at f5.6, second at f8, no PP just RAW-JPG with resize for web.

f5.6



f8



f5.6



f8
[url=http://forum.mflenses.com/userpix/20134/big_4077_DSC07957WEB_1.jpg]
[/url]


f5.6


f8:


f5.6


f8:


PostPosted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 9:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Ian, my brother, I am going to not succumb to the usual cheap praise this board is famous for (which includes the overuse of the word "stunning"), and tell you my honest opinion. On my freshly calibrated IPS monitor, the technical performance of this lens, to my eyes, looks absolutely terrible. It could be they are not fully processed (and all raw to jpeg without any processing looks terrible to me).


PostPosted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 9:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Thank you very much for sharing!
Yup, contrast and colors are looking pretty bad imho. Resolution and CA-control are not bad at all but overall the rendering looks soft on the NEX especially @F5.6 . Rendering reminds me of some longer tele- and tele-mirror lenses I had.
This seems to be not a lens very suitable for digital work (Haze filter, F8-F11 and PP would improve it a lot though)

I've read something about this kind of lenses in the large format forum a long time ago and always wondered how these "comparable high resolution but very low contrast" lenses are performing without the typical darkroom-jugglery to improve it. Thanks to you now I an idea about it.

This lens should be capable of making very sharp pics on contrasty large format B&W film above F8.
It might have a very interesting character, especially for potraits/skin tones, as spherical abberations and coma might clean fine skin-inpurities very well and might add some interesting corners/vignetting.

Will you give it a try on your 4x5, Ian?

Last edited by ForenSeil on Wed Apr 24, 2013 10:29 pm; edited 1 time in total


PostPosted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 10:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Well, folks, I don't think I ever used words "stunning lens" on this board. Unsurprisingly, I won't do it this time as well. However, if you manage to look past low contrast, which is the first thing you see, the lens presents quite a decent image: no CA, no distortion, the detail is there. One press on the autolevels button and this will look much more conventional... Better yet, replace cars, wires and antennas, with boudoirs and beautiful women, and I can hear claps and the word "stunning" thrown around.

For example, this is how first Ian's picture looks after 1 minute in lightroom.


PostPosted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 10:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I always appreciate honesty guys, so it's all good, does no-one any good to just offer platitudes out of courtesy. Smile

I bought this to try on 4x5, and I'll only be shooting BW with it I suppose. Light always plays a factor and it was about 6.30pm I took these shots so bear that in mind. With BW printing, you'd just use a harder grade of paper or a stronger contrast filter if using MC paper, contrast really isn't much of a problem with BW, I would prefer too little than too much as too little is easy to correct, too much isn't.

Like a lot of older LF lenses, the maximum aperture is just for focussing and composition, you'd never want to shoot it wide open and as you can see, this lens isn't very highly corrected wide open.

The image circle of this lens is around 180mm (covers 4x5 with movements) and as we're only using the middle bit on the NEX, there's a lot of extra light being bounced around and that's bound to hurt contrast.

I think the resolution is very good, here's some 100% crops with other lenses of the same subject to compare:

Wray Lustrar @ f8:



Hofmeister Jena Sirconar Doppel-Anastigmat 6.3/13.5cm (uncoated dialyte) @ 6.3:



Tominon 4.5/135 from Polaroid MP-4 (tessar optimised for 1:1) @ f8:



Kodak Anastigmat 4.5/124 (tessar from 116 folder) @ f8:



PostPosted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 10:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I applied some sharpening and boosted contrast:




PostPosted: Thu Apr 25, 2013 12:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
iangreenhalgh1 wrote:
I applied some sharpening and boosted contrast:




Ok, with processing done to several of these shots, I now find the lens looking decent. Thanks for processing the images.
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