Now that we are finally settled in our new home, we seem to have an extraordinary amount of time on our hands as a result of the current health crisis. We have been using this time to go through the many boxes of lenses that we have brought into inventory and not yet had time to service. One of the most popular series of lenses in our collection is the Bausch & Lomb Baltar lens, introduced around 1940. The Baltar lens was designed by Dr. Wilbur B. Rayton, long-time head of the Scientific Bureau of Basuch & Lomb. These lenses solved many of the problems cinematographers had complained about for years. The Baltar formula paid special attention to resolving flare, coma, astigmatism, spherical aberration, and curvilinear distortion. This new formula presented a flat field that worked equally well for black and white or color photography. The Baltar series of lenses quickly became one of the most popular in the motion picture industry. Pictured here are a very small selection of Baltar lenses in Mitchell Standard and BNC mounts.
