65mm/8.0 Ilex Acugon

I haven't found much info on this lens, 65mm f8 Ilex Acugon. Does anyone have experience using it? I'm assuming it's single coated. How does it compare to the 65mm f8 SA?

I keep leaning towards a 65mm instead of a 75mm. I have a 90mm f8 SA. I feel the 75mm might be to close to the 90mm. When I shot a lot of 35mm, I used my 20-35 zoom mustly at the 20-24mm range. I'm definitely a landscape shooter, and most definitely B&W. Is it logical for me to go to a 65mm instead of the 75mm? Price is always a consideration, that's why I'm looking at the f8 lenses.

There is a lot of knowledge here and I appreciate all the info I receive.

Brian in Albuquerque

Brian, I have what I believe is a 65/8 Acugon and shoot it on a 2x3 Pacemaker Speed Graphic. Wonderful lens. Single coated.

If you look around a little harder, you'll find that claimed coverage is 153 mm, also that the Acugons (47/8, 65/8, 90/8) are very competitive with f/8 Super Angulons.

Can't advise you on choice of focal length. FWIW, I tend to shoot relatively wider on 2x3 than on 35 mm.

Cheers,

Dan

Oh, yeah. I bought mine as an unbranded mystery lens in an OptoDynetics electric shutter, then got a Compur 00 for it. The shutter needed a little machining to get correct cell spacing, so I sent everything to Steve Grimes. He told me that the lens had been made by Ilex and that Ilex and OptoDynetics had had a very close relationship.

Dan

Thanks for the response. I'm guessing few people have this lens. What I've found out, few people have spoken unkindly about it. I'll have to see what price it goes for. I'm definitely decided to stick with looking for a 65mm. I'm one of those people who can't seem to get too wide.

I own the Schneider superangulon 65/8. It's a tremendously fun focal length and I'm impressed with the sharpness at the apertures I use for landscape. The problem is, light falloff in the corners is too great to shoot slide film (fine with me, I mostly use color neg + digital scanning / printing) and any filters screwed in cause optical obstruction in the corners.

I'm going to figure out a way to use a larger filter diameter on the lens as I do a lot with polarizers and vegetation.

Not sure if these same issues will affect your ilex, but it seems likely they might.