Hi - Just the other day I printed a couple of masked pyro-stained 8x10 negs with my VC blue-green cold light + blue filter for boosted contrast on VC paper. The two sheet method with my new ScanTech anti-newton glass worked great - no visible texture even with that high contrast and an Apo Nikkor lens (very high micro-textural rendition - like I said, better than any regular enlarging lens). But I don't know how the same glass would perform with small negatives and other light sources; probably just fine. But since I already have Durst AN glass for my colorhead enlargers, and Focal Point AN glass for the really big one, it's not a test I'm likely to undertake. My cold light unit isn't practical for small negs. Scan Tech also has regular non-AN high-quality glass too, if you want a top vs bottom option.
Slightly different topic - One reason I still keep on hand regular as well as Apo enlarging lenses it that sometimes I simply don't want that over-the-top micro-contrast, esp in certain color printing applications. Or, very complex mask or color separation neg setups are prone to grain exagerration, and a tad dial back is welcome. With large format, overall sharpness isn't affected much either way because the degree of magnification is modest. With little MF stuff I tend to lean toward Apo lenses routinely because the enlargement factor is greater. Ironically, not 35mm, however, since I use that more as a gritty fast-film snapshot device, and print 35mm images quite small, on those rare occasions I actually print 35mm film.
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