3.57 Brief Field Report: Wollensak Velostigmat Soft Focus 12" f4.5 - Wholeplate

The Wollensak Velostigmat 12" [300mm] f4.5 Soft Focus lens

Background:

The Wollensak Optical Company at Rochester, New York, USA produced a number of seminal soft focus lenses over its long history.

The f4.5 Velostigmat first arrived in 1909 from which various portrait lens' modifications were spawned. This particular lens belongs

to the Velostigmat Series II lenses, originally available in focal lengths from 3.5" to 15.5" at f4.5 with a soft focus diffusion device.

The 12" focal length was originally suggested for 8x10" format and serves the whole plate format with modest movements at full

aperture. By and large over its long history, these were uncoated lenses, often found with manufacturing bubbles present in the

glass. Performance of these lenses were noted to be 'very good'.

This lens is identical to the Velostigmat 12" f4.5 Tessar type lens with the exception of an added Soft Focus ring numbered 0 to 5 for varying grades of soft focus.

Image illustrates the classic brass barrel design of the Velostigmat with the soft focus ring adjustment towards the right hand side of the viewer.

For practical use, the variable aperture version can be front-mounted with a Silens type shutter unit:

This cable release operated shutter possesses an instantaneous shutter speed of approximately 1/15th second, a B and a T setting on adjusting the petal shaped dial. It's utility as a front-mounted shutter is practical due to the variable 3-point fasteners which can adapt to various front-mounted barrel lenses including the Velostigmat Soft Focus lens, whilst simultaneously enabling the operation of the soft focus adjustment by rotating the whole shutter unit on the mounted lens.

The barrel design of the Velostigmat was accompanied with many other iterations of the same lens design in various shutter combinations. Studio shutter versions exist (with no aperture adjustment):