History: L.W. Kranz was one of the earliest provider of photographic and optical instruments. There are documents from the early 1850ies that speak highly of his skills as camera and lens manufacturer. This is no surprise since he honed his skills as one of the leading workers in Voigtländers workshop before starting his own. The lens features a quite low serial number of: 5.625. There is no source of serial numbers from Kranz, but it is safe to say that this is an early one, very likely from the 1860ies.

Condition: This masterpiece of optical engineering still impresses one today. The brass is very nice here, there is some wear and it shows its authentic golden patina. The glass is a great condition also, beeing clear and showing only the occasional cleaning marks and tiny specs.

The lens offers a 90° angle and thus a very large image circle, making it one of the very few ultra large wide angle lenses that remained.

Lens comes with a rotating aperture, which works fine. With its 90° imaging angle it has an image circle of about 400mm wide open, which is enaugh to cover 8x10 and maybe even the 12x12 format.

The lens comes with the original flange.



height: 4cm
width: 5.5cm
weight: 400gr

Insured and tracked shipping cost:

Germany - 10 eur
EU* - 20 eur
Worldwide - 60 eur

*(the site offers only 2 shipping variations, DE and worldwide. buyers from EU please either contact me beforehand for a reduced EU cost, or after buying so i can send a refund over the difference)

Importent Note: This item comes from my private collection and is around 100 years old (antique). I try my best to describe all the faults and major damage which are relevant for the function of this item. But the actuall item can show signs of wear and also some cosmetic blemishes/damage which is not described in the auction text! When buying this item the buyer agrees to this terms.