Front view of Graflex(?) Bausch & Lomb
Protar 300mm-600mm lens
Photo thanks to Richard Spitzer
Home Page -
[email protected]
Long View of Graflex(?) Bausch & Lomb
Protar 300mm-600mm Zoom lens
Photo thanks to Richard Spitzer
Home Page -
[email protected]
There were only a handful of true zoom lenses (e.g., movie..) before the first zoom
lens for 35mm SLRs ("Zoomar") was introduced. Many varifocal lenses we call "zooms" do not hold
their focus when zoomed throughout their range, but require re-focusing at each setting.
Such varifocal lenses are easier to construct, but can provide a useful range of focal
lengths.
However, I usually don't think of the words "zoom lens" and "large format" at
the same time! So I thought this lens was interesting and worth archiving. As the
posters have noted, it appears to be a 12" protar series VII lens. Such lenses had both
front and rear cells which could be used separately to provide other focal lengths (e.g.,
the 18" and 24" cited in postings). Used together, you got the 12" focal length. Neat!
Now add a variable power negative lens, acting as a teleconverter with varying magnification
factors, and you have a varifocal zoom lens. As with most telephotos, it has a lot of
coverage, and that coverage increases as you get higher focal lengths (e.g., as the
teleconverter has farther to cast a larger image). Make sense? Now a 96" equiv. telephoto
lens is roughly 2,500mm, which is an extreme telephoto lens. Pretty amazing for a pre-WWI
optic on large format cameras. Again, we usually don't think of 2,500mm as a focal length
for 8x10" or larger LF cameras!
Special Thanks to
Mr. Richard Spitzer for sharing this interesting zoom lens with us...
See the above links for related medium format cameras and resources.
Bausch & Lomb Protar lens(Tele Photo?) from 11 7/8" to 23 1/4" for View(?) cameras or a large Graflex.
Well, funny thing.
I bought Richard Spitzer's "300-600mm Protar Zoom lens".
It isn't.
It is, however, a normal 12" Series VII protar (made of an 18" and 24"
lens). And a variable power negative lens in the long tube.
You get 3x to 8x.
At 3x, it is a 36" lens which covers 6x8. At 4x, it covers 8x10 as a 48"
lens. Maximum power is a 96" lens. The 96" lens focuses with my
Deardorff. If you would like more data about the whole "telephoto" lens
state of the art in 1914, I'd be happy to oblige: my Goerz and Zeiss
catalogs are pretty helpful.
Cheers,
Donald Cardwell
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998
From: Les Newcomer [email protected]
To: Robert Monaghan [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Protar Zoom Lens
Dear Bob,
Don sent the email when he was at my house. My old professor Les Strobel
split hairs between a varifocal lens and a zoom, the zoom would hold
the focus while the varifocal would not. Perhaps this would make the
zoomar the first 'zoom'
Les Newcomer.
Robert Monaghan wrote: > > Thanks for your note ;-) > > That makes more sense; I have an early 1960s book listing the original > zoomar as the first zoom, so this lens was a surprise ;-) I have seen a > brief blurb in shutterbug on using a negative lens with fixed view camera > lens to change the focal length, but not this particular use... > > I will try to add your post to this page and update the listing this > weekend ;-) > > thanks again for your comments and interest - regards bobm >
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