Voigtländer Braunschweig Heliar 1:3.5 F= 21

jrydberg · Jul 2, 2009

Anyone got any opinions of or experience with this lens?

There's one for sale here in Sweden, with serial no 1113454.

My google fu doesn't give me any information about the 210mm (the 240/4.5 seems a lot more common).

Can I put it in a shutter?

jimgalli · Jul 2, 2009

A 3.5 Heliar is rare indeed. Should be a splendid lens for photographing people with 4X5. It's for portraits. The other Heliars shared barrel length and size with some of the Schneider lenses. I don't know if that was just a happy coincidence but my 210 4.5 Helair would fit into a Compound 3 shutter that the elements of a 210 4.5 Xenar just came out of. If that carried over you might get lucky and the 3.5 would go right into a Compound 4 that a 240 Xenar once lived in. It's a crap shoot, but maybe. (crap shoot is US slang for gamble or game of chance)

JLP · Jul 2, 2009

Grab it if you can, it is an awesome lens. I have number 1113430 monted in a #4 Compound. Looks like they could have been made the same day. Voigtlander made a small run of these and i believe the serial number dates it to 1935
Don't know if it is a direct fit into the #4 but it can be made to fit.
The lens has the famous Voigtlander treat, sharp but with a fine smooth softnes in the out of focus areas and if you shoot it wide open there will be lot's of OOF.

edtbjon · Jul 2, 2009

Some info about Heliars is here: Dead Link Removed. Then we'll see in a weeks time if there's only me and mr Rydberg interested. (It's holiday season here in Sweden and very hot and sunny at the moment...)

//Björn

jrydberg · Jul 3, 2009

Thanks for the information.

My plan was to use it on my 8x10, as a wide angle, but maybe its too soft in the corners for that. Maybe its better to use it as you said as a portrait lens, with a 4x5 back.

Björn, yes we'll see who comes up lucky next week. My problem is that my vacation starts today

jrydberg · Jul 3, 2009

BTW, JLP would you say that the image circle would cover 8x10 with adjustments?

edtbjon · Jul 3, 2009

That is not a WA lens, so don't think about 8x10". It covers about 50deg or so (as compared to a Plasmat, e.g. Symmar, which covers 70deg). The seller who states 24x30cm (that's 10x12" for you non-metric folks ), don't know what he's talking about. He's probably looking at some prints made from negs shot possibly with the lens in question.
Also, the lens covers much less when shot wide-open and the magic of Heliars is shooting them wide-open. At f/22 they are just sharp (i.e. just about as sharp as any other good lens).

//Björn

phfitz · Jul 3, 2009

The Voigtlander catalog lists this for 13 x 18cm and it was fitted to a Compound IV R10 -1 shutter.

Have fun with it.

JLP · Jul 3, 2009

As Bjorn stated, it is not a wide angle lens and it will not cover 8x10 It works well on 5x7
I believe i read some where that coverage is a bit better on the 3.5 version than the 4.5 but don't know if this is accurate information.

Ole · Jul 3, 2009

The circle of illumination is a lot larger than the circle of coverage, and at very small stops a 210 heliar should almost cover 8x10". I've used a 150mm Heliar f:4.5 on 5x7" - but then again, I've also used a 90mm Angulon on 5x7"...

jimgalli · Jul 3, 2009

I always felt 5X7 was a stretch for these.

edtbjon · Jul 9, 2009

Well, I got this lens. Now I'm about to do some testing.

(... and I got a similar vintage f/4.5 to compare it with.)

//Björn

Voigtländer Braunschweig Heliar 1:3.5 F= 21

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