So one day over at Bausch & Lomb, they sat down and decided it was about time to give TTH's portrait triplets a good kick in the nuts. Those lenses had been successfully annoying the competition since 1898.
In the previous article, I pondered and mused, among other things, about how only a few of my portrait lenses can currently challenge the Hermagis Portrait and the Fast Worker in the ring without immediately throwing in the towel. On paper, the Dallmeyer 3B 290mm f3.9 seemed like an evenly matched opponent—so how did it turn out? Did...
What makes a portrait lens truly great? What should we highlight, what combination of features should it have? Let's subtly ignore weight and size and cut straight to the essentials— so first and foremost:
It's almost become a mantra to kick off my articles with lines like, "The only lens in the universe", "A ridiculously rare contraption", or "Rarer than hen's teeth." What can I say? I wallow in the extraordinary, feeding the illusion of my own uniqueness. Enough excuses, though - let's dive into today's lens. A piece so outrageously...
We learned what are those pictorialisms in my previous article here. However, among all the confusion about knee menisci, the fact that I like it soft and where one can legally apply vaseline, the key information got lost: what started all this, who the hell is the cornerstone around which the temple of my photographic ingenuity has been built....
Who would expect that from such a relatively slow lens with a modern-looking exterior, right? Still waters run deep, don't judge a book by its cover, keep your cup half full, yada yada. Enough wisdom. The advantage is that nobody really barks after these Wollensak lines, so you won't be bidding at 3 a.m., pawning off your house and kids...
Aldis may not have been the largest, best-known or longest-running factory, but it had a surprising number of successes in a variety of industries. And since I'm in an extra-dry factual mood today, you'll find some fascinating and shocking data below!
Once upon a time, beyond nine mountains, nine rivers and one English Channel, there was once a Dallmeyer company - I recommend paying particular attention to the position of the letters in the name, it will come in handy in a few moments.
Today we're going to talk about brass and aluminium. This lens is made of brass and aluminium. We've done our education on the materials side of things, and now we're going to please the linguists—it's a Hugo Meyer Atelier Schnellarbeiter 310mm f3, which the translator peculiarly translates as "fast worker."
There were loads of aerial photography lenses. Shitloads. Companies jumped into making them when the war machine needed 'em - even if they'd previously done something else like binoculars or other optical thingies (hello Aldis!). Or they pivoted from commercial optics, either partly or completely - cue Dallmeyer, Wray, Ross, TTH, Burke & James and...