The Ross Xpress Wide Angle 100mm F4 lens is a remarkable piece of optical engineering with a rich history and notable features that distinguish it in photography, particularly wide-angle lens design.
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Historical Context and Design
The Ross Xpress Wide Angle 100mm F4, introduced by the British manufacturer Ross, belongs to a lineage of lenses that have been highly respected for their optical quality. This lens model, in particular, is a rare civilian version, which is somewhat of a collector’s item due to its scarcity compared to the more common military versions. Its design offers a significant wide-angle view with a substantial image circle, making it suitable for capturing expansive landscapes or architectural scenes.
Optical Qualities and Performance
One of the most impressive attributes of the Ross Xpress 100mm F4 is its large aperture of F4, which is quite substantial for a wide-angle lens. This wide aperture allows more light to enter, making the lens suitable for lower light conditions and providing a shallower depth of field compared to narrower apertures. The lens construction is designed to minimize optical distortions, which is crucial for wide-angle photography where edge sharpness and maintaining linear qualities across the frame are important.
Physical Characteristics
The lens is noted for its compactness and robust build, with a metal housing that exhibits minimal wear even in older specimens. It is designed to be durable yet remains light enough for practical use in field photography. Its physical dimensions and weight make it manageable for photographers who value mobility and ease of use.
Unique Features
Apart from its optical performance, the Ross Xpress 100mm F4 is distinctive for its ability to stop down to F32, offering extensive flexibility in depth of field control and exposure settings. This feature is particularly beneficial for photographers who engage in technical shots requiring precise focus across various planes within the scene.
Collectibility and Usage
As a piece from a private collection and being approximately 100 years old, the Ross Xpress 100mm F4 not only serves as a functional photographic tool but also as a historical artifact, representing a century of optical design evolution. Its age and rarity contribute to its value among collectors and photographic historians alike.
This lens is a testament to the enduring quality and innovative design of Ross lenses, renowned for their clarity, build quality, and the ability to meet the demands of both past and contemporary photographers.
The Ross lenses are very well-known and respected. The Ross Cabinet portrait Petzvals are among the finest optics ever made. This specimen is not a portrait lens but is still very fascinating, or maybe even more so because of that. There is little to no info on the Ross Wide Angle Xpress line on the net.
The most impressive aspect of this lens is its wide-angle design (which offers a very large image circle compared to its focal length and F4 starting aperture! There are plenty of wide-angle lenses out there, but I don’t know any that have this combination.
This is the 4″ (or 100mm) civilian version, which is pretty rare, compared to the more common 5″ military version.
Condition: The best part about this specimen is that its the civil version, mostly you will find the larger black version. The civol version is more compact and offers a better aperture, which can be stopped all the way down to F32.
The metal housing looks very good, there is minimal to no wear at all. The glass is a good condition mostly, showing some scuffs/marks, which wont affect the image quality. There is no haze or fungus.
