{"id":32832,"date":"2025-11-24T01:03:05","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T05:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/?p=32832"},"modified":"2025-11-22T22:23:25","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T02:23:25","slug":"what-about-the","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/what-about-the\/","title":{"rendered":"what about the …"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

left – the Hobart Centair lens and right – the Leitz Elmar 50mm f\/3.5<\/p><\/div>\n

Toronto<\/strong>. …Tasmanian Leica Lens? In celebration of our 25th anniversary, editor Bob Lansdale cajoled the editors of our exchange journals to offer up an article for Photographic Canadiana.<\/p>\n

Ray Moss of the LHSA submitted Chris Kok’s article, “The Tasmanian Leica Lens”. a very rare copy of the famous 50mm f\/3.5 Elmar.<\/p>\n

Chis begins, “Yes indeed, a copy of the famous 50mm f<\/i>3.5 Elmar was made\u00a0in Australia by the Waterworth Company of Hobart, the capital of\u00a0Tasmania. The Waterworth Company was founded in Hobart for\u00a0the purpose of manufacturing military optical products such as\u00a0gunsights and weapon rangefinders for the Australian army during the Second World War. However, it is not commonly known\u00a0that they made a camera lens in Leica screw-mount known as the\u00a0\u201cCentair\u201d.<\/p>\n

“The exact optic formula and layout of this lens is\u00a0unknown but its external appearance has a close resemblance to\u00a0that of the Leica Elmar except that its mount is not collapsible.<\/p>\n

“It is unknown as to how many Centair lenses were actually made but they must be quite limited in number. The sample I have\u00a0is no. 133; no. 171 has been published in an Australian Journal. A\u00a0closer comparison of the sample that I have with that shown in the\u00a0Journal reveals several external differences regarding the aperture\u00a0adjustment ring, the shape of the lens barrel and the style of the\u00a0engraving.<\/p>\n

“I have tested the performance of the Centair lens and, to my\u00a0surprise, I find the lens extremely soft but excellent for portraits\u00a0(contrary to one\u2019s expectation of military optics which are usually sharp and hard). The sharpness of my lens probably could be\u00a0improved by a thorough cleaning but I quite like the way it is now.” …<\/p>\n

All of Chris Kok’s illustrated article is available in the issue 25-4 pdf file on the free members’ only DVD\/thumb drive. Details on joining are found above and to the right. Membership questions may be emailed to Lilianne at member@phsc.ca<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toronto. …Tasmanian Leica Lens? In celebration of our 25th anniversary, editor Bob Lansdale cajoled the editors of our exchange journals to offer up an article for Photographic Canadiana. Ray Moss of the LHSA submitted Chris Kok’s article, “The Tasmanian Leica … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1944],"tags":[398,401,4826,1303,578],"class_list":["post-32832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","tag-camera","tag-lens","tag-tasmania","tag-wetzlar","tag-ww2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32832"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32837,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32832\/revisions\/32837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}