Are there are significant differences between APO-Nikkor and APO EL-Nikkor lenses?

[Vick Ko]

Are there are significant differences between APO-Nikkor and APO EL-Nikkor lenses?

From a brief look in the internet, the APO-Nikkor is a process lens, and the APO EL-Nikkor is possibly the best enlarger lenses money can buy.

But, are the APO-Nikkors just as good as an enlarger lens?

It also looks like APO-Nikkors are dirt cheap (hundreds of $$) vs APO El-Nikkors in the thousands.

My local store has two APO Nikkors on their shelf right now, a 305mm and 480mm.

regards
Vick

[Drew Wiley]

The Apo Nikkors are common and are optically superb for both enlarging and view camera purposes, though they are in barrel without shutter, and are typically about a stop slower than either conventional enlarging lenses or the Apo El. The two lenses
you are describing would both be superb for 8x10 enlarging use, provided they are the more modern variety in good condition. Apo El's suitable for this film size would probably sell for at least 10K, if one ever came up for sale. They are really overkill, even for very high quality work. The more common 210 version is prized by people using scanning back cameras for critical copying of paintings etc. But in terms of color accuracy, sharpness, etc, the ordinary Apo Nikkors seem to
be superior to any enlarging lens per se. I like them for fussy things like dupes and internegs, as well as for b&w printing
where a large max aperture is not necessary. For large color prints I like more speed, so use a regular 360 El Nikkor with
8x10 film. I have a variety of them mounted on Sinar boards (which my enlarger accepts), so have from time to time peeped
thru them on the 8X10 camera - pretty incredible, but not as compact as my Fuji A's and C's already in shutter.

[Bob Salomon]

And then there were the S-Planar and the S-Ortho-Planar lenses. Like others from other companies the S-Ortho-Planar was used for blowback use with printed circuit board prototyping. The lower resolution S-Planar only resolved 360 lines per mm.

It would be very questionable if an enlarging lens from 45mm to 150mm can outperform an Apo-Rodagon-N enlarging lens other then, perhaps, the S-Ortho-Planar.

[Drew Wiley]

I'll never find out. I have had the opportunity to buy a couple of clean Apo El's at reasonable pricing. But realtive to format,
they're pretty darn heavy, and also have such high resolution that they pick up every little micro-idiosyncracy in negative
carrier glass, film surface etc - way more than just the dye cloud necessary to precision printmaking. Once in awhile even the
Apo Rogadon N is over the top, namely in very high-contrast situations (but I ain't sellin' mine!!). The Apo El series is still made for critical fixed-aperture industrial usage, and I suspect Mitutoyo buys some of these for machine optics.

[Paul Hoyt]

Enlarging lenses are optimized for projecting a flat negative to a flat piece of paper. Non enlarging lenses are optimized for taking a 3D subject and projecting that image onto a flat negative; at least that is what I have read. In one of Ansel Adams earliest basic photo series he discussed a time in the past when photographers used the taking lens to project the negative. I remember him saying this would help in the corner fall off of light by using the same lens. I assume he was referring to a time when lenses were not as well made as they are now; like before World War II.

Paul

[Bernice Loui]

Any lens that produces sharp images is flat field. Field curvature is due to under correction of an optic and flat field lenses make excellent images of 3D objects due to DOF inherent in a lens when it is stopped down. For properly corrected lenses, only entrant flat plane can be focused to the exit flat plane of the lens. Anything before or past this plane is apparent focus due to DOF and not where the true focus plan is.

APO Nikkors make excellent enlarging lenses. I use a 180mm f9 for 4x5 negatives. At one point there was a Goerz Magnar II, 150mm f4.5 (originally designed to enlarge 5x5 aero recon film to 10x10 aero recon fim) used as the 4x5 enlarging lens. It has higher definition than the APO Nikkor, it turns out to be point less as fiber based print paper cannot resolve or carry the increased amounts of information.

The lens used for enlarging 5x7 negatives is a 240mm f9 Goerz Red Artar which works extremely well as an enlarger lens. Consider what process lenses were designed for and what the enlarging process is, they are very much the same application as a process camera.

S-planar, S-Biogon, APO-EL Nikkor were designed for the semiconductor industry to produce mask. Yes, these are very high resolution lenses but they work best a light wave lengths a shorter than green light. Another optic sought by collectors is the UV Nikkor which was optimized for UV light in semiconductor mask production. The shorter light wavelength allows much higher resolution that would be possible if green or visible light was used.

There was a shop in town that did work for Lockheed making semiconductor photo mask. They would do Rubylith & tape -up that were 12 feet x 12 feet is size. This art work would be put on a process camera for reduction. The lens used was a 47 inch f12.5 Goerz Red Dot Artar on a very, very large process camera. The size reduced film was then further reduced to reduced to produce a semiconductor photo mask.


Bernice

[Drew Wiley]

Good ole AA was never much of a whizz about optics. He intelligently used what worked for him, but later in life was in fact
equipped with stuff in the dkrm which was way behind the times. Nikon is alive and well in true industrial optics, and these
kinds of Apo El spinoffs seem to get customized for specific applications, narrowed down to specific wavelenths of transmission at set distances. The Apo El most of us are referring to, however, was basically a super-corrected process lens.
I would have bought one if I actually thought it could make any difference in my prints. But what I want to do is get as much
of the image information itself on the print, not micro-artifacts like subtle Newton rings that wouldn't even show with a
conventional enlarging lens. There can be too much of a good thing when it comes to optical performance. And the far cheaper and smaller ordinary Apo Nikkors give super performance just one stop down. Yeah ... I know... someone will quote
how graphics lenses are spec'd at f/22 - but that's for halftone copy work, not enlarging!

[Bob Salomon]

"But what I want to do is get as much
of the image information itself on the print, not micro-artifacts like subtle Newton rings that wouldn't even show with a
conventional enlarging lens.

Since the AN surface of a glass carrier is supposed to be only on the base side of the film and you are focusing critically on the emulsion side of the film the Newton rings should not be apparent with any quality enlarging lens at any aperture that you would print at.

[Drew Wiley]

Nope Bob. At one point I was testing twenty different samples of AN glass from all over the world, and the net effect is a very complex interaction between the specific pattern of the glass, the contrast and angle of incidence of the light per enlgr
lens, the nature of the original (dye cloud vs various silver particles), all this assuming a very shallow optimized field. I also
tested various multicoated optical glasses for the carrier itself. The answer - nothing simple. It all depends. But for color work I generally use AN glass both above and below the film. No resolution loss. The point is to have the correct glass for
the specific application. Sadly, there aren't many choices left anymore.

[Bob Salomon]

Nope Bob. At one point I was testing twenty different samples of AN glass from all over the world, and the net effect is a very complex interaction between the specific pattern of the glass, the contrast and angle of incidence of the light per enlgr
lens, the nature of the original (dye cloud vs various silver particles), all this assuming a very shallow optimized field. I also
tested various multicoated optical glasses for the carrier itself. The answer - nothing simple. It all depends. But for color work I generally use AN glass both above and below the film. No resolution loss. The point is to have the correct glass for
the specific application. Sadly, there aren't many choices left anymore.

Since we are Gepe, who used more AN glass then any other photo company, we can tell you that AN glass is normally made two different ways.
Inexpensive AN glass has a sprayed on material to act as the AN agent.
Best AN glass is acid etched, this is what Gepe used.
And since Newton rings form when a smooth surface, like the base side of film, comes in contact with another smooth surface, like glass, there is no reason to put AN glass on the emulsion side of most films used for printing.
An exception to this was dupe film.

[Drew Wiley]

Well I do work with all kinds of complex registered dupes, internegs, and sometimes separation negs, sometimes inevitably emulsion-up. My contact frames also use AN glass of a superb thick type once made in Belgium. The best carrier glasses were
like those supplied by Durst and Omega which had a micro-ripple effect rather than a regular texture. Current focal point glass works fine except for high levels of magnification or contrast. Something like an Apo El lens might pick up not only
every bit of AN texture, but anything like an AN spray too. Tricky to diffuse it out. This was obvious a problem with something
like Ciba, which was inherently high contrast. just hope I never drop one of those rare pieces of glass!

[EdSawyer]

I think the apo el nikkor are likely the best enlarging lenses available. Not the the others aren't good too, but if you want the best, apo el nikkor is it. Get prepapred to pay dearly though, and that is if they can even be found, at all. I really want an apo el nikkor 210 but they are amazingly hard to come by.

[Sal Santamaura]

...APO Nikkors make excellent enlarging lenses. I use a 180mm f9 for 4x5 negatives...On the strength of Bernice's recommendation and similar ones by others, I'd been looking for a clean sample over the last couple of years. I recently determined to be the high bidder (and was) for one described as "180mm F9 MINT, BOXED-UN-FREAKING-USED!! Apo-Nikkor..A Delightful Dialyte!!" This was to be used on an LPL 4500II, so it would have required an extended lensboard for my planned 2X printing, but I was prepared for that. Unfortunately, although perhaps "unused," it was far from "mint." See attached photo of the rear element and numerous significant scratches that were immediately apparent in normal room light. Although the well-known seller refunded my purchase price plus shipping in both directions, it's disappointing that he's seen fit to re-list that lens with only the following small addition to his description taking a snide swipe at me:


...I failed to notice in my excitement of handling such a great lens that there are a few fine cleaning wisps on the rear element. They are invisible in room light and even in as close a view as the one you see above. The marks can only be seen with the use of a flashlight from the rear…if you plan to shoot flashlights then this isn't the lens for you. In actual use this lens will perform flawlessly."

[Drew Wiley]

Nice find. The 180 and 210 Apo Nikkor aren't very common. I once had a chance to buy a 210 Apo El reasonably, but really didn't need it, so... The cat's meow
would be a 360 Apo El. I wonder if even a dozen of them were ever made. The last one I saw sold for 11K. But I doubt anyone could see the difference in a print
between what this does and a regular 360 Apo Nikkor. Just one more stop of effective speed to optimize the focus; and the $10,800 difference for that extras stop just isn't worth it for me. So I supplemented this with a regular 360/5.6 El Nikkor for speed. Sure I can tell the difference under a grain magnifier in the corner of a 30X40 print, but it's pretty hard to detect it with the naked eye. So this is a case of damn good, damn gooder, and maybe damn goodest, but too expensive to prove the last example.

[Sal Santamaura]

Nice find...You must be very busy again today Drew. Read all of my post. It would have been a nice find if it were as described. Anyone who sees the re-listing is well advised to note that "cleaning wisps" is something of an understatement. :)

[Drew Wiley]

I did read the whole thing, Sal. Would I buy a lens in that condition? No. But you're lucky to have stumbled on that focal length at all. It's like discovering the
last living Ivory Billed Woopecker, even if it already has enough birdshot in it to make it fall out of the tree ten minutes later.

[Sal Santamaura]

...you're lucky to have stumbled on that focal length at all. It's like discovering the last living Ivory Billed Woopecker, even if it already has enough birdshot in it to make it fall out of the tree ten minutes later.As neither a birdwatcher nor a lens collector, I'm glad to have sent it back and recovered all my funds, if not the time expended. :)

No matter how many posts/threads appear here and elsewhere with claims that actual sandblasting is required before "any effect on an image can be seen," I'd never go to the trouble of mounting such a scratched sample and attempting to print with it. In the worst case, i.e. never finding another 180mm Apo Nikkor or determining that a 150mm Apo Rodagon N performs better, I'll happily continue using my 120mm Nikkor AM-ED for small enlargements.

[EdSawyer]

I saw that one on the bay. Seemed over-hyped from the get-go. Too bad that he is shady as a seller, he has had some nice stuff in the past. Thanks for posting about this!

I would not lose sleep over not having a 180/9 Nikkor. If you really want something in that length, try the Nikkor AM-ED 210. Or, the 150 Apo Rodagon N is a great choice also.

[Sal Santamaura]

...I would not lose sleep over not having a 180/9 Nikkor. If you really want something in that length, try the Nikkor AM-ED 210. Or, the 150 Apo Rodagon N...Even with a 180 Apo Nikkor I'd need to obtain some kind of lensboard extension to enable 2X. The Nikkor 210 AM-ED is way too long for my enlarger. A 150 Apo Rodagon N is my only other realistic improvement possibility using an LPL for 2X. For slightly smaller enlargements than 8x10, my 120 Nikkor AM-ED has sufficient coverage and offers unrivaled sharpness.