Q4 2023 (Oct-Dec) — Through Your Adapted Lens

No special reasons, I only was playing with my toys.😜

In good hands it makes quite good pictures, I see!

When I look at my old book ( Handbuch der Kamerakunde von Richard Grittner, printed 1958, not 1956) I see that Travenars are (mostly) Tessar/Xenar type triplets with four lenses. Travegars are simplier, three lens triplets. But it's quite a good lens used with 60MP sensor.

Fascinating lens mystery. I know little about Tomioka, but will give some generic ideas about the inscriptions. 1. N.J.K. could be the initials of the main designer. 2. The red M could be copied from the German Meyer Optik Görlitz company. They used a red V to note their top performing lens designs. 3. Switching gears on the red M, Olympus used the alphabet to designate number of elements in a lens. E. Zuiko had five elements. Number of elements used to be a big deal. Some lenses only had 3 elements. Granted, M won't work for # of elements, but it could mean something else, like number of diaphragm blades. Just some thoughts. It would be neat to see the lens body. Did you mention what mount it was and why the aperture blades are missing? Your "Dried Up" image is excellent.
Good luck and thanks for sharing,
barondla

I thought the red V did mean coated or multicoated lens like the red T in Zeiss lenses. Naturally those coated lenses were also the best performers!

Some lenses only had 3 elements like my Travegar. I think the number of the elements is still important but not so important as in the old days before multicoating.

Interesting that Olympus used Creek words to tell the number of elements. So did also Nikon but a little differently. I guess E.Zuiko comes from Creek character Epsilon, which is the fifth character in the Creek alfabets. Nikon called their five element lenses Nikkor-Ps. P coming from Creek numeral Pente or Penta.

I don't know anything of Olympus, but I did read this interesting story: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuiko , Thanks!

Edit. Naturally all of those characters are Latin transcriptions of creek ones.

I agree!

This is a Fujinon 2.7mm F1.8 fisheye lens removed from an Axis Communications surveilance camera. It is a C mount lens with no adjustable aperture. Peolple were buying these years ago from a surplus company. They sent a complete camera, I had to disassemble it and remove the lens. The lens was very difficult to unscrew. Used penetrating oil and put it in the freezer to break loose the threads. Most other people's lenses unscrewed easily. Feared I was going to break it.

I use the lens two ways. This photo is with an Olympus Pen E-PL1. It gives a completely circular image and requires a recessed C mount adapter for infinity focus. I work around the fixed focus by slightly screwing the lens in and out.

This also fits the Pentax Q and Q7 (different sensor sizes) and gives a full frame fisheye. The Q C mount adapter is not recessed. Q can actually use D and M mount lenses with the appropriate adapters. Don't have those - yet! Not a bad lens for $69.

Thanks for looking,
barondla

Thank you very much for your thoughts! The main designer (or design unit) is a very interesting idea. While I would be surprised to have a (likely) japanese name written in english letters, the name of a business unit etc. could very well be.

I recently remembered that red letters were not only used to indicate special coatings, but also for magnifications: Some specialized Zeiss lenses use a red M + a number (for example 2:1) for indicating the optimized magnification. Ultra Micro Nikkors by Nikon (for example M= 1/10) do the same. It's also possible that the M stands for Macro, as it was likely intended for a macro lens. The third option would be that Tominon was synonymous with a particular lens design within Tomioka at that time... in this case the M could stand for 'Model' and simply mean: This is a Tominon type lens (5 elements in 3 groups Xenotar design). Tomioka used Tominon for a variety of different designs, however it's not unfathomable that there might have been a clearer distinction at some point.

Very interesting lens and result. I would love to experiment with something like a fisheye lens as well, but so far no opportunity has come around. Have you tried cropping some shots like that? I'm sure they look interesting and quality also seems quite okay.

I generally work a lot with (custom made) recessed lensboards on my bellows - it gives me a lot of options with lenses I wouldn't be able to use otherwise. Those lensboards have a M42 thread which is among the most versatile thread in terms of available adapters. There still are some lenses I wasn't able to find any good solution for yet.

Here's one of my recent shots with a Tominon 25/1.8 TV lens (most likely from some CCTV application):

Monetary growth by simple.joy, on Flickr

A tiny thing, but not bad when used with a tube lens...

Not sure where my text went. Pentax Q7 with Fujinon 2.7mm FE lens. It manages to fill the frame quite nicely.
Thanks for looking,
barondla

Asahi Lens Co., M42 Takumar SMC 24mm @f/8 on Sigma SD15:

It is the end of a hotdog shaped 500 gallon propane tank. Tried to hide all the evidence.
Thanks,
barondla

Very nice macro picture. Amazingly sharp considering the lens wasn't designed for extreme macros. I enjoy shooting different formats. On your camera this lens is a macro. On my Pentax Q it acts like a ~ 135mm telephoto.
Thanks for sharing,
barondla

That's really cool - excellent idea and well done!

This brings up an interesting question. Why would a Japanese company label a prototype in english, for any reason at all? If it isn't being marketed, why use a foreign language?
Thanks,
barondla

You're right... I've wondered about that a bit as well... however it doesn't seem unusual, given that a lot of Lenses made in Japan have been labeled in Roman Alphabet letters since the very beginning of the optical industry there. Take a loot at this japanese lens from 1938:

No sign of any Japanese letters on there and that was during peak nationalism in Japan. So an inscription in English in the 80s doesn't seem surprising. I have thought about German letters as well (given the cooperation with Zeiss) but I wasn't able to make much sense of it, even though words with K are quite common in the German language.

But, these lenses were probably meant to be sold in foreign markets. It would make sense to label them for the market they were going to. Lens ID could be changed easily by unscrewing the lens ring and replacing it with one printed in a different language. A prototype lens isn't meant for sell. So why use a foreign language? Perhaps to "hide" it from competitors?

The Pentax Q lenses have Kanji on them. I'm sure they thought it added to the Q mystique. Haven't seen other lenses adorned with Kanji. It has probably been done, I'm just not aware of it.
Thanks,
barondla

I doubt it's to hide it from competitors. Lens inscriptions (even on lenses meant for the japanese market as far as I know) have almost always been in Roman letters. I think that's mainly because of the heavy influence from the german optical industry in the early days. The lens above was pictured in an ad from 1938 (peak nationalism in Japan) where everything is in Kanji, except the specific lens names and inscriptions. So it surely was aimed at a japanese audience and from some translations I got the ads never grow tired of emphasizing the japanese origin of these lenses etc. Yet still they get names which evoke German sounding names, like Tessar etc.

I've actually never seen a single lens with Kanji on it, even japanese made industrial lenses, used in Japan are most of the time labeled in English at least from my limited experience.

I still don't have a firm grasp on the whole thing, but at least I'm starting to get a better feel for the overall Tomioka timeline. Here's the latest version: