Hey everyone.
I got this mounted on my Burke & James Press Camera. I was going to toss it, but it actually surprised me. Good contrast, and sharp corner to corner @ f/22 focused at about 15 feet. After some research, I'm farily confident it's a Wollensak Raptar 90mm f/6.8. It appears to be single coated. The lens cells are in pretty good shape, a couple cleaning marks hear and there (not bad), and a little hazing near the edges. Nothing that would drastically affect a photo, but perhaps a bit of loss of localized contrast. I couldn't tell from any of my shots with it, but I never opened it up past f/16.
The bad:
The Alphax shutter worked upon arrival at fast speeds, and had some rusty dust floating around in it. Looking through a guide, I decided to at least pop the front off and take a look, as it's very easy to service things. *Ping* the main spring shot off, never to be found again. It was accurate at 1/200 before this, and B and T worked. A good cleaning and replacing of the spring would bring it back up to snuff, no problem.
The lens board is a 4x4 B&J/Wisner type. Paint is pealing on the front, but it's still structurally sound. One could sand and varnish or repaint this easily to get a working lens.
I would fix it or get it fixed myself, but after playing with this and my Angulon 90mm f/6.8, I've decided that on this camera 90mm is too short to be usable (almost no movements possible with it mounted, and a recessed lens board would be a massive pain on this camera).
From negatives and contact sheets under a loupe, it's almost as sharp as the Angulon.
Thanks for looking. here are a few shots of it:
I would also be interested in a trade for a 5 pack of Tri-X, HP5, or FP4 120 film, or partial boxes of 4x5 B&W film.
I got this mounted on my Burke & James Press Camera. I was going to toss it, but it actually surprised me. Good contrast, and sharp corner to corner @ f/22 focused at about 15 feet. After some research, I'm farily confident it's a Wollensak Raptar 90mm f/6.8. It appears to be single coated. The lens cells are in pretty good shape, a couple cleaning marks hear and there (not bad), and a little hazing near the edges. Nothing that would drastically affect a photo, but perhaps a bit of loss of localized contrast. I couldn't tell from any of my shots with it, but I never opened it up past f/16.
The bad:
The Alphax shutter worked upon arrival at fast speeds, and had some rusty dust floating around in it. Looking through a guide, I decided to at least pop the front off and take a look, as it's very easy to service things. *Ping* the main spring shot off, never to be found again. It was accurate at 1/200 before this, and B and T worked. A good cleaning and replacing of the spring would bring it back up to snuff, no problem.
The lens board is a 4x4 B&J/Wisner type. Paint is pealing on the front, but it's still structurally sound. One could sand and varnish or repaint this easily to get a working lens.
I would fix it or get it fixed myself, but after playing with this and my Angulon 90mm f/6.8, I've decided that on this camera 90mm is too short to be usable (almost no movements possible with it mounted, and a recessed lens board would be a massive pain on this camera).
From negatives and contact sheets under a loupe, it's almost as sharp as the Angulon.
Thanks for looking. here are a few shots of it:
I would also be interested in a trade for a 5 pack of Tri-X, HP5, or FP4 120 film, or partial boxes of 4x5 B&W film.
