Enlarging lens?

[Joseph O'Neil]

" I have an older - maybe 40 or 50 years old Wollensak enlarging raptar, 162mm. Mint condition. Something about the "look" of that lens I like on my enlargements."

That was supposed to be a secret.

I guess I just lost my membership in the Super-Secret Wollensak Lens Lovers Society? Do I have to turn in my decoder ring too now?

Psst - don't tell anybody, but I use a sheet of glass for my 8x10 contact prints. If the Super-Secret society of glasses negative enlarging folks get a hold of that bit if info, I'll be tossed from there too.

[Martin Aislabie]

I was running some tests for evenness of MG Grade spacing when I noticed my old (1982 vintage) Enlarging Lens was giving quite a lot of unexpected flare.

I was projecting a Stouffer Step Wedge and noticed how much the darkest steps spread out across a sheet of 10x8 paper.

My newer Enlarging Lens produced much less flare.

There was no (to me - using a loupe) perceivable difference in sharpness between the two lenses.

But sharpness isn't the only story for Enlarging Lenses - you might want to think about checking yours for flare

I have retired my older Enlarging Lens to paper weight duty

Martin

[Drew Wiley]

I'd have to agree with the statement that if you're not using a glass carrier, then it's
futile to expect the enlarging lens to render a precise image. But that same can be said
for big or slow enlargements without a vacuum easel. You are only as good as your
weakest link.

[Mark Sawyer]

I once went to a former student's darkroom to help figure out why her prints weren't as sharp as her negatives. The problem turned out to be the 12" subwoofers...

[turtle]

When making large prints from 35mm, one of my lenses (63 Nikkor) produces amazing 16x12s at f4 - only a stop down - but at 20x16 I need to stop down to f5.6 to ensure the corners remain pin sharp. It could be that in this case, with 240mm being the shorter focal length for 8x10, that you needed another stop to generate better coverage at the edges.

Another user commented that the 240 Rodagon produced fractionally sharper 24x20 prints off 8x10 than the 300 Rodagon he had (tiny, nit picking difference) but on 40" prints, the 300mm lens was noticeably sharper, especially in the corners. Makes sense when you think about it (coverage).

I bought three enlarger lenses from B&H Photo about four years ago with the consent from B&H Photo I had eleven days to test them, and then I could return the two I did not like. The lenses were the EL Nikkor 210mm, Rodenstock 240mm, and the Schneider 240mm. I am not sure about the focal length of the latter two lenses. I bought the most expensive lenses B&H had at the time with any focal length greater then 210mm to cover both my 4x10 and 5x7 film.

All of the lenses were tack sharp in the middle of the image. All of the lenses produced excellent images up to 20x24. However, once I started to print images up to 40 inches in length such 30x40s, 16x40s, and 20x50s the edges started to soften for all the lenses. Both the Schneider and Rodenstock were so soft at the edges I could not tell what I was looking at with my 10x grain focuser. The Nikkor lens was soft, but I was still able to still see the grain. The difference between the Nikkor and the other two lenses was striking and significant. This was very surprising to me because my expectations were the German lenses would be the better glass. So I kept the Nikkor and returned the other two lenses.