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Markus
Tinkerer
Username: Markus
Post Number: 5
Registered: 08-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, September 30, 2007 - 04:25 pm: | 
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After removing the badly disintegrated coating on the rear element of the Hesper Anastigmat lens on my Zenobia folder and re-cementing the rear element, I tried it out, and was quite impressed with its sharpness. So, I decided to replace the uncoated Novar Anastigmat lens on an old Ikonta 521 6x6 folder with the Hesper Anastigmat lens to see if it was as good on a 6x6 camera as it is on the 6x4.5 Zenobia (both lenses have the same focal length of 75mm).
I had to drill a hole in the lens standard of the Ikonta to make the Japanese lens/shutter combination fit onto the Ikonta body. After carefully adjusting the focus of this Hesper lens on Ikonta body camera I am very impressed with it. I recently took this camera (maybe I should call it my Zikontia) on a trip to Prague and took some nice photos with it.
You can see for yourself...
http://flickr.com/photos/wakingsky/sets/72157602213461618/
Note that all these images were scanned at 2400dpi resolution, and you can view them at that resolution by clicking the 'ALL SIZES' button above the images.
I guess, now I won't need to pay up for an Ikonta with a Tessar lens. The only thing that I miss from the Zenobia folder is the handy little depth of field calculator on the top, but you can't have it all. |
Rj_
Tinkerer
Username: Rj_
Post Number: 26
Registered: 08-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, September 30, 2007 - 05:56 pm: |
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Markus,
that's a lot of effort for a excellent triplet lens. Your images show its well worthwhile too.
At first glance, the Zenobia recalls to me, the Konica Pearl. Properly, it should recall a Zeiss Ikonta, whose shutter location is identical to the Zenobia.
You seem to have had wonderful sunny 16 conditions for shooting (and a hotshoe for a future rangefinder unit?)
I wonder how the Hesper would fare at closer focussing distances, in addition to wider apertures.
Many thanks for showing. It's a pleasure to see the results of tinkering repairs too. |
Rick_oleson
Tinkerer
Username: Rick_oleson
Post Number: 388
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, September 30, 2007 - 06:49 pm: |
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The Hesper is a Tessar formula. |
Markus
Tinkerer
Username: Markus
Post Number: 6
Registered: 08-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, September 30, 2007 - 09:20 pm: |
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Rick is right, the Hesper is a four element lens, a Tessar clone (as I noted, I re-cemented the rear element). That lens is a noticably sharper than the Novars and also than an Apotar I have on an Agfa folder.
Most of those photos were shot at f/8 or smaller but there is one image that I shot at f/5.6 and it is very sharp all the way to the corners. The only gripe I have is that the lens is not as contrasty as I would like (but that can be fixed eletonically), and it is, of course, prone to flare. |
Rj_
Tinkerer
Username: Rj_
Post Number: 27
Registered: 08-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, October 01, 2007 - 03:27 pm: |
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Hi there,
I may need another correction, since I had always viewed the Hesper lens as a heterogenous group, being made over a period of time, with a critical shift of evolution towards a Tessar design around the 1954 era. I presumed that the earlier version was a triplet.
Your Zenobia being of a Tessar design, is then a later edition Zenobia?
It makes sense for the Ikonta clones to rely on Tessar clones.
Thank you for the correction too.
With respect to the low contrast formula (which would fit it not being a triplet!), there are a variety of contrast compensating developing techniques which can enhance the contrast, including standing development techniques; using higher concentrations of developer, higher temperatures, increased agitation rates during development.
Kind regards,
RJ |
Markus
Tinkerer
Username: Markus
Post Number: 7
Registered: 08-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, October 01, 2007 - 03:58 pm: |
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Rj, the lens came from an older Zenobia C-1 folder. It was mounted in a D.O.C. Rapid shutter (according to camerapedia.org this is the early version of this camera). Its rear element was in very bad shape, and the shutter while working o.k. was not in that great shape cosmetically. So I went ahead and bought another Zenobia C-1 on ebay. This one had a Seikosha Rapid shutter and a rear element that was repairable. So the lens that I put on the Ikonta has the front an middle elements from my first Zenobia C-1 and the cleaned and re-cemented rear element from my second Zenobia C-1 mounted in the Seikosha Rapid shutter from the second Zenobia C-1 (I got that to run very accurately after some disassembly and cleaning). For the record, I checked, and the rear element from my first Zenobia C-1 (presumably the older one since it had a D.O.C. Rapid shutter) is also cemented, hence, the older lens was also at Tessar type.
The somewhat low contrast might have to do with me having to remove the badly degraded coating on the rear element. The front element, however, is coated, and I have a Series VI adapter with hood on the way that I bought last weekend. It might be interesting for some to note that the Hesper lens takes 32mm push on filters, and that while a Series V adapter works fine on 6x4.5 it causes severe vignetting on 6x6 (if you feel like mounting the Hesper on a 6x6 folder).
Thanks for the advice on increasing contrast during development! I do not have a darkroom and I am relatively new to developing film. So I tried to fix this in software after scanning the negatives. Clearly, I will have to learn more about developing film.
I think the plain Hesper lens is underrated and one can pick one (or two) up on the cheap. People will pay significantly more for the newer Neo Hesper thinking that the older Hesper is a triplet. |
Rj_
Tinkerer
Username: Rj_
Post Number: 32
Registered: 08-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, October 02, 2007 - 03:25 pm: |
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Thanks Markus -
that gives me some confidence about looking for an earlier model (without a triplet lens!).
Another Ikonta clone, the Konica Pearl, used a standard Tessar formula in its basic model no. I, however had upgraded this to a five element Heliar like construction in the Pearl II & III & IV series. I like the 1955 Seikosha shutter very much - it reprises in the Konica 35mm series III cameras too.
It's not necessary to have a darkroom to develop film - however it is a wonderful sanctuary. It also enables greater potential for software modification to your negatives. Instead of using software to fix limitations of vintage lenses, if contrast development is applied at the processing stage of film development, the developed negatives enable more creative or interpretative efforts to be enhanced by post-processing software.
Kind regards,
RJ |
Rick_oleson
Tinkerer
Username: Rick_oleson
Post Number: 390
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, October 02, 2007 - 04:05 pm: |
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I have a waltax, which is a pre-Zenobia version of the same camera... the lens is still a Tessar type, but I don't necessarily advise going quite this early as the shutter was a hopeless bag of scrap metal. DOC learned a lot about shutters between that and the excellent version of the same shutter that came on the Zenobia. |
Markus
Tinkerer
Username: Markus
Post Number: 8
Registered: 08-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, October 02, 2007 - 05:49 pm: |
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I second Rick's comments regarding the Waltax. I have a Waltax Jr. and I could not believe it when I opened the shutter. I cleaned it anyway and then tested it with my shutter tester: At all settings it gave the same reading of about 1/50 second!
Thanks RJ for your encouragement regarding my efforts in film development. I have a lot more experimentation to do until I know what I am doing.
When you look into older Zenobias, be prepared to find the interior coating on the rear element to be deteriorated and in need of removal. I read somewhere else that this is a common problem. It seems to be common enough for both my Zenobias to be affected.
Cheers
- Markus |
Rick_oleson
Tinkerer
Username: Rick_oleson
Post Number: 392
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 03, 2007 - 04:52 pm: |
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Mine couldn't even be made to run, and looking at the machining I couldn't figure out how it had EVER worked. It looked like they'd hogged it out of a block of pig iron with a Black & Decker. All of the visible stuff on the outside, though, looked just as nice as the later ones.
As an aside, the interface details changed between the Waltax and the Zenobia, so I was not able to mount the Waltax lens in a Zenobia shutter.... I had to put the entire Zenobie lens/shutter assembly into the Waltax, and even the shutter mounting is not identical. The cameras themselves appear to be identical except that the Waltax has a red "film wound" indicator that was dropped in the Zenobia (though the little hole in the top deck for it is still there). I guess it must not have worked very well.... |
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