a lens board and a brass Cooke Primoplan 4 inch, f/6.3 lens
Toronto. From the beginnings of photography until well into the last century a common camera design was the field camera or its many variations. Basically the sensitive media was separated from the lens and (when needed) shutter mechanism by a sliding box affair, bellows, etc.
Early on it was determined that the lens board and its lens could be swapped out to vary the focus of the camera. A rack and pinion, sliding box, friction mechanism, etc allowed the lens-to-media distance to be changed to focus the subject on the media.
In yesterday’s auction was a Cooke Primoplane lens mounted on a Taylor, Taylor, Hobson (TT&H) lens mount and lens board. Someone won lot 391 and took home this gem. The brass lens is marked 4 inch (focal length), f/6.5, Series VIIA. As a lens name Cooke is still quite active while the name TT&H seems to have faded into history (Cooke was once a trade name for lenses designed by a different mr Taylor and manufactured by TT&H).
Kingslake in his book ,”A History of the Photographic Lens“, has an interesting section on Cooke triplets (chapter seven) and the relationship between the inventor of Cooke lenses and their manufacturer, TT&H.
