Apo Symmars and the competition?

[Willie]

Are Apo Symmar lenses really Apochromatic lenses? From looking at the 300 5.6 offering it does not look much different from the normal 300 5.6 symmar.

Am looking for a good 300 5.6 for the 8x10. Need the brighter aperture to help with focusing.

Any real difference in the major offerings from Fuji, Nikon, Rodenstock and Schneider? I like the idea of the apo lens but am open at this point to what will give me sharp images with good contrast.

[Dan Fromm]

No. Bob Salomon will tell you that the lens conforms to a DIN norm that's impossible to find and that seems to have been withdrawn. Good lens, but the Apo- prefix is marketing fluff.

Not much. Many people here believe that there are subtle differences, usually agree that they all work well.

[Oren Grad]

As Dan says, the "Apo" label on late-model plasmats provides no useful information.

Assuming that the particular sample hasn't been abused in a way that severely affects the glass or its alignment, all of them will give you "sharp images with good contrast" at the middling-to-small apertures and middling to long distances, with pictures intended for contact printing or moderate enlargement, that are typical uses for such a lens. Under extreme conditions - close-range work, large apertures, extreme enlargements - differences can sometimes be seen. Also, for applications requiring extreme movement, some offer a larger image circle. However, usually you need to pay a very large premium for that.

There are sometimes subtle differences in the way they render out-of-focus foregrounds and backgrounds. These do not matter for most users, and even among users who perceive such differences, there is disagreement about which rendering is preferred. If you have not seen such differences for yourself and arrived at your own opinion about them, the most sane thing to do in buying a lens is to not worry about them.

Buy any of these lenses in good condition at a price you can afford, and start making pictures. With experience it will become clear to you whether you have any needs that aren't being met by the lens you own. There's a fair chance the answer will be "no", but if not, you will have figured out for yourself exactly what else you need to look for.

[vinny]

Rodenstock sironar-s. Take out a loan.

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

to a DIN norm that's impossible to find

Hi Dan!

Here is a list of references to those now legendary (but obsolete and withdrawn as of 1991-01-01) German standards DIN 19040; Blatt fünf is relevant to the modern German definition of "APO" we are discussing.

Suffice to say that I do not own this document, and even if I had it, I would, natürlich, never dare to infringe severe German copyright laws to help friends here


However, the standard was introduced in April, 1979, and I'm convinced that pre-existing lenses designed before before 1979 and already compliant with the new standard, became instantaneously "apo" according to DIN 19040-5.

A careful analysis of German lens catalogues at the end of the 1970's and the beginning of the 1980's should easily allow to correlate the change in lens names with the date of April 1979.

-----------------------------------------------

DIN 19040 Beiblatt 1, Ausgabedatum: 1979-04
Begriffe der Photographie; Übersicht, Alphabetisches Verzeichnis

DIN 19040-2, Ausgabedatum: 1979-04
Begriffe der Photographie; Allgemeine technische Begriffe für photographische Verfahren und Techniken

DIN 19040-3, Ausgabedatum: 1979-04
Begriffe der Photographie; Allgemeine technische Begriffe für photographische Aufnahmegeräte und Zubehör

DIN 19040-4, Ausgabedatum: 1979-04
Begriffe der Photographie; Allgemeine technische Begriffe für photographische Materialien und ihre Eigenschaften

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apo stuff is here

DIN 19040-5, Ausgabedatum: 1979-04
Begriffe der Photographie; Allgemeine optische Begriffe in der Photographie

And this DIN 19040-5 standard is referenced here, but probably no longer available for purchase (???)

http://www.beuth.de/en/standard/din-19040-5/1724678

======================================================================


DIN 19040-6, Ausgabedatum: 1979-04
Begriffe der Photographie; Allgemeine technische Begriffe für Labor- und Dunkelkammereinrichtungen

DIN 19040-7, Ausgabedatum: 1979-04
Begriffe der Photographie; Allgemeine technische Begriffe der photographischen Beleuchtungstechnik

DIN 19040-8, Ausgabedatum: 1979-04
Begriffe der Photographie; Allgemeine technische Begriffe für Stereoskopie (Raumbildwesen)

DIN 19040-9, Ausgabedatum: 1979-04
Begriffe der Photographie; Allgemeine Begriffe in der Blitzlichttechnik

DIN 19040-10, Ausgabedatum: 1979-04
Begriffe der Photographie; Allgemeine technische Begriffe der Stehbildprojektion (Stehbildwurf)

DIN 19040-12, Ausgabedatum: 1979-04
Begriffe der Photographie; Allgemeine Begriffe der Sensitometrie


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And this other standard, withdrawn as of 1985-05-01
DIN 19040-109 Ausgabedatum: 1.5.1985
Begriffe der Photographie; Optische Systeme.

[8x10 user]

E.D. glass is good

[8x10 user]

All of my Nikon lenses show'ed lateral chromatic aberration, including the Micro Nikkor VR. I moved to a multishot MFD back with the Digital version of Rodenstocks Apo lenses. I have never seen color fringing again.

[Drew Wiley]

More a marketing tweak. There was apparently a slight improvement in sharpness and contrast over the previous Symmar S line. But the change in glass formulation was also mandated by the ban of radioactive glass in the EU. I think of "apo" more in terms of true graphics lenses and their spin-offs. But for general photography, most later (or now, "last") generation view camera lenses from all the "big four" have become so acute that it's a moot question, just a technicality in practical terms. But that doesn't qualify them as necessarily apo in the traditional sense of being capable of precise color separation work, where each color was rendered in exactly the same shape and position over the whole specified field. And sometimes the older Symmar S had a bit more pleasing look for certain subjects. Being "hard sharp" is not always the prime criterion.

[Drew Wiley]

Digital backs compound certain issues in this discussion, particularly color fringing issues, which aren't necessarily the fault of the lens, but might mandate a different design or focal length. So one does need to differentiate between applications, esp film vs digi capture.

[Bob Salomon]

I actually read the standard way back when and if I recall correctly, it basically said that apochromatic simply equates to exceptionally good chromatic abberation correction. The standard no longer required that three colors be brought to the same focus for a lens to be designated as apochromatic. This actually makes perfectly good sense, because using modern optical glass, the secondary spectrum of lenses corrected for only two colors can be so small as to be equal to or even less than that of lenses corrected to bring three colors to the same focus as required by the old definition. Schneider seems to think that Apo Symmars have improved chromatic correction over the Symmar-S, but I think it is mostly at the edges of the image circle. I think most people would think that is a good thing.

It is that the lateral chromatic abberations of the secondary spectrum have been reduced to a very small percentage of the focal length.

Rodenstock and Schneider both used this definition. This would mean no color fringing and in B&W finer lines of high contrast objects thanks to the lack of color fringing. Especially towards the edges of the field.

For microscophy and process work the Abbe definition is used instead which stated that the three primary colors were corrected to come to focus at the same point.