Yes, these little nuances do matter to me, and all add up somehow into something special in the print. Otherwise, I wouldn't own so many darn enlarging lenses. But I also have multiple enlargers, each with its own special personality, so there's that too.
many people regard lens coatings like cheese on pizza... more isnt any better.
More cheese on pizza IS more important than multi-coating on enlarging lenses!Originally Posted by Paul Ron
hahahaha and you said it brudah!
Single coated enlarging lenses have probably not been manufactured for 50 or so years. What are you going to compare it to to see if the coating affects the image without any other confounding factors?
Makes no difference. Such lenses reached their peak performance in that general era anyway. There isn't much incentive to go beyond that today, in terms of enlarging applications per se.
Even production of the Rolls Royce series, namely, Apo El Nikkors, ended, but subsequently took root anew in fashion of specialized machine optics of fixed aperture and focal distance.
Lots of single-coated enlarging lenses remained on sale well after the 70's, even high-quality ones. A lot were made to begin with, and then demand tapered off.
Pizzas, however? Well, one of the local outfits got named best pizza in the country last year. But I still prefer homemade. You folks who hang out at Round Table or Straw Hat probably just do so for the biodiesel grease you can wring out of any leftovers.
With the emergence of digital, who still makes enlarging lenses, and who has stopped?
Just curious.
I know Minolta and Yashica/Tomioka have stopped.
Rodenstock still apparently makes at least some of them. But such a great number are still readily available at bargain pricing, that what profit incentive would there now be? At least these don't need shutters, like view camera lenses do, so could hypothetically be put back into production anytime.
I don't think companies like Minolta or Yashica were ever involved with LF enlarging lenses. All the "big four" were: Schneider, Rodenstock, Fuji, and Nikon,
plus other companies prior. But many process lenses work too, often better than dedicated enlarging lenses themselves.
Enlarging lenses sorta work in reverse of shooting lenses, in the way of when shooting, one can be shooting a super bright scene, then projecting into a darkened chamber... But in enlarging, the neg is super bright, then projected out to the darkness... So the lens in either case has a "hot" side of light that can cause flare or fog in the right conditions...
I keep different era enlarging lenses for different looks or type of negs that might need higher or lower contrast, to soften hard negs with an uncoated old lens, hard/brittle rendition lens for flat /dull negs, or just for a different "vibe" giving a neg an "older world" look...
Generally, clean/modern single coated can be very contrasty, but older non coated will be much flatter, but extended mid-tones...
Multi coated should be lower in flare, but I expect a very cold contrast effect IMHO...
Steve K
The only enlarging lenses that I recall that advertised that they were "multi-coated" were the Fuji EX series -- with EBC coating. They had to do SOMETHING to try to separate themselves from the pack. And I think 135mm was Fuji's longest.
Any others?
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