I have recently acquired the above lens. It seems to be a wide angle as the elements are almost semi circular in section ( it looks like an oversized hypergon!) rough tests indicate a coverage of 12" plus. Does anyone know anything of these lenses.

Charlie

-- Charlie Skelton (charlieskelton@southend.gov.uk), November 15, 2001

Answers

Charlie,

A bit late in the day perhaps to be answering this but FWIW ...

The Wray Aerial wide angle is a Gauss type design with 4 elements, the outer two being quite large and steeply curved. The design is air spaced and symmetrical 2 + 2. The date is probably post war to the 50's sometime.

The fact that the design is air spaced means that compared with say the Angulon with which it would have competed the Wray had 8 air / glass surfaces as against the Angulon's 4. This resulted in the Wray wide angles being rather less contrasty and more prone to flare than the schneider lens so when these became more readily available the Wray could not compete.

A similar but smaller design version of this lens was the Wray 89mm Wide Angle. The lower secondhand price of the Wray as compared with the Angulon indicates its relative desirability.

-- Colin (cicarron@aol.com), May 28, 2002.