Angulon vs Super Angulon?

[rkarlsba]

hi

I have an old 1950 Linhof Technika III with an old ~1968 Symmar 1:5.6/150 and ~1958 Angulon 1:6.8/90. How do these lenses compare with the newer and more modern ones?

thanks

roy

[Ted Harris]

The old Symar 150 is not a bad lens at all and for black and white work you might be hard pressed to see much difference between it and a modern Apo Symmar ... tht is assuming it is a single coated model. It is hard to be more definitive than that since Schneider QA/AC has not always been as rigid as it is today. OTOH, thee Symmar is a convertible lens. If yu shoot with the rear cell only it will give you an acceptable longer focal length lens. The Symmar design dates back to the 1920's and the current Ao Symmar design is much newer having strated with the Symmar S series.

The Angulon is a diffrent story; it has neither the coverage nor the resolution of the modern Super Angulons.It will till perform quite adequately for black and white and has the advantage of being very small and light compared to a modern 90mm lens.

You can get complete details at www.schneideroptics.com .... click on the "info" drop down menu and then select vintage lens data and searh for the lenses of interest.

[Hany Aziz]

hi

I have an old 1950 Linhof Technika III with an old ~1968 Symmar 1:5.6/150 and ~1958 Angulon 1:6.8/90. How do these lenses compare with the newer and more modern ones?

thanks

roy

The Symmar should not be significantly worse than a modern lens. It should be fine as a normal lens. The angulon has less coverage than a Superangulon but can be a reasonable wide angle if you don't need much movements. It is certainly much more compact than the more modern lens, something people often appreciate. They are both single coated. It might make a slight difference if you shoot color and may be marginally more flare prone. However the difference between single and multicoated is less than between uncoated and coated. Both should be fine.

There is however lens to lens variation even with modern optics so test the two samples you have and see if they do what you want them to do.

Sincerely,

Hany.

[rkarlsba]

The old Symar 150 is not a bad lens at all and for black and white work you might be hard pressed to see much difference between it and a modern Apo Symmar ... tht is assuming it is a single coated model. It is hard to be more definitive than that since Schneider QA/AC has not always been as rigid as it is today. OTOH, thee Symmar is a convertible lens. If yu shoot with the rear cell only it will give you an acceptable longer focal length lens.

Thanks for a quick answer. What's strange, however, is that I tried removing the front element, but was unable to focus. I replaced the front element, and removed the rear element, and was given what looked like a 265 or similar.

roy

[Ole Tjugen]

Thanks for a quick answer. What's strange, however, is that I tried removing the front element, but was unable to focus. I replaced the front element, and removed the rear element, and was given what looked like a 265 or similar.

roy

The rear cell requires about 30cm of bellows extenison to focus at infinity. The front cell isn't 265mm, it's a bit longer. About 300mm if I remember correctly. With the single cell in front of the shutter, much less bellows extension is needed which can make it seem like a 265 or so. But: The focal length is longer, the distortion is worse, and full aperture is about f:14.

Angulon: The old Angulons aren't bad at all, and sharpness doesn't have to be any worse than the Super Angulons! Check out Chris Perez' lens tests - http://www.hevanet.com/cperez/testing.html - and you'll see that the plain Angulon is a viable lightweight low-cost alternative to the Super.
Coverage is a question of how much softness and fall-off you can live with, here is a full-frame scan of a 5x7" film shot with a 90mm Angulon at f:32. The flare was caused by sunshine dirctly on the lens - I discovered that too late. Top left corner looks like this.