Bausch and Lomb Baltar Questions!

[Stuart Hooper]

I've been helping a friend clean and organize decades worth of filmmaking stuff and among other gems like Moy and Bestie 1909s and such we came across this set of Baltars. There is a 25, 35, 50 and 75 (roughly pictured) as well as some longer lenses of a different brand. They're all F2.3, not T2.3 which I think means they are original Baltars, not super Baltars.

I think they are BNC mount then, from the reading I've done. And apparently there are no BNC adapters but there are BNCR adapters? I was looking at this one for L Mount https://c7adapters.com/en/product/bncr_-_leica_sl/113 but apparently they have them for PL mount and there is a Red BNCR mount, etc. BNCR is supposed to be the same, but the question is if some of the lenses might protrude too far behind the rear of the adapter and not work. If not, the only solution seems to be rehousing, which might be worth it, but I think first it'd be fun to clean them up and shoot with an adapter.

So what I'm wondering is...has anyone played with the originals on a BNCR adapter? Can anyone confirm these are BNC mount in the first place? Do we think a few might work on the adapter? And either way, any recommendations for rehousing? (I'm imagining a long, expensive process which might be hard to sell my buddy on).

 

[Ignacio Aguilar]

Original Baltars are indeed in BNC mount, which is not the same as the BNCR mount. Though the lenses may fit it, they'll protude too deep and may hit your sensor. So, short answer, the only way is a very expensive and time consuming rehousing by Zero Optik. Check out what they did for Edward Lachman for the film "EL CONDE", which has open recently.

 

[Stuart Hooper]

Thank you! I reached out to them and they seem nice. More than the price, the 2.5 year wait time is kind of crazy. I'm curious to maybe grab an adapter and see if they don't all protrude too far to start, but we'll see.

 

[Zack Birlew]

Yeah I heard about these not too long ago myself and rehousing seems to be the best long term bet if you have the funds to do so. If nothing else the ease of maintenance and the value itself goes way up! For a BNC adapter, the first place I would look would be on eBay at Rafcamera and other usual places that pop up in the same searches.