Solinar
8.5 cm f/4.5 Solinar with front-element focusing on an Isolette image by Marco Polimeni (Image rights) |
The Solinar is a copy of the Carl Zeiss Tessar, made by Agfa; that is, a lens of four elements, arranged as a modified triplet, with the rear element replaced by a cemented pair. It is essentially the same lens that Agfa inherited as the Solinear upon taking over Rietzschel in 1925. The Solinar was offered as the high-specification lens option on Agfa cameras, especially folders, for many years.
In principle, it is capable of better performance than Agfa's simple triplet lenses (the mid-price Apotar and cheaper Agnar), especially at wide aperture.
On older folding cameras (up to the 1950s) the Solinar is almost always an f/4.5; f/3.5 Solinars are found on later examples of some of the Isolette models, and (as the Color-Solinar) f/2.8 versions were fitted to later 35 mm cameras.
Solinar lenses can be found on some versions of the Silette and Solinette.