Manual Photo Lenses for Astrophtography

[Ales - iStar Optical]

I just wanted to inform everyone that Istar is currently testing and selecting a number of older manual medium and large format photo lenses for DSO photography and specialized astrophotography. We will be soon offering first batch of 10 or 12 lenses which will easily meet performance level of MUCH more expensive compact and subcompact astrographs and APO refractors. After careful consideration we have chosen only three major brands. Japanese Pentax and their 645 and 67 model lenses, Japanese Mamiya Secor and their 645 N lenses and German Zeiss Hasselblad. Personally I am very excited about performance of these lenses, they are simply amazing for a wide field astrophotography, with incredible resolution and perfectly flat field of view. We will soon post more info on our web site istar-optical.com so stay tuned. Those having a good experience with medium and large format lenses, send me your comments please!! I personally believe that medium format manual photo lenses are the best buy in astrophotography, regardless of your current equipment situation. They are inexpensive enough for a novice and they are a perfect od-on for experienced photographer. I will work with one Italian deep space photographer to come up with a series of photographs which these lenses are capable of. So far I was damn impressed with what these relatively lightweight and compact lenses are capable of. Some can match performance of a well known brand named subcompact super APO / Petzwal astrographs.. at MUCH lower price.....so stay tuned. We will soon offer our own compact astrographs with CaF2 super APO performance in 90mm and 110mm and F6 on average. Also super APO using CaF2 Fluorite and ED glass combo in 180 F6 (next year or by end of this year if all goes well).

See one example of 300mm F/5,6 Mamiya Secor N lens with ED glass elements.
cheers
Ales

Attachments:

[tonybegg]

Ales - this is an interesting post but I am unsure what you are saying. Are you intending to resell these classic photography lenses? Seems like that is what you are saying. And then based on your experience of these lenses you will design your own astrographs using similar principles. Sounds like a great plan. So this is for those applications (you see lots of photos on the gallery pages of Astronomy mag and S&T) where they use say an 80mm or 100mm apo astrograph with a fast focal ratio. Good luck with this Tony