300mm APO Sironar-N versus 300mm Sironar-S

[Donald Hutton]

Thanks Bob

Your literature (I was hoping you'd send a scan of some film, not a scan of a printed brochure) is quite clear on the subject: "The comparison of the two lenses shows a similar resolution and contrast in the area of the image circle". That's exactly what I found and suggested in my initial response to this posting.

The example is a 3.3X enlargement. It does go on to point out that at the edges of the image circle the "S" starts to perform quite a bit better. Most importantly, it's still not a direct comparison of two prints at 2.5X enlargement...

[Bob Salomon]

It also states " The imaging quality of the Apo Sironar S is equally high over the whole image circle.

It also states "A finer gradation of the colors can be noted.... The color saturation is slightly higher..the spatial depth and the plastic effect of the image looks more realistic with the Apo Sironar S... Total vignetting occurs much earlier with the older lens" (the N).

And yes it is not at 2.5X we don't have that specific magnification. But then can the OP be sure that he will never deviate from that magnification?

[Bob Salomon]

Brian I can email them.

[Donald Hutton]

Bob

As usual you're off on your own - you are ignoring the issue and the point of the thread: you will not be able to discern the difference between 2 prints; one shot with an "S" and one shot with the equivalent "N" at 2.5X magnification. VERY IMPORTANT: PRINTS!!!

[Donald Hutton]

I have just taken a pair of Polaroid type 55 negatives I shot with the two lenses when I did my tests (I did not want to chop up my original TMax negatives), chopped out a central section to fit on my Minolta medium format scanner and scanned them at 3200DPI. Please ignore any difference in contrast. On my original Tmax negatives there is almost no difference in contrast - this difference here can be attributed to a whole lot of reasons - the most likely is development times for the type 55 negative were probably not identical. In any case, this is quite moot - when printing, you would simply adjust the contrast to suit each particular negative.

To view, download the images onto you computer (don't try and view them on Pbase and make an objective decision - the magnification ratios will be all wrong) - right click and save them. Then open and view them at 100% on you computer, while attempting to ignore the contrast difference. You will observe that at a 5.4X magnification, there is just about nothing to choose between them. At 32X, it's all pretty clear. At 2.5X forget about telling them apart.

http://www.pbase.com/donaldh/inbox

[Brian Vuillemenot]

Hi Bob,

You can e-mail that info to me at: cleowolfe@yahoo.com

Thanks!

[Armin Seeholzer]

Hi J.P.

Look on Paul Butzi's webside and make your own conclusions:
http://www.butzi.net/rodenstock/apo-sironar-s/300mm.htm
Of course the corners are better on the S but I think it will be not anymore a point at f 32 and 45 where the limiting factor of the diffraction will be.

[J. P. Mose]

Don: I looked over your pictures and can't even detect a difference at a high magnification. I also looked at Paul Butzi's website and can see more difference between a 300m and 360mm Sironar comparision (the 360mm being better on the MTF charts) than the two 300mm Sironars.

Symmar convertible, Symmar S, Commercial Ektar, Sironar, Nikkor, etc. They are all good! For 810 format, do image quality comparisions even matter?

I think Don nail it on the head in his first posting!

[J. P. Mose]

Well I ended up with a used APO Symmar 360mm (a big beast). From the MTF charts, the APO Symmar seems to be up to the standards of the 360mm Sironar-S or -N. I doubt I would ever see the difference anyway. I am more concerned about film flatness. I wonder how double sided tape would work if it was placed in the middle of the holder against the backside of the film? I may have to try this and see if it works!

Thanks for all of your inputs.