Spencer Port-Land 9" f/4.5 soft focus PORTRAIT lens. Serial #646. Circa 1911. Made in Buffalo, NY by Spencer lens company. Two element Aplanat optical design. Lens is in a barrel mount.  Barrel diameter is 60mm. Mounting flange diameter is 80mm. Lens covers up to 5x7" format. Lens aperture is f/4.5. The lens aperture range is f/4.5 to f/32 with built-in variable lens aperture. This lens has been custom remounted into an Acme #4 shutter by S.K. Grimes. Speeds of 1/100 to 1 sec, B.T. Lens is Ex++ or 9 of 10 cosmetic condition. Black finish on lens. No dents or dings. Nice finish on the remounted Acme #4 shutter. Few dust spots inside that are only visible with a flashlight which will NOT effect image quality. Very clean optics. Non coated lens. No scratches or separation. Great unique Spencer Port-Land soft focus lens with unique optical quality. Lens comes with original lens barrel & mounting flange. Also included is an Ilex #4 shutter mounted by S.K. Grimes, S.K. Grimes flange, and S.K. Grimes custom rear cap. Nice scarce soft focus portrait lens for your 4x5 or 5x7 view camera.

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In 1911, the Spencer Lens Company produced the "Port-land" lens.  The name was to denote this lens was useful for both portrait and landscape work.  The shorter focal length models are f/4.5 in speed, while longer focal lengths are f/5.6.  The 1915 book, How To Choose and Use a Lens remarks, "The Spencer Port-Land is a single meniscus lens possessing a distinctive character of its own. It gives great softness without losing the drawing, and works nominally at about f/4.5, though few workers can utilize its image at any stop larger than about f/5.6, on account of its giving a number of overlapping images. Its softness is different from that of any other lens."

 

The March 1921, New Photo-Minature Magazine writes, "The Port-land Lens, F/4.5 (Spencer Lens Co.), is not offered as a general utility lens, being designed for portraiture and landscape work. It is a single achromatic combination of unusual rapidity, with a flat field, corrected for rectilinearity, and gives a diffused or well-defined image at will. This diffusion being most largely the result of spherical aberration, it is controlled by the use of the diaphragm, so that by stopping down the lens a sharp image is obtained. The degree or quality of the diffusion given at the largest aperture, however, is not excessive, giving soft lines and masses, luminous shadows and roundness of delineation without loss of form."

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 Super condition of this unique Spencer Port-Land soft focus lens for your large format camera mounted in Ilex #4 shutter with mounting flange. Sells with NO RESERVE at price of $1595. I have more Soft Focus Lenses, Voigtlander, Cooke, Kodak, Rodenstock, Wollensak Verito, Large Format cameras and Lenses, Vintage and Collectibles and Vintage Brass Lenses. More great buys on my other auctions, eBay Store and Web Page.