P3D Re: Realist models & a short history

[Tom Martin <tlmartin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I would like to tag on to Dr. T's description of the f3.5 Realist's
lenses by adding that there are actually two more lens manufacturers
that were used on the f3.5 than he listed.

Just to confirm, the first lenses that Realist used were the Illex
Paragons (that is what was used in the prototypes and the early
production models).

When stereo's heyday arrived in the early 1950's, Realist switched to
American Optical as their supplier, and used their own name as the
identifier. However, they couldn't keep up production so "Simpson"
lenses were also used under the David White moniker. Ron Zakowski said
that he was in the process of writing an article for Stereo World on how
to identify the two lenses, but I got a feeling that it was rather
technical article and a casual user would not be able to distinguish
between the two just by looking at them.

The fourth lenses that Realist put into the f3.5's were "German" made
lenses. I have not seen any of these, but Ron said that were periods of
production when Realist just could not find enough lenses for their
f3.5's, so they imported some from Germany. These are marked "Germany"
or "Made in Germany" on the bezel.

If anyone has one of these f3.5 German models I would like to hear
comments on their quality. 

Tom Martin
mailto:tlmartin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx


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