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primus96 · Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 9:10 pm Post subject:

I have seen a No4 Kodak 4x5 roll film camera with such a lens and I wondered what the results would be like if said lens was used on a 'Speed.
Would they be sharp only in the centre?
Would you get a lot of chromatic aberrations on colour neg around highlights?

mav6977 · Joined: 07 Apr 2006 Posts: 9 Location: Wichita Falls TX

The Rapid Rectilinear is corrected for
chromatic aberration (although to slightly
different wavelengths) so you probably
wouldn't notice any color fringing unless you used a huge enlargement. The big defect
they suffer from is Astigmatism although
at the small apertures they use it's not too bad. I myself have used a ICA rapid Aplanat on Fuji Velvia and have been very impressed with the image quality. I will say that the Kodak Rapid rectilinear will probably be color corrected for modern emulsion types better than a pre 1900 one. Make sure the lens is clean and the shutter is repeatable and you should like the images. Remember that all photographs between about 1869 to the 1890's were shot with these (unless the photographer used a different type of lens) and most are very sharp.

glennfromwy · Joined: 29 Nov 2001 Posts: 903 Location: S.W. Wyoming

The lens should be a Bausch & Lomb and will likely cover 4X5. They can be extremely sharp but it falls of around the edges. Best used on a format somewhat smaller than it's coverage to compensate for this. I have a couple of them that I use, one the same as you have and one from 1896 that is pretty amazing even on 4X5, which is what it was designed for. Even so, you can see the sharpness fall off around the edges. I've never used them for color.

_________________
Glenn

"Wyoming - Where everybody is somebody else's weirdo"