BEOON the Leitz Copy Stand

[Godfrey]

Been busy and lost track of this thread a little this past week and some. Sorry.

Is full frame really necessary? I understand wanting to get the most out of your camera’s sensor, but ask yourself if you really need that much resolution. When using the BEOON and EL-Nikkor 50/2.8 in my setup, the negative image takes up about ⅔ of the sensor space. This is plenty of resolution for my needs, and sharpness fall-off at corners is never an issue. I’m always using the sweet spot of the lens.

Well, given a Leica M digital body and a 35mm full frame negative, if you reduce the size of the negative to the dimensions of APS-C (about 1:2 or so), you've reduced the resolution from 24 MPixel to about 10 Mpixel. That loses too much, IMO. I want to capture at the same resolution as my Nikon Coolscan V film scanner, which nets about 21 Mpixel at 4000ppi from the full frame, minus the little bit that the film carrier crops. Having more pixels, particularly with film capture, allows more flexibility in rendering and preparing the image for printing.

What I have been working with is using a CL body rather than the M body to capture 35mm negatives. This has some advantages: You can use the "easier" 1:2 magnification settings to fill the frame, you're using the "sweet spot" in the center of your taking lens, and you're still getting 24 Mpixel resolution. Copy situations (everything locked down tight on BEOON and light box) means you can use the sensor's base ISO (100 or 200 depending on who you believe) plus the optimum, non-diffraction generating aperture setting to get maximum dynamic range and image quality ... and you no longer need a specialized flat-field lens to cover the sensor to the corners with optimal results because the center sweet spot of any good macro lens (or even my favorite Summicron-R 50mm f/2) is good enough when it comes to field flatness. You also don't need the BEOON loupe magnifier since the CL's EVF is very crisp and includes both focus peaking and focus magnification assistants.

This is proving to be a very useful approach for me.

G

 

[Emile de Leon]

That's greedy

LOL..if I had 10 of em...yup...but 2..well...lots of people have 2..of something..take a gander/look what your born with...hahaha...

 

[Peter Jennings]

I'm using a Sony A7, and I just calculated that my images (after cropping) are 17.2 Mp out of a possible 24 Mp. I don't print, so that's plenty of data for my needs.

I use the C & D rings, and my film holder adds 2mm of distance from the negative. The BEOON is almost at its lowest setting.

My advice, with 135 film, is to not concern oneself with getting a 1:1 ratio. Instead of chasing lenses with the sharpest corner-to-corner performance, use just about any other lens and accept a lower resolution final image. The best attributes of the BEOON are its small size and excellent construction.

 

[wintoid]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for your message, I'm glad to engage you because I saw your photos of your setup, and I could see the extra distance you'd added with your film holder setup, and you're using a Sony and the older EL-Nikkor 50mm f2.8. If I attempted to do what you've done, it would be completely out of focus. The only difference is that my EL-Nikkor is the newer one.

I have to use B+D and I crop about 20 MP out of a 42MP image, which is a big crop. I'd like to salvage more resolution.

Maybe I should get an older EL-Nikkor! I do want to try to get the most out of my negs.

 

[quadtones]

Hello, all,

I have just been catching up with this thread, not having followed it in a while. I have been using my BEOON with an M9M and recently added an M10, using them in conjunction with a 50mm f2.8 APO-Rodagon enlarging lens with the addition of a 20mm extension tube. This has outperformed any of the other enlarging or taking lenses I have tried, although admittedly this was limited to 50mm f3.5 Elmar and v4 50mm Summicron.

The setup currently, with which I am having success "scanning" 35mm negatives, is the BEOON with tubes A + D, combined with an 39mm LTM extension tube labeled: "Germany" on one side of the barrel and "17675 X" on the other. It is 20mm in length. This is allowing me to use the 1:1 setup and still have a bit of column height to spare.

For 6x4.5 cm negatives, the 1:2 setup of A + B + 17675 X has worked.

For 6x7 cm negative scanning, the 1:3 setup of A + extension tube 17675 X has been equally effective, although I have had to make my own mask to overlay the negative.

Hope this is helpful. I believe this was the tube originally to be used with the earlier Focotar lenses, and picked it up used for about $10- US, this through Roberts Camera IIRC.

 

[Godfrey]

I just had a play with the BEOON using the new-to-me Pentax-L 43mm f/1.9 Limited lens and the Leica CL (APS-C) body.

I've determined that if I fit this to the BEOON, along with the ELPRO close-up lenses VIIa and VIIb stacked on the front of the lens and the lens focus setting at the minimum .7m mark, I can capture a 35mm sized negative into a 16 Mpixel digital file at near the lowest height that the BEOON can go, but with enough adjustment room to adjust focus precisely.

That's about 66% of the CL's full field, but it turns out this little Pentax lens is shockingly crisp right into the corners of the frame—nearly perfect flat field rendering—and at this subset of the CL's full format the rendering is as close to perfect as I'm ever going to want.

So: Limited usefulness on the BEOON, but probably a fine lens to work with on a general copy stand ... 🙂

 

[jim0266]

Finally was able to test a Componon-S against my APO-Rodagon on the BEOON. The Rodagon won.

 

[Ricoh]

jim0266, is the taking camera a Sony mirrorless. I've seen other screen shots of similar with the tell-tale red adapter - only guessing and could be well off the mark.

For some reason, those using anything other than the M240, the M10 etc, but particularly the Sony 7x, seem to have no problem focusing the Componon-S 50mm f/2.8 without running out of column adjustment at the shortest column height, ie without bottoming. Why is it that the likes of the Sony 7x provides better chance of working with the BEOON coupled with the Componon-S? It shouldn't matter because the adapter allows Leica M lenses to focus at infinity, and throughout the entire range. Perhaps it's just mere coincidence and the degree of success varies with composition of the enlarger lens from batch to batch. A difference of just 1mm in nodal position amplifies greatly in achieving or not 1:1 at the sensor, and crucially whether the BEOON bottoms or not.

Sorry for beating the drum so often, it just p|$$€$ me off that I have the exact same lens, but the only way to achieve focus would be to hacksaw the column and weld it 5 to 10mm shorter.

 

[Godfrey]

...
Sorry for beating the drum so often, it just p|$$€$ me off that I have the exact same lens, but the only way to achieve focus would be to hacksaw the column and weld it 5 to 10mm shorter.

Just get a different lens. ??

 

[Jhausler]

Very interesting discussion here.

I personally just use an old Elmar 50/3.5 at f/11 with a Sony a7. I tried a 50 El NIkkor, but didn't want to deal with different tubes, etc. That said I do use the El Nikkor for 6x6.

Can someone post some images of the same 135 negative being copied using the elmar, fotocar, rodagon, etc.. Are the enlarger lenses really that much better?

For my purposes, i doubt.. but i'm curious to see the differences if anyone is willing to take the time. Thanks!

 

[Ricoh]

Just get a different lens. ??

Definitely... but only if invited into an elarger lens warehouse, armed with my BEOON and M240, to try out all the combinations until I find a solution that does not necessitate the use of hacksaw and welding gear.

 

[Ricoh]

I wonder if anyone devised a means of mounting a negative holder on top the BEOON base unit that offers alignment without the need to reset it every time you breath in and out.

 

[Emile de Leon]

On the A7 series...you may want to try the setup with a helical close focusing adapter Sony E to M lens mount..this will allow for more focusing leeway..but you will need the screw mount to M mount adapter too..

 

[wintoid]

I wonder if anyone devised a means of mounting a negative holder on top the BEOON base unit that offers alignment without the need to reset it every time you breath in and out.

I found various solutions, but each time I found myself thinking that it spoils the simplicity of the BEOON. The only way to do this properly is to have a lens that frames correctly and can focus. So I'm awaiting delivery of a new lens, and we shall see if it solves my problems.

 

[Blaidd_Drwgg]

Ricoh, have you tried if the column is correctly screwed onto the base? Because I could see how that could cost a few millimetres.

I tried a few lenses, mostly enlarger lenses because my only 50mm for Leica is a Nikkor 1.4, and that didn't do as well as I thought (it's plenty sharp at normal to close distances, but not at 1:1.). Of those, the order is Apo-Rodagon N, only a hair ahead of EL-Nikkor 2.8 and Focotar II, then Componon-S (which needed a different tube combination, but don't ask which, it's been a while), then Focotar LFE, Focotar, then the differences became miniscule, except an EL-Nikkor f/4, which disappointed hard. I assume that explains its near-mint condition. I recently got an EL-Nikkor N 2.8 that's still to be tested, but the Apo-Rodagon with the clickless preset aperture is hard to beat comfort-wise.

I'm sorry I can't find the pictures I used to determine this order. It may very well be a copy-to-copy thing, too.

 

[Godfrey]

Definitely... but only if invited into an elarger lens warehouse, armed with my BEOON and M240, to try out all the combinations until I find a solution that does not necessitate the use of hacksaw and welding gear.

LOL! Any old Leica mount 50mm would do just fine; my Color-Skopar 50mm f/2.5 does a great job of it and was less than $400 new. And you wouldn't have to do any modifications at all. 😀

I've not needed to mount anything above the usual BEOON focus plane, can't help you there.

Can someone post some images of the same 135 negative being copied using the elmar, fotocar, rodagon, etc.. Are the enlarger lenses really that much better?

I haven't found any particular advantage to using enlarging lenses: The lack of a focusing mount on the lens makes it that much more difficult to use the BEOON as it was conceived to be used. If I'm going to go to that length, I'll just pull out my general purpose copy stand.

Regards a test comparing different lenses: If I have time this week, I'll pull a suitable B&W neg and/or color slide and run a batch of exposures with different lenses. I don't have any enlarger lenses any more, so it will be:

Summicron-M 50mm
Color-Skopar 50mm
Summicron-R 50mm
Macro-Elmarit-R 60mm
Micro-Nikkor 55mm (pre-AI)

I'll capture to the M-D @ 1:1, most likely, but maybe also to the CL @ 1:2 for comparison purposes. IF I have time to run this experiment... !

G

 

[Ricoh]

Hi Godfrey - interested to know why you decided not to use enlarger lenses in favour of a regular 'taking' lenses. You mentioned the lack of focusing "mount", do you mean the focusing ring on the barrel of a standard Leica lens moving the helicoid in/out? I think I read earlier that, by experimentation, it was found that critical focus with a 'taking' lens could be assisted by moving the focus ring away from infinity, ever so slightly. I'm guessing here but it sounds as though the hard end stop at infinity on the lens is beyond infinity, as it were, optically for focus. (Of course the BEOON instructions tell us to focus at infinity with the 50mm, at f11).
I have a copy of the 50mm f/1.4 Summilux ASPH that I can use if I wish (normally in use on one of my two Leicas) but somehow I became side-tracked reading all the BEOON related threads, here and elsewhere, singing the praises of enlarger lenses. I think I gave up on it as a copying lens prematurely beleiving it to be inferior.

I shall try it again as per the BEOON operating instructions, and have a go at moving the focus ring/barrel of the lens away from the infinity end stop to see if there's an improvement.
Thanks

 

[Godfrey]

1- Simplicity: the BEOON was designed to work with standard Leica lenses, which by the way were also used on Leica enlargers when the BEOON was designed. 🙂

2- Yes, the fine tuning available with a standard lens's focusing mount. The focusing mount of a standard camera lens is designed to work with registration distances that the BEOON was designed for.

Exactly where the infinity index is placed is mostly irrelevant when doing close-up and macro work: you set a reproduction ratio and then adjust the distance to subject to achieve focus. Most Leica lenses are unit-shift focusing mounts and you have very fine control of that position with them. Turning the focusing mount to adjust the lens extension is simple and easy, and affects the exact magnification you're going to get.

Lots of folks feel that enlarger lenses provide better flat field performance. (And also: enlarger lenses these days are relatively cheap compared to a Leica lens, or even a good 50mm macro lens in a focusing mount.) But I feel this isn't necessarily the case. Enlarger lenses were designed to project from a flat field (the negative) to a slightly curved field (the print paper surface). Even the negative isn't entirely flat; a digital sensor is FAR flatter and may not be at the exact same registration distance as film was in the Leica bodies across the field anyway. The negative capture setup is essentially the reverse of enlarger use: projecting an image of a negative from the stage to the imager plane. Enlarger lenses are generally best corrected to project 35mm negatives in the 3:1 to 20:1 range, but the BEOON environment is a 1:4 to 1:1 range of projection... There's a big difference.

Experimentation has demonstrated that many lenses have good flat field performance ... for instance, that little Pentax 43mm lens I tried the other day has shockingly good flat field performance at about 1:2 magnification, even wide open ... and that performance varies at different points in the focus/magnification range. So I experimented and found my best results were NOT with enlarger lenses. In the high magnification range (2:1 or greater), in fact, the best performing lens I found of the ones I had available to test with was a 1964 example Leica Summicron-R 50mm f/2.

I am a great believer in research combined with experimentation. I don't just read what other people do and accept it as doctrine: I read and then do my own experiments to verify it. It's so easy to experiment when you're working with digital sensors as opposed to film, well, I just do it. Because I have first hand experience through experimentation and compare the results of different setups myself, I know what works to my satisfaction.

I'm always willing to try other things, but generally speaking have not found anything that works better than what I tested and proved works as well as needed. 😀

G

 

[Ricoh]

Godfrey, thanks for taking the time to provide a comprehensive answer. Appreciated!

 

[wintoid]

I got my 50mm f2.8 APO Rodagon-N today. I was able to get almost 100% framing with B+C+D, but I noticed the absolute corners of the 35mm frame had some light falloff.

I've swapped to using B+D+17675X with the 17675X closest to the camera, and the light falloff has disappeared. I seem to get light falloff whenever I use one of the original BEOON tubes closest to the camera.

Anyway, with B+D+17675X I am getting almost 100%, with just a little latitude left in terms of focusing, no light falloff, and finally I am happy. Expensive, though, but will last forever.