View Full Version : Can I put a camera lens on my enlarger
prince_mallow
5-Oct-2011, 15:07
Sorry if this question has been asked before, I tried to use the search feature but I am getting a php error.
I want to put some old minolta lenses on my Omega that I bought. The Omega didn't come with any lenses which is unfortunate and I haven't touched it since I bought it a year ago. So now I want to get back into the mix and I thought I could just easily make a new plate that would be ajusted for my lenses and then I realized that the enlargers I am used to working with, their lenses don't have a focusing ring.
So if I can use a camera lens on an enlarger what is the focus that I set on the lens? I am assuming that I should set it to infinity.
Thanks for your friendly advice ^_^
Brian C. Miller
5-Oct-2011, 15:30
Hi, and welcome to the forum!
The lens from a 35mm camera would not work at all for enlarging a large format negative. Also, proper enlarging lenses are very cheap. You should be able to get something useful, if not top-of-the-line, for less than $50.
Sorry if this question has been asked before, I tried to use the search feature but I am getting a php error.
I want to put some old minolta lenses on my Omega that I bought. The Omega didn't come with any lenses which is unfortunate and I haven't touched it since I bought it a year ago. So now I want to get back into the mix and I thought I could just easily make a new plate that would be ajusted for my lenses and then I realized that the enlargers I am used to working with, their lenses don't have a focusing ring.
So if I can use a camera lens on an enlarger what is the focus that I set on the lens? I am assuming that I should set it to infinity.
Thanks for your friendly advice ^_^
The image circle for old 35mm camera lenses will only be adequate for 35mm film. If you use, say, a 150mm lens from your Minolta, it will focus at the same distance and provide as much magnification as a 150mm enlarger lens (differences in barrel excepted), but you'll only see about a 2" circle out of the center of the film enlarged.
But if you are enlarging 35mm, and doing it a fair bit--say 10x-15x or bigger, then the lens ought to perform reasonable well if it was decent on the camera. It might not do as well at 1:1 or 1:2, but that would be such a small print that it would still probably look good. The setting on the focus ring of the lens doesn't matter--for old lenses without moving elements or internal focusing it does the same thing as the focuser on the enlarger.
If you need a 4x5 enlarging lens and don't have the money for a decent one, buy a Graphic press camera with a 135mm Optar or something like that, and then sell the camera. Or get one of those Rodenstock Ysarex lenses from an old Polaroid. These won't be perfect by any means, but they'll do pretty well for something that might only cost you $50 or so. That's assuming you can't find a cheapie enlarging lens for that price.
Rick "whose teenage attainment of knowledge about image circles came when attempting to enlarge 4x5 using a 50mm Componon" Denney
Bob Salomon
5-Oct-2011, 15:41
Also, the glues used in taking lenses will not take the heat from enlargers over a prolonged time frame. And the camera lens is not optimized for the same range of enlargement as an enlarging lens. Just get the proper tool for the job. A proper enlaging lens will have an illuminated aperture to let you work in the lights off, dis-engagable click stops and a pre-set apertature mechanism to speed changing from wide open to the using aperature in the dark. Your camera lens has none of these features.
prince_mallow
5-Oct-2011, 15:59
I don't think it will matter with the response but I'll mention it anyways, right now I only have a 4x5 film condenser on the unit. I guess that wouldn't change much. I can see how the barrel length can make it a little bothersome, I don't remember using any enlargers with a large barrel length on the lens.
The setting on the focus ring of the lens doesn't matter--for old lenses without moving elements or internal focusing it does the same thing as the focuser on the enlarger.
Cool!!
Rick "whose teenage attainment of knowledge about image circles came when attempting to enlarge 4x5 using a 50mm Componon" Denney
Experimentation is something I admire :)
Also, the glues used in taking lenses will not take the heat from enlargers over a prolonged time frame. And the camera lens is not optimized for the same range of enlargement as an enlarging lens.
Glue?! I thought these lenses were just an elaborate system of screws, I guess the lens uses glue to hold it in place? I didn't know that, I'll have to be more careful with my temperature control. I imagine I can always get a cold head, but if I did that then:
Just get the proper tool for the job. A proper enlaging lens will have an illuminated aperture to let you work in the lights off, dis-engagable click stops and a pre-set apertature mechanism to speed changing from wide open to the using aperature in the dark. Your camera lens has none of these features.
I would get the lens at the same time. SO I guess this falls into the "Not recommended unless you want to experiment to get creative results" Thanks for the input I appreciate it.
A lecturer mentioned this once, about thirty years ago-
He also mentioned the cement, as being a deterrent to using a taking lens in an enlarger-
However, he suggested that using the same lens to make the negative and print it, would lead to any distortions in the picture being automatically corrected (presumably, as long as there were no movements involved...)
Never tried it, but it seems plausible...
Darin Boville
5-Oct-2011, 16:26
Sorry if this question has been asked before, I tried to use the search feature but I am getting a php error.
I want to put some old minolta lenses on my Omega that I bought. The Omega didn't come with any lenses which is unfortunate and I haven't touched it since I bought it a year ago. So now I want to get back into the mix and I thought I could just easily make a new plate that would be ajusted for my lenses and then I realized that the enlargers I am used to working with, their lenses don't have a focusing ring.
So if I can use a camera lens on an enlarger what is the focus that I set on the lens? I am assuming that I should set it to infinity.
Thanks for your friendly advice ^_^
Dedicated enlarger lenses can be had for a song...
--Darin
Paul Fitzgerald
5-Oct-2011, 20:35
"However, he suggested that using the same lens to make the negative and print it, would lead to any distortions in the picture being automatically corrected"
LOL, heard that one ages ago, doesn't work out. You use a lot more bellows extention making prints than take photos so the distortions do not cancel each other.
Like others have said, enlarger lenses are really cheap now, just pick a clean one.
Also, the glues used in taking lenses will not take the heat from enlargers over a prolonged time frame. And the camera lens is not optimized for the same range of enlargement as an enlarging lens.
You mean the elements of an enlarging lens are glued with different stuff than the elements of a taking lens? It would seem to me that the heat of the enlarger is enough to affect the glue in the lens, then that plastic sheet of film is in real trouble. Do you have some testing or other documentation to back that up? The condenser head on my Omega D2 has heat-absorbing glass, as I recall, but I've never been burned by the metal negative carriers.
4x5 enlarged to 12x15 (11x14 cropped a bit, let's say) is a 1:3 magnification ratio. Most taking lenses will be optimized for something between 1:10 and 1:50. There is a difference. For developing from 35mm, however, the magnification would be about 15x to make the same print, and that should be quite reasonable for a taking lens. And both cases should provide reasonable results if well stopped down. I don't think Graflex sold different lenses for use with the Graflarger, and I suspect a taking lens will provide decent service even at the lower magnifications.
But there are certainly cheaper enlarging lenses out there. I used an old 139mm B&L Tessar for enlarging 4x5, and it worked quite well, Canada balsam and all. I was a little less happy with the 80mm Enlarging Raptar, and replaced it with a 105mm EL-Nikkor that I found used for about a hundred bucks. The 50mm Componon that I used for small format was excellent, of course, though it wasn't as cheap. None of them had illuminated aperture scales, however. One or two of my enlarger's lens boards had aperture illluminators, but I found it just as easy to set the aperture using a grain focuser or a small penlight with a safelight filter in it.
Rick "is the great the enemy of the good?" Denney
Also, the glues used in taking lenses will not take the heat from enlargers over a prolonged time frame. And the camera lens is not optimized for the same range of enlargement as an enlarging lens.
You mean the elements of an enlarging lens are glued with different stuff than the elements of a taking lens? It would seem to me that the heat of the enlarger is enough to affect the glue in the lens, then that plastic sheet of film is in real trouble. Do you have some testing or other documentation to back that up? The condenser head on my Omega D2 has heat-absorbing glass, as I recall, but I've never been burned by the metal negative carriers.
4x5 enlarged to 12x15 (11x14 cropped a bit, let's say) is a 1:3 magnification ratio. Most taking lenses will be optimized for something between 1:10 and 1:50 (which isn't really much different than infinity in this case). There is a difference. For developing from 35mm, however, the magnification would be about 15x to make the same print, and that should be quite reasonable for a taking lens. And both cases should provide reasonable results if well stopped down. I don't think Graflex sold different lenses for use with the Graflarger, and I suspect a taking lens will provide decent service even at the lower magnifications, if appropriately stopped down.
But there are certainly cheaper enlarging lenses out there. I used an old 139mm B&L Tessar for enlarging 4x5, and it worked quite well, Canada balsam and all. No click stops, no illuminated aperture dial, but somehow I made it work. Who knew?
Rick "is the great the enemy of the good?" Denney
Steve Smith
6-Oct-2011, 06:54
The lens from a 35mm camera would not work at all for enlarging a large format negative.
Would not work at all is quite a definte and conclusive comment. In reality, though probably not optimal, it should work. The light doesn't know that the lens was designed for a camera and refuse to go through it!
In the early days of photography, adaptors were sold to allow you to use your camera, usually a fixed lens folder, as an enlarger. These obviously used the same lens to both take and enlarge the image.
The same was true of the Graflarger adaptor for the Speed Graphic.
EDIT: ... and having just posted this, I now realise we are discussing using a 35mm lens to enlarge an LF negative. Well, I still think it would work. Ordinarily, the 35mm lens doesn't have enough coverage but in this case, it is being used as a macro lens. i.e. projected image bigger than the subject so I think it will work.
Steve.
Bob Salomon
6-Oct-2011, 07:13
YDo you have some testing or other documentation to back that up?
Rick "is the great the enemy of the good?" Denney
No, have not seen printed info on this for decades. On the other hand you can not provide definitive info that using a camera lens would be close to the quality from an enlarging lens.
Also, many enlarger lensboards are too small for the more modern SLR lens mounts.
No, have not seen printed info on this for decades. On the other hand you can not provide definitive info that using a camera lens would be close to the quality from an enlarging lens.
I don't have to. That can be easily and non-destructively tested. The claim that a taking lens will literally come unglued when used on an enlarger could be a genuine issue or a fear tactic by whoever first made the argument. It is reasonable to try to discern between those possibilities before risking the lens.
Also, many enlarger lensboards are too small for the more modern SLR lens mounts.
That's a separate issue, but I doubt it in any case. Most 35mm mounts are less than two inches in diameter and would be small enough to mount on the typical 4" board of cheaper large-format enlargers. Easy to mount--that's a different issue that often requires some mechanical fabrication. But it could be as easy as epoxying a rear lens cap to the board and then drilling through it--albeit with the risk of some further vignetting.
Rick "who grew up in the South and many of whose lenses have seen significant heat in a car trunk without damage" Denney
EDIT: ... and having just posted this, I now realise we are discussing using a 35mm lens to enlarge an LF negative. Well, I still think it would work. Ordinarily, the 35mm lens doesn't have enough coverage but in this case, it is being used as a macro lens. i.e. projected image bigger than the subject so I think it will work.
I'm not sure it will be enough. If the image circle at focus of a 35mm is 2 inches, which is more than adequate for 24x36 format (diagonal 43mm), then focusing it at 1:1 would make an image circle of 4 inches. That is still too small for 4x5, and in any case would make 4x5" print. A larger print would be in between those two extremes, and the image circle would therefore be between 2 and 4 inches.
Granted, some small-format lenses have an image circle larger than 2 inches, but I'll bet still not large enough to make a print bigger much than a contact print.
Sometimes you can remove a portion of the rear barrel, but then you'd be ruining a lens that may be worth more as a camera lens than a cheapie enlarger lens is worth.
But you can just hold the lens up to the enlarger with no lens board, and see what it will and won't focus.
Rick "experiments are easy" Denney
Ivan J. Eberle
6-Oct-2011, 08:03
Taking lenses have doubtless been used for enlarging nearly as long as there has been printing-out paper. Didn't early Leitz enlargers utilize swapping your camera lens? Graf-largers certainly did.
Personally, I've found macro lenses to be quite exceptionally good, at least for printing from 35mm. My darkroom has been in storage for the past couple or years or I'd test it to see what kind of image circle was possible. The enlargers I've used had independent controls to adjust magnification and focus, so I can't see why you couldn't get a bigger image circle. It does affect light transmission though... and a 35mm enlarger head isn't going to light or fit a 4x5.
In the 50's and 60's there were tons of el cheapo enlarger lenses having marginal or poor quality--particularly wide open--that came bundled with bargain condenser enlargers. Then most everyone with a home darkroom was doing B+W and 8x10 was the norm. By the late 70's as interest in home color printing with Ilfochrome, diffusion enlargers (and at larger prints sizes) had increased the demand for better enlarging lenses that would work wide open with a minimum of chromatic aberrations. Too, multi-coatings didn't really become universal until the 70's so the more recent enlarger lenses are generally much improved over early ones.
The discussion seems kind of academic, however, since there's such a glut of good analog darkroom stuff for dirt cheap nowadays that there's little reason not to use top-tier glass.
tgtaylor
6-Oct-2011, 08:16
Would the 120mm Nikkor AM-ED work as an enlarger lens for 4x5?
Thomas
Brian C. Miller
6-Oct-2011, 08:21
Uh, maybe. 100mm is medium format, 135mm to 150mm is 4x5, 240mm to 300mm is 8x10. But there are enlarger lenses shorter than 240mm made to cover 8x10.
Try and see.
SpeedGraphicMan
6-Oct-2011, 13:16
Remember, Enlarging lenses are flat field corrected.
You can however use an enlarging lens on camera, for copy work of prints, slides, plates,etc.
why do you thank that the lens board on Beseler is the same size as the before Pacemaker lens boards & then Beseler made the first adapter boards for using the pacemaker to prepacemaker boards & most every body like Kodak masterview , Burke & james, New-vue, Balco, and minty more all used the same 4x4 lens boards!
OK this is out of 3rd edition of Kodak Lenses book!!the Kodak Ektar 105mm f3.7 lens
this lens has been designed for use on press & similar cameras or on the Kodak Precision Enlarger.
so some can & are designed to do both!!
Bob Salomon
6-Oct-2011, 15:48
Uh, maybe. 100mm is medium format, 135mm to 150mm is 4x5, 240mm to 300mm is 8x10. But there are enlarger lenses shorter than 240mm made to cover 8x10.
Try and see.
60mm WA and up are MF enlarging lenses, 120 WA to 150 are 45 enl. lenses.
people used to put veritos on their enlarger often
i enlarge with a meniscus lens harvested off of
a box camera ...
you never know until you try ..
have fun
Steve Smith
7-Oct-2011, 00:04
you never know until you try ..
Exactly. Don't listen to people who say you can't do something. Just try it out and let us know the results.
Steve.
ic-racer
7-Oct-2011, 02:37
Remember, Enlarging lenses are flat field corrected.
.
Other than purpose built curved field lenses, most good normal camera and enlarger lenses are flat field corrected at some magnificaiton.
I'd rank these 'flat field' lenses used on an enlarger by order of enlargement magnificaiton as follows:
Massive enlargement 100x use 'standard' camera lens
Mural enlargement 20x use 'high magnification' enlarger lens
Common enlargement 2-15x use 'standard' enlarger lens or 'macro' camera lens
Minimal enlargement and 1:1 use 'process' lens
Another way to orgainze the relationship is to think of it in terms of how far from the negative the lens likes to be. Standard camera lenses should have a flat field when very close to the film (at or near the marked focal length). Process lenses have a flat field very far away from the film (around twice the focal length) and the others fall in between.
Steve Smith
7-Oct-2011, 03:49
Another way to orgainze the relationship is to think of it in terms of how far from the negative the lens likes to be. Standard camera lenses should have a flat field when very close to the film (at or near the marked focal length). Process lenses have a flat field very far away from the film (around twice the focal length) and the others fall in between.
but remember that an enlarger is really a macro camera with the negative as the subject and the paper in place of the film.
Steve.
Exactly. Don't listen to people who say you can't do something. Just try it out and let us know the results.
Steve.
my thoughts ... exactly !
I don't have to. That can be easily and non-destructively tested. The claim that a taking lens will literally come unglued when used on an enlarger could be a genuine issue or a fear tactic by whoever first made the argument. It is reasonable to try to discern between those possibilities before risking the lens.
There's no differance in th optical cements used in enlarger & taking lenses :D
Camera lenses get subjected to quite high temperatures as well, particularly in the Summer heat. Rodenstock used the same early synthetic lens cement in both taking and enlarger lenses, and both delaminate.
In general a Tessar type lens will work better both as a taking and enlarger lens tahn a more modern design.
Ian
jayabbas
15-Oct-2011, 12:18
With quality enlarging lens being at almost giveaway prices on feebay you would do good to pick one up for your set up. You can experiment with taking lens but most likely your satisfaction level will fall short.
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