One fine day after a good lunch with my neighbor, I went wandering near the Chinatown in Singapore. I came across an antique store with an unsettling feeling, can’t stop thinking something is there waiting for me.
I love hunting for vintage camera/lens overseas but usually not in Singapore, as stuff here are usually expensive and not much of a variety. To my surprise, I found a dusty little box holding a Wollensak 1 1/2″ 2.5 D-mount lens. After a little bargain, I brought it back for study and modification.
A little history on the over 100 years old company
The following is largely cited from https://alphaxbetax.com. Founded in 1899 July 1st by Stephan Rauber (President) and brothers Andrew Wollensak (Vice President) and John Wollensak (Secretary) at Rochester, New York.
At some point in 1920s, Wollensak has over 600 employees building camera lens, telescopes, binoculars, field glasses, microscopes and so on. In 1945, Wollensak held a naming contest, thus the name “Raptar” by Mr. Templin R. Licklider,Jr was born. The number of employees almost doubled by 1940s with an annual sales of close to $4 million.
1961 May 5, a space flight is recored by a specially made Wollensak 25mm Raptar lens aboard the Mercury Freedom 7 spacecraft.
1960~1970s see the decline of the company with the assets liquidated and sold in different auctions.
By the 2000s, Virginville Lens Co., doing business as Surplus Shed, purchases 872 Hudson Ave and its contents, including Wollensak lenses and assemblies, lens production equipment, and original optical and mechanical drawings and registered “Wollensak” trademark.
My little experience with Wollensak
Wollensak lens is ofter overshadowed by Cooke and Angénieux. If you have visited my instagram, you would find that I often share pictures by weird and DIY lenses including a Wollensak Raptar 25mm 1.5 that I bought from Ebay few years back. The optic quallity is okay, and I largely enjoyed the funny proportion pairing with Olympus OMD EM1 series, always a conversation starter when people saw me using that lens to take pictures.
The 25mm that I bought is in great condition, with full box and accessories. As I know the handling of a good Wollensak, brings me to this Wollensak 1 1/2″ that I found which could have seen better days:
The box is damped and smelly. The rubber cap had hardened and cracked, lens looks foggy, luckily with some good cleaning the optic is largely intact. But the question remains, Singapore we do not usually have a lot of USA imports back in the day. How did this lens from the 1940s got into Singapore? It probably had never seen the light for decades. Even the store owner did not remember where this came from, and since probably he won’t find another Singaporean digging for this lens, he sold this to me less than half the marked price.
This lens is a D-mount for the 8mm movie camera, most people would probably mount it on a small sensor camera like a Pentax Q. with some freelensing, I know this could work on a micro 4/3 sensor.
Determined, I want to bring this lens to work on my olympus.
Was quite happy that the optic is largely restored after some cleaning. Flange distance is shorter than the Olympus micro 4/3, so first I was exploring methods to bring the optic closer to the mount. The optical elements are far from the rear end, so there’s actually some room to work with.
I shall not go into details of how I designed the adapter. The protruding part is a big problem, took me 4 iterations of design to get the fitting right with focus to infinity.
Because of the rear protrusion, normal lens cap will not fit it. Therefore I made a matching rear cap to keep it from dust.
9 Sept 2023 – The modification is completed and calibrated! Marking are set to focus to infinity. Very happy with the end product. There is a little vignette but is largely usable on micro 4/3, probably a new discovery for the d-mount! I wonder how many hidden gem like this exists that can be used on a micro 4/3 or a BMPCC.
To Be CONTINUE.. I will be taking more sample shots and video in the next 1 month and come back to update this page. Please leave your comments below if you like this project.
Witono's Freestyle 