Greetings,

The subject lens is a rare one! I purchased one a few years ago but it is in poor shape and inoperatable. The price was right and I knew it was hard to find. Some popular camera stores...in business for years...claim to have never seen one. The Rodenstock 135mm Optar with 1000 shutter is fairly common but the 270mm is somewhat of a mystery, even to Graflex collectors such as myself. I posted a question or two on the Graflex website a couple of years ago but didn't get a response. So I thought I'd try again with a larger forum:

Does anyone out there have any experience with this particular lens? If so, how does it compare to similar large format telephoto lenses?

What years and how many were actually produced?

Unfortunately, a lot of Graflex records were not kept after they shut their doors in 1973...perhaps HP Marketing can obtain this information since the lens was manufactured by Rodenstock?

Any information would be most interesting to me. Thank you for your help!

J. P. Mose

-- J. P. Mose (j.p.mose@lmco.com), September 24, 2001

Answers

I had one, which I just sold on Ebay --- on a Supergraphics board with cam. It is a Rodenstock rotelar, mounted on the graphics 1000 shutter and rebranded as an "optar" (Graflex's house brand).

Performance was pretty good -- I sold it because the shutters are flaky and unrepairable. I see them on Ebay once a month or so. Demand seems to be high (or I didn't ask enough on Buy It Now)

-- John Lehman (al7jj@uaf.edu), September 24, 2001.