>Does anyone know what type of lens an Enna Werk Munchen  Ennagon is?
>I have not been able to find details in my books.  If is on a nice 6x6 folder,
>so I would expect it is a Tessar type lens.
>
>Thank you,
>
>Richard
>--------------------------------------------------------------
>Richard Urmonas
>[email protected]

From: [email protected] (Richard Knoppow)
Newsgroups: rec.photo.equipment.large-format
Subject: Re: lens names
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002


"David Smith" [email protected] wrote:
>Hi,
>I'm about to get into large format photography (4x5) by way of building my
>own camera. I have a Toyo back off a metallurgical microscope I found in a
>scrap yard. Attaching it to bellows and making the frame for the movements
>seems to be not too difficult.
>The lens is a question. I have been reading of Angulon...Super Angulon,
>Grandagon, Symmar and Sironar lenses.
>What do these lens descriptions mean?
>Thanks
>David

 Some of them refer to specific lens types, some are general
trade-names used for many different kinds of lenses. Ektar is an
example of the later as is Baltar (Bausch and Lomb + tar). The B&L
Raytar is named after Ray, its designer. (There are at least two well
known lens designers named Ray. Intersting, I have long suspected some
people's names steer them into their professional fields).

  Many lens names come from Latin or Greek roots for some quality the
lens is supposed to have, or its construction.

  Symmar for symmetrical (the original Symmar was a Dagor type).
"ar" or "tar" is a frequent ending, I can't figure out what it comes
from other than sounding melifluous. "or" is also frequently found.

  Some names are derived from the maker's name. Again Ektar is an
example, meaning Eastman-Kodak + tar. Dagor is Doppple
Anastigmat-Goerz.

 Tessar means four elements.

Protar, the orginal. The first lens of this type was the first
anastigmat using the then new Jena glasses. It was called by Zeiss the
"Anastigmat" but the name soon became generic so it was re-named
Protar. There are several variations of this lens.

 Zeiss Sonnar, bright, like the sun (a very fast lens).

 Angulon, a wide-angle lens (large angle).

 "gon" or "on" is often found as a suffix to wide-angle lens names,
gon from angle (as in Hypergon, Metrogon, Angulon, Flektogon, &etc.).

 Grandagon simply means large angle (excellent lenses BTW).

 Some makers used other kinds of names. Boyer, of France, named its
lenses after jewells, Opale, Beryl, etc.

  Some makers, like Nikon don't use individual names at all simply
marking all their lenses with a single trade-name (Nikkor).

  Some lens names have become synonomous with a generic type because
they were the first of the type or had someother outstanding quallity.
Planar (meaning flat field) was a Zeiss lens designed by Paul Rudloph,
also the inventor of the Tessar and Protar. The original Planar was a
symmetrical lens and not widely used. However, it was later made
semi-symmetrical by Horace Lee of Taylor, Taylor, and Hobson. This
design is the basis for most lenses of f/2 or faster speeds used on
35mm still cameras and a great many fast motion picture lenses.
Curiously enough the "generic" name for this type is Biotar, from a
later design by Willie Merte of Zeiss. Probably the reason is that the
Opic was a sort of stand-alone and while an excellent lens was not
widely sold.

  For more on lens history see:

_A History of the Photographic Lens_ Rudolf Kingslake, 1989, The
Academic Press ISBN 0-12-408640-3

  Probably out of print but may be available used and larger libraries
should have it.

---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA.
[email protected]


[Ed. note: a cautionary tale about how marketing types can muck things up ;-) ]
From: "roland.rashleigh-berry" [email protected]
Newsgroups: rec.photo.equipment.medium-format
Subject: Re: Voigtlander Ultron lens
Date: Sun, 1 Sep 2002


"roland.rashleigh-berry" [email protected] wrote 
> Does anyone have any information as to why Voigtlander (not
> Cosina-Voigtlander) went for the Ultron lens on its Vitessa cameras as a
> high-end lens beyond the Color-Skopar (the best Tessar clone of all the
> Tessar types ever made, IMO) rather than sticking with their Color-Heliar
> design they used on the higher-end Bessa II's (yes I know about the highest 
> end Bessa II's with the Apo-Lanthar)? They seemed to have dumped the Color
> Heliar and yet I have used a Bessa II with a Color Heliar and at the widest
> aperture the lens knocks their Color Skopar into a cocked hat. It is
> incredibly sharp with extremely high contrast. I would have thought they
> could have kept to that design. Why the Ultron? Why not stick with the Color
> Heliar?


I've been doing some reading and it seems the Heliar is not the Heliar
anyway but a Dynar renamed to the Heliar because the Heliar design was a
flop due to coma. But Voigtlander preferred the name Heliar to Dynar so they
dropped the lens but reassigned the name. But as for the original Ultron
(and I don't mean the Cosina version) then I can't find out what design it
was based on.


From zeiss interest group mailing list:
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 
From: "William B. Lurie" [email protected]
Subject: Lens nomenclature

To: Peter Wallage

I sent the following to your regular e-mail
address (I thought) and it bounced.

Peter, in my opinion, the-ar suffix is almost generic
for a wide varity of lens designs. Xenar and Radionar,
by the way, were, I believe used only by Schneider.
The camera might say Voigtl,nder or F&H/Rollei but
I believe that nobody else made a Xenar, and also that
Xenar is generically Schneider's name for a four-element
Tessar copy. Really, Kingslake's book, plus the Vademecum,
make up a sine qua non for lens history.

I'm sure that just -on does non imply anything special about
the angle. The Xenon is always high speed, not wide
angle. The Nokton is super high speed, not angle-related.
Really, Kingslake's book, in the $50 neighborhood, makes
terrifically interesting reading.

Kind regards,

            Bill Lurie



From ZICG mailing list:
Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2002 
From: "Peter Wallage" [email protected]
Subject: Re: What's in a name?

--- In ZICG@y..., charzou@a... wrote:
> I'll go look in my texts, but I seem to recall a savant explication by Zeiss
> themselves of the origins of the various names for their lenses. Tessar is
> either from the Greek root for four (as Bill suggests) or from the word that
> gives us tessalation, but I'm too tired to look it up tonight. I lean toward
> the tetra... idea.

We could drift off into a long and fascinating discussion on
etymology if we're not careful, but so long as we stay with Zeiss
lens (or camera) names I reckon we're more or less on-list.

If you can find something from Zeiss about how and why they
coined their trade names it would be very interesting.

They seemed to have leaned more towards Greek than Latin for
combining forms, and I think Bill is right when he suggests
tessares, the Greek word for four, as leading to the four-glass
Tessar, and the Greek tria or three to the three-glass Triotar.

Planar, though, suggests to me a flat plane image - from Latin
planus?  Biotar and Biogon? Possibly from the Greek bios for life
- lifelike??

Sonnar doesn't seem to come from either Greek or Latin. A
possibility might be from the German sonne for sun, inspiring in
the convoluted mind of some marketing man the idea of a wide
aperture lens transmittting a lot of light - or is that too far fetched?

Also, the endings -ar and -on are popular with most lens
makers, and it would seem that lens names ending with -on
indicate a higher grade than those ending in -ar. Anyone got any
ideas on this?

Peter


From ZICG mailing list:
Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2002 
From: "Dr.Mabuse" [email protected]
Subject: Biotar, Biogon, Biometar... AND what about Lens quality measures ?

hello friends,
my confusion of the "Trio"s lead to a very interesting thread.
Nice to follow.
BIO- in Zeiss lens names came indeed from "�ios", the greek word for
life, as I read in some old Zeiss literature.
"Tessar" came from the greek "tetra".
"Sonnar" on the other hand came from "Sonne", the German word for sun.

Bill Lurie wrote:
 > My last coherent
 > thoughts on this subject, before I go to that happy
 > photo studio in the sky,
 > are sure to be that no lens by any manufacturer,
 > given the same limitations
 > of available glasses in the era, will prove to be
 > better than the one with
 > the Carl
 > Zeiss Jena label on it.

I'm not your opinion, Bill.
Even Zeiss Jena had, after start of the 2nd World War, a lot of supply
problems e.g. for rare earth elements what lead to quality pronblems in
lens fabrication.

In VEB Zeiss Jena after 1949 the problems seem to have continued.
Some of their lenses were just pushed out.
In sharpness e.g. the Nikkor lenses came up soon after 1950 and got
better and better.

Zeiss Unterkochen had to engage much power to keep on track,
the same counts for Leica.
I think that there are today a lot of quantitative measurement methods
for brightness, contrast, centricity, transparence.

The journal COLOR-FOTO shows lens-tests of modern lenses based on these
measurements, see http://www.netedition.de/sixcms/list.php3?page_id=1593.
Of course it would be very interesting to put an old Tessar or Triotar
on such a MTF-Measurement device; but that will cost 1 - 2 working days
of the real experts.

It would be of interest do have a discussion about the definition of
lens quality.

what are your objectives ?
Jochen from Grmany


From ZICG mailing list:
Date: Sat, 26 Oct 2002 
From: "Dr.Mabuse" [email protected]
Subject: Re: Old Meyer Oreston 50/1.8 and other *-ons"

Javier Perez wrote:
 > I've always assumed the Old Meyer Oreston 50/1.8 was a
 > planar type but it could be a Tessar I guess.

In my Kadlubek reference the Oreston is noted with 6 elements - So it
should be a Planar design. An aperture of 1.8 would not be possible with
the Tessar design; the most for Tessar is 2.7 !
mostly the 50mm lenses with aperture of 2 or wider have an ending of
"-on" and a Planar design - symmetrical Gauss type of 4 blocks,
like Schneider Xenon, Leitz Summicron.

Not to confuse with the "-gons" which name wide-angle lens designs.
the only special developments I know were the Voigtlaender Septon and
Nokton with 7 elements in 5 groups and a very peculiar
Zeiss/Voigtlaender design for the Icarex called Ultron 50mm/1.8 with 6
elements in 5 groups. This one has a concave front element what is
absolutely unusual !

I'm looking for this in TM version but they are very seldom.
To induce even more confusion Zeiss/Voigtlaender marketed later on a
"Color-Ultron" for the SL-706 and VSL-1 with the same specifications but
with a Planar design of 6/4. The Planar design mayo be easier to correct
for close-up region.

the confusion is topped by Cosina which bought the company and lens
names of Voigtlaender and keeps on selling their new designed lenses on
the old names, so for them it wil no more be possible to get a hint for
the design from the lens name !

To mention the measurement of contrast and resolution:
that can be measured using a transfer-function-meter and taht is an
absolutely objective but time-consuming test.
sorry that I have no page scanner otherwise I would give you some sheets
of lens designs.

hope this helps.

Jochen from Germany.


From zicg mailing list:
Date: Sat, 26 Oct 2002 
From: "William B. Lurie" [email protected]
Subject: Tessar f2.7

Jochen said:
In my Kadlubek reference the Oreston is noted with 6 elements - So it
should be a Planar design. An aperture of 1.8 would not be possible with

the Tessar design; the most for Tessar is 2.7 !

Let me refer you all briefly to the article last Spring, in
'Fotodeal' by Bernd Otto. Well worth reading, but unfortunately
only available in German. The Tessar formulation was generally
known to be incapable of true Zeiss quality beyond f2.8, and even
at f2.8 not all that great, up until the time it was 'recomputed'
about a dozen years after WW-II. Using new glasses, it was
then made into a top quality design and, at f2.8 maximum
aperture, was put on the Contaflex later models. Otto recounts
that the designer actually produced a design for the 50mm Tessar
at f2.5, but the decision was made never to put it into production.

                Bill Lurie


From: [email protected] (Dan Fromm)
Newsgroups: rec.photo.equipment.large-format
Subject: Re: Heliar vs tessar?
Date: 3 May 2003

Stacey [email protected] wrote 
> I know what a tessar is, what exactly is a heliar. Specifically I have an
> uncoated voigtlander 30cm f4.5 heliar (used on 8X10) and am curious -what-
> it is? Also noticed looking though the corners of the GG, the tessar (also
> a 30cm f4.5) has the whole aperture visible at f8-f11 while the heliar
> doesn't show the whole aperture until f22 and only stops down to f32 vs the
> tessar's f64. Does this lens have less coverage? TIA for any info.

The Heliar formula is essentially a tessar with the singlet front
element replaced by a cemented doublet. Invented by Voigtlander, also
used in V's Apo-Lanthar lenses. Few other makers used it, other
examples include the Dallmeyer Pentac, the Kodak 100/3.5 and 105/3.7
Ektars, and the Kodak 50/4.5 and 75/4.5 Enlarging Ektars. Said to
cover a somewhat narrower angle than a tessar of the same focal
length.

I've had a 105/3.7 Ektar, which was the top-of-the-line normal lens
for 2x3 Graphics. I preferred my 101/4.5 Ektar (tessar type) to it,
thought the 101 was sharper. May have had an abused 105.

Other people have commented on the 'plasticity' of images made with
heliar types. Never saw that with mine, but then I've never been sure
what plasticity was, so it may have been there and I didn't recognize
it.

Try yours, you might like it.

Cheers,

Dan


From: [email protected] (Steve Hamley)
Newsgroups: rec.photo.equipment.large-format
Subject: Re: Heliar vs tessar?
Date: 3 May 2003

Stacey,

The Heliar reportedly has less coverage than the Tessar. Accounts vary
about the 300 covering 8x10 at infinity, but it certainly does at less
than infinity, like portrait distances. You won't have much movement
on an 8x10, but I love mine for the different look, especially in
black and white. I think the 300s were formulated for plate size like
the 300 Imagon and many older lenses. There was reportedly more than
one Heliar formulation, so maybe coverage varies. The 360 will cover
8x10 with movements, but they are more scarce and you lose a stop or
so putting it in a large #5 shutter.

BTW, rumor also has it that you can unscrew the rear element a little
and get an ersatz Universal Heliar (soften the image even more).

David Goldfarb and Jim Galli are good info sources for Heliars.

Thanks!

Steve
...


From: Stacey [email protected]
Newsgroups: rec.photo.equipment.large-format
Subject: Re: Heliar vs tessar?
Date: Sat, 03 May 2003 

ArtKramr wrote:

> Of course today the old goals of roundness have long been
> abandoned and hard sharoness is the rule.

Not for everyone. I'm starting to realize there is a lot more than
"sharpness" to what makes a great lens/image. I suppose the CZJ 180 f2.8
has shown me this more than any other lens I've used recently. Yes it's
pretty sharp but the other stuff "going on" is what makes this lens so
fantastic. The soviet 150 f2.8 is sharper but at the expence of harshness.


> But those were different times
> and a few
> designers had different goals.
>

I'm glad these goals were seen. Thanx for the info.
--
Stacey


From: [email protected] (ArtKramr)
Newsgroups: rec.photo.equipment.large-format
Date: 03 May 2003 
Subject: Re: Heliar vs tessar?

>Subject: Re: Heliar vs tessar?
>From: "dr bob" [email protected]
>Date: 5/3/03 

>I think (?) Hans Harting designed the Heliar in 1900 for Voigtlander as he
>tried to produce a symmetrical modification of the Cook Triplet. It is
>comprised of five elements in three groups. To improve the apparently poor
>performance of his original design, Hans later modified his original design
>with the cemented surfaces convex toward the stop (aperture). The front and
>rear groups are approximately symmetrical with the fifth element between
>them. A modern modification in a Leitz design conforms to Harting's
>successful design. The Seiko 105mm for the Mamiya TLR (sorry Stacey) is a
>further modification.
>
>More information on this and other lens designs can be found in: Rudolf
>Kingslake "A History of the Photographic Lens", Academic Press, Inc., San
>Diego, Ca. 1989, which is still in print. OBTW Rudolf died earlier this
>year - a great loss to the world in general and photography in specific.
>
>Truly, dr bob.


In comparing a Heliar to a Tessar we must take into consideraiton the design
goals of the two lenses and the differences in what the images actually looked
like. The Tessar was designed to produce "hard sharpness". The sharper the
better and the contrastier the better. The Heliar had totally different design
goals. During that early period some designers were looking to produce lenses
that gave a "roundness" or three dimentionality to the image. The first and
most successful of these designs to create this illusion was the Hugo Meyer
Plasmat. Plasmat meant "plastic" or round and was the origin of the name.
Lenses of this type were not "sharp" in the sense that a Tessar was sharp, but
they gave a feeling of roundness. The Heliar was a lens in that tradition,
designed to produce a three dimensional effect like the Plasmat. As a result
some might be disapointed in Heliar performance compared to Tessars since the
"roundness " of the Heliar might be construed as being "soft" compared to a
Tessar. Of course today the old goals of roundness have long been abandoned
and hard sharoness is the rule. But those were different times and a few
designers had different goals.

Arthur Kramer
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer


From: "dr bob" [email protected]
Newsgroups: rec.photo.equipment.large-format
Subject: Re: Heliar vs tessar?
Date: Sat, 3 May 2003

"Stacey" [email protected] wrote 
> I know what a tessar is, what exactly is a heliar. Specifically I have an
> uncoated voigtlander 30cm f4.5 heliar (used on 8X10) and am curious -what-
> it is? Also noticed looking though the corners of the GG, the tessar (also
> a 30cm f4.5) has the whole aperture visible at f8-f11 while the heliar
> doesn't show the whole aperture until f22 and only stops down to f32 vs
the
> tessar's f64. Does this lens have less coverage? TIA for any info.
> --
>
> Stacey

Hello again Stacey:

I think (?) Hans Harting designed the Heliar in 1900 for Voigtlander as he
tried to produce a symmetrical modification of the Cook Triplet. It is
comprised of five elements in three groups. To improve the apparently poor
performance of his original design, Hans later modified his original design
with the cemented surfaces convex toward the stop (aperture). The front and
rear groups are approximately symmetrical with the fifth element between
them. A modern modification in a Leitz design conforms to Harting's
successful design. The Seiko 105mm for the Mamiya TLR (sorry Stacey) is a
further modification.

More information on this and other lens designs can be found in: Rudolf
Kingslake "A History of the Photographic Lens", Academic Press, Inc., San
Diego, Ca. 1989, which is still in print. OBTW Rudolf died earlier this
year - a great loss to the world in general and photography in specific.

Truly, dr bob.









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