Schneider 58XL vs. Rodenstock Apo Grandagon 55?

[Julio Fernandez]

Bob: Your Rodenstock lens cap weighs "5.6699046 g." in a postal scale. WOW! Your scale weighs to SEVEN DECIMAL places such as used in few analytical labs for supercritical applications, ....for the mail room? really? If instead the seven decimals result from converting ounces to grams, it is bad technical practice to write all that the calculator can calculate, because it is misleading. OK you beat me, my Swiss Mettler laboratory scale weighs only to 2 decimal places. Be that as it may, this only proves that there is yet a third type of Rodenstock cap or that they are not made to consistent standards. The discrepancy can be settled easily by me sending you my Rodenstock cap. You can weigh it and feel it, provided that if I am right, you will give me a good and solid Rodenstock cap. I do not know how you can do that, they don't really exist, do they? . Bob, from a long experience in quality matters I can tell you it is bad business to judge product quality according to complaints received or not received. A good number of users do not complain, they just change manufacturers. Others do not understand the cause of the failure or do not know who to complain to, others yet don;t want to bother; probably the same that do not return rebate stickers for real money! Manufacturers that do CARE about Quality make the best product they can that the market can tolerate. Another 8 cents to the selling price of a lens would not make Rodenstock lenses uncompetitive. Makes you wonder, if a manufacturer is willing to risk damage to the customer's lens for the sake of 1.3 cents, (factory cost), how far will it go when tempted by 25 cents pocketable money that the customer may be less likely to notice that an up front lens cap? Bob, this can not a be a complaint to you personally because I am in Canada, but I have no doubt that if I went to the Canadian distributor I'd get pretty much the same answer as you have provided. Just curious, have you told Rodenstock about the complaints you are having about the caps? PS: I just weighed a NO NAME cap, 60mm. It weighed 8.34 grams. It is much much more solid than Rodenstock's and will remain on the Rodenstock lens from now on.

[Bob Salomon]

"Bob, this can not a be a complaint to you personally because I am in Canada, but I have no doubt that if I went to the Canadian distributor"

Feel free, ask for Mike at Kinderman. 905 940-9292

[Rod Klukas]

We tested the 58mm xl against the 55mm grandagon. The test was on a tall gray bldg with black glass windows inset with the lower sill fluted or grooved so it appeared like shark teeth. The image was deliberately vignetted so one corner would be in the center of the image and the diagonal would be black(vignetted). The exposures were shot at f16. Here are the results:

From center the image was a slight bit flatter(more even) with the Schneider for the first inch outward when read with the densitometer. (no center filters were used), but from there on the Schneider fell of f radically until it came to its penumbra which was 3/8" wide. The Rodenstock was far more even with less fall-off after the 1st inch and its penumbra was only 3/16". The Rodenstock seems to be somewhat better although if you need movement a center filter would still probably be best for either. In terms of sharpness when viewed with an 8x loupe the 'sharks teeth' of the window sills were markedly better rendered by the Rodenstock than the Schneider. So you decide...

By the way I always recommend the 82mm filter size with an 85mm kaiser cap and leave the brass Heliopan ring on all the lenses where needed with this cap. The 82mm filter will cover more than 98% of all lenses with the exception of the polarizer and therefore saves you bulk and money while protecting your lenses as well. Rod

[Tom Westbrook]

Does anyone know if the Schneider IIIb center filter works on the APO-Grandagon 55mm? I already own the IIIb and would prefer not to shell out umpteen bucks for another, similar CF. The IIIb is the recommended filter for the Schneider 58mm lens.

The Schneider filter has a filter factor of 3x or 1.5 stops and the recommended Rodenstock filter shows a fitler factor of 4x or 1.5 stops (not sure why the factor and stops are out of synch). That's according to Schneider and Rodenstock product literature. The thread sizes are the same. Other than that I don't have a clue what differences there may be.

Thanks for the help.

[e]

My 355 Schneider G claron has ridiculously flimsy lens caps too. I could press them in with a finger to touch the front element... no problem. My Nikon 450 mm caps are GREAT! Very sturdy and hold their shape. It is insane to have these unforgivably cheap caps on these great German lenses. Why be defensive Bob? Just help solve the problem instead of living in denial. And if there are no problems with these caps why is Grimes co. making them and people here on the forum spending a lot of $$$ to replace the originals?

[Arne Croell]

I have used the Schneider IIIb center filter on the Grandagon 55mm and it worked fine. I got it for a 75mm Grandagon originally, 12 years ago, but in the meantime it has also worked on an 80mm (used occasionally with the filter) an a 110mm Super Symmar (used rarly with the filter though). It may not be the _theoretical_ optimum for all of these lenses, but it is close enough to work nicely in practice.