Grandagon-N 90/6.8 green band or not?

[Witold Grabiec]

Can anyone shed some light on the green band that can be found on the lens barrel of the Grandagon-N 90/6.8?

What's the significance of it? Is it a marketing trick, or it does say something about the lens' coatings and/or construction? Thanks

[Jim Rice]

As far as I know it just signifies a later production lens. Bod Solomon will probably chime in with the definative answer. I have a non-green banded one, and it is a fine lens.

[Glenn Kroeger]

Marketing! The last optical change was the addition of the -N, but that preceeded the green band by many years.

[Oren Grad]

In the major Rodenstock lens types produced over the last decade or so, each is assigned a specific color shown by the colored band on the lens. Apo-Sironar-N is silver, Apo-Sironar-S is red, Apo-Sironar-W is yellow, and Grandagon-N is green. Apo-Grandagon is green also, possibly a lighter shade. I think Apo-Sironar-Digital is pink.

So far as I know, it's just a way of establishing a consistent brand identity.

[Bob Salomon]

"So far as I know, it's just a way of establishing a consistent brand identity."

1: It identifies the latest lenses.
2: Each lens type has a colored ring. When looking at a Rodenstock lens chart the specs are grouped by colors to make finding the specs on a lens easier.
3: When looking at a Rodenstock lens coverage chart or poster the circles for each lens type are in the colors of the band on the lens. Making it very easy to find the circle of illumination of a specific lens - say the 180 Apo Sironar S as compared to the 180 Apo Sironar N as compared toa 180mm Apo Macro Sironar as compared to a Apo Sironar Digital..
Since each lens type has its own color you are not looking at a chart covered by 30 black lines on a white paper. You see lines of different colors each referring to a specific lens type.

Yes this is a narketing move to simplify the difference in the lenses for the user the dealer and the company.

[Oren Grad]

I should have done my homework before writing.

I dug out from my literature collection a copy of the large brochure "Rodenstock Lenses for Large Format Cameras" dated 9/93. It's very nice - the color-coding is maintained consistently across the text blurbs, the tables and the image circle chart - silver/gray for Apo-Sironar-N, red for Apo-Sironar-S, yellow for Apo-Sironar-W, orange for Macro-Sironar-N, green for Grandagon-N and blue for Apo-Ronar. It's been so long since I last saw a Rodenstock brochure printed in color that I completely forgot how well th0ught through the system is.

That was a great brochure - I hope Linos can resurrect it with appropriate updates to reflect the current lineup.

[Bob Salomon]

" I hope Linos can resurrect it with appropriate updates to reflect the current lineup."

There are but as the only addition is the 100mm S the brochures are essentially the same.