Rodenstock Sinaron SE 150 soft results

**1erCru** · 10-Jul-2017, 11:11

I picked up one of these and was pretty excited. I took a few shots last night in the studio and developed. The scans this morning were really soft. The object I shot was pretty close, 3.5 feet.

The same shots from my Schneider APO 210 were beautiful from about 7-8 feet. Was shooting Tmax 100 and HP5 @200.

I'm a bit perplexed. Is there a distance where this lens should attain its reputable sharpness? Maybe there's an alignment issue? The ground glass image looked great under loupe. I'll keep shooting. Any advice troubleshooting this would be appreciated.

**Bob Salomon** · 10-Jul-2017, 11:16

It is corrected for normal shooting distances at f22. It is not. Macro lens.

**Pere Casals** · 10-Jul-2017, 11:27

Test the lens for with a distant object at f/16 and f/22, to see if the lens has a problem.

The Sinaron SE is Sironar-S, so it is optimized for magnifications from 1:10 to infinite.

To check GG to film plane matching just place a ruler on a table, and take a shot with some 20º inclination angle, remember what number of the ruler was in focus in GG...

**Arne Croell** · 10-Jul-2017, 16:36

At 3.5 feet from object to lens, your magnification was about 1:6. As Pere and Bob mentioned, it is not a macro lens, although 1:6 stopped down should still be reasonable. Try again with something at 1:20 - about 10ft 4" from object to lens.

**1erCru** · 10-Jul-2017, 18:34

So what you're saying is this isn't the best studio lens. 10 feet is about twice as far away as would be useful at this focal length unless I start making 8 foot tall sculptures. As you can probably tell I am new to this , would stopping down to f32 enable closer shooting
Or am I really hamstrung by the 1:10.

I'll keep testing regardless

Edit : I misread some of the posted advice. There might be hope!..

**karl french** · 10-Jul-2017, 19:53

Something is wrong. Even that close it should produce very nice results.

**1erCru** · 10-Jul-2017, 19:56

Well I have 28 days to return it. Will shoot a bunch of junk and find the answer

**karl french** · 10-Jul-2017, 20:30

Here is a shot from something like 3 feet. Testing the 240 Sinaron SE. Likely f8 or f11. Note how sharp her left eye and eye brows are. Nothing wrong with this lens up close.

**Arne Croell** · 10-Jul-2017, 20:31

One thing to consider: Is the lens in an original shutter? Many Sinaron lenses came in the Sinar barrel mount, with the Sinar shutter mounted behind the lens. It might have been remounted into a regular shutter, which is not a problem in itself. However, Apo-Sironars and other Rodenstock lenses of the time often had shims between the front cell and the shutter to adjust for small manufacturing variations and optimize performance. I assume the Sinaron versions were similar. If such shims were present and did not get transferred to the new shutter...

**karl french** · 10-Jul-2017, 20:40

Even so, I think that would only produce minor variations in terms of lens performance.

Something happened. Camera moved, focus was not locked down, shot wide open (forgot to stop down after focusing.)