I've been playing with an old Steinheil Munchen (Steinheil of Munchen?) 15cm "UNOFOCAL" lens over the weekend. It's in a Compur that would make me guess the lens is immediate postwar. 1949ish. It was full of goo so I took the individual elements apart to carefully clean all of the surfaces. I was expecting a Zeissish tessar, but there are 4 seperated elements. 2 in front with air space, and 2 in back. Is this formula the same as the Voightlander heliar?

I don't know how to make a link, but there is a picture of the lens here; http://imagehost.auctionwatch.com/preview/tp/tpahjim/Munchen_2.jpg

Thanks for any help. I really do enjoy this group. Jim

-- Jim Galli (jimgalli@lnett.com), October 01, 2001

Answers

The Heliar is a 5-element lens, so it's not a heliar-type.

Neblette's _Photographic Lenses_ says only "the Unofocal (1901) [was] one of the earlier anastigmats to have an aperture of f:/4.5."

-- David Goldfarb (dgoldfarb@barnard.edu), October 01, 2001.

I have a steinheil 165mmf4.5 along with a schneider 210f3.5 that was on my dads speed graphic from the 30's or war years.Those lenses are very cool with their own special look...I should use them more! Your lens might be older than you think.

-- Emile de Leon (knightpeople@msn.com), October 01, 2001.

Hi Jim,

the Unofocal is a symmetrical anastigmat, it's a dialyt-design like the Artar, Ronar etc., but designed for normal distances like the Eurynar. In the normal version it covers about 55 deg. Old but still good, try it!

-- Thomas Vaehrmann (TVaehrmann@web.de), October 02, 2001.

Thank-you all.

-- Jim Galli (jimgalli@lnett.com), October 02, 2001.