Some of you will be shocked by what this lens did to this image.  Well............ Jim Galli won't be shocked, because he knows which lens it is, hopefully he'll stay 'mum' until everybody guesses.  Which lens it it???   I give you some hints:  It isn't a Pinkham & Smith, not a Verito, not a Universal Heliar, not a Taylor-Hobson-Cooke 'knuckler'.

Besides me, Jim Galli has one, Steve Nichols has one, and the lens is very common, very cheap,  a different brand of the same lens formula as this lens usually sells for up to TEN TIMES what this lens sells for. 

I took this shot w/the lens slightly modified, a modification I did a number of years ago when I first got this lens which was my first 'Classic Lens', and they've talked of this modification on the other forums as if it were a new discovery, 'ah well', so be it.

I uploaded this image to show that this lens under certain conditions/lighting set-ups, can rival anything the Pinkhams and all the other high priced classics can do.  It would be the first lens I'd recommend for someone starting out w/classic lenses, which as everybody here knows have a learning curve.  

After doing the shot '3 Glasses' w/my P&S Semi-Achromatic, I left the light set-up in place, and placed 3 shot glasses(shot glasses for measuring out alcohol for mixed drinks) on the brushed aluminum, and changed to this lens.  I was both pleasantly surprised and but also shocked at what I saw on the groundglass which is what you see here.

I'm sure you folks will guess the answer fairly quickly, and hopefully, folks who peruse this from outside the site, will be intrigued by, and find renewed interest in this lens. 

Take care

    Hi Folks

    I've made every member who participates on this site a 'limited editor',  this means you have the full control over every journal entry you post, and you are also the moderator of who participates on your entries.   If anyone chooses to become nasty or obnoxious in posting a response to an entry by a member and/or one of your uploaded images, you can delete that individuals response, and you don't have to ask anyone else before you do.

    This is because of the assumption that all members are members here because of who and what you are, and if someone who isn't a member attempts to try to make anyone here miserable, you don't have to wait anyone else to step in, simply delete the offending post. 

   I'm doing this because I've never liked having to ask someone else's permission to moderate/delete something nasty that someone directed to me, regarding a conversation that I initiated.  I believe we all have the right to initiate a dialogue on this site without being flamed/attacked, and if  you are attacked, that you should have the capability to just eliminate that attack yourself right then and there w/o question.

  You have the right to invite or refuse the right for anyone to come to your home, your initiating a discussion or uploading an image is the same thing to me, and so this is my thought process behind this. 

  Take care

     Hi folks

You'll notice the names of your lenses/films used/cameras and so forth at the bottom of your entries near your name(which I've also made a category/subgroup), which means if you click on any of these at the bottom, they will appear as a subgroup.

If you click on Pinkham & Smith, all the Pinkham & Smith shots will appear as a group, and you won't have to fish around the complete site to find them, if you click on Pinkham & Smith Semi-Achromatic Doublet, all the SA Doublet images will appear together.  If you click on your name, which is also a category/subgroup, all the images shot by you will appear as a group.

You can also do this when you originally post your images by going to the right of the 'entry date' box, and and clicking the 'browse' button inside the 'categories' box at the extreme right.  A pop-list of categories will appear.

Hopefully this will increase the flexibility of this site.

Cheers

I was introduced to this site by Stephan Dietrtich when I was looking for Wollensak Verito examples.  Wow!  Finally found a site that reflects my interest. By way of introduction, I'm a computer architect working at nothing really important. 'Nuff said about that. I started off in the music biz as a composer. Got tired of that. Then I found film photography with LF equipment. Much more interesting and rewarding. Although I have sharp lenses in the kit, I've found that the classic lenses work better for me here in the east coast rain forest. Especially in winter when there's less clutter. The challenge of east coast landscape photography is that there's just so much stuff in the way. Grand west-coast visions just aren't available here. Yes, we have mountains (what the west-coasters call foothills), but you need to be in a balloon or a cherry-picker to see them through the brush. Thus, I'm left with pointing into the forest instead of around it and that's where the classic lenses shine. IN the forest, it's all about shape and pattern -- seeing the forest instead of all those trees. Sure, you can get the effect by shaking the camera or just blurring things with bad focus, but it's not the same. Classic lenses, especially portrait lenses, allow one to narrow down the plane of sharp focus just so much better and with more control. Within that plane, petzval formulas will even allow selective focus on the same plane. And, that's just what's needed in the forest. 

Add to that the glow that can be obtained with an old rapid-rectilinear shot wide open, or the graphics effect that happen with a single meniscus and on and on, and the possibilities sometimes become overwhelming. 

And so, I offer some efforts that show where I am in the journey. What I love about this site is that I no longer need to feel cowed by what the 'contemporary' world is doing. Very gratifying to find wide-open to be a more interesting direction.

George

This is in Watchung Reservation, NJ in March 2008. I used a Voigtlander Heliar 300mm at around f/6 with the focus on the lit up tree. It was evening and the sun was just above the horizion.

Light Source

Here are two new ones from my series "magic forest" made with a P&S VQ No. 3 on 8x10"

stefan d