Rodagon Brothers

[Dr Klaus Schmitt]

A buddy of mine and avid lens collector once mentioned the credo of all collectors: "everything comes to him, who can wait long enough...". Well, I must have waited long enough, since after some years, the brothers finally found each other..

http://www.macrolenses.de/bilder/UV-Rodagon%20Set%20(1)_wp_b.jpg

http://www.macrolenses.de/bilder/UV-Rodagon%20Set%20(2)_wp_b.jpg

Of course I had to test them, although the 60mm and 105mm have never been used before, MINT in makers box. About 25 or so have ever been made of these I was told decades ago.

These were made once to transmit from about 300nm (UV-A) to the visible range and are color corrected from 350-546nm (no focus shift).

I use them as taking lenses for my UV photography.

Hardly anyones knows about their existence...

[domaz]

Does this mean they could be used for enlarging with alt process? Given a strong enough UV light source.

[Dr Klaus Schmitt]

Yep, the were made for that years ago (UV sensitive paper).

[ic-racer]

I remember you had a thread on quartz lenses a while back. How do these compare to quarts (or did you ever find a quartz lens?).

[Dr Klaus Schmitt]

These cover the UV-A range very well I use for my flower + insect vision studies and have the advantage to be fully color corrected (UV focus = visual focus).

Quartz lenses reach much deeper into UV (up to UV-C, to about 200nm), but are not color corrected and show massive focus shift - not easy to work with.

[Ernest Purdum]

Good news! I'm happy to hear it.

[Dr Klaus Schmitt]

Thanks Ernest, I'm happy too, that I finally found them!!
Important for my work...

btw. some of that may soon be seen on Discovery Channel (USA) / BBC1 (Europe); more here:
http://photographyoftheinvisibleworld.blogspot.com/2010/02/bbc1-announced-richard-hammonds.html