Enlarger lens mount sizes

[Muggins]

For some reason I had it in my head that enlarger lenses all used L39 as a standard mount. However, while rummaging through my connection of weird junk, I realised c that I have at least 4 enlarger lenses with at least 3 different mount sizes between them - including a Meopta lens that is closer to 20mm than 39mm.

ETA make that 5 lenses... and two enlargers, both with different mounts!

Can anyone ease my confusion?

 

[Oren Grad]

KHB Photografix is an enlarger specialist. Scroll down to the "Lens Mounts" section on their LPL 4x5 page and see how many different mount sizes they offer:

The LPL Enlarger Guide: LPL model 7452L 4x5 Enlargers

EDIT: By the way, some enlarging lenses are switch-hitters. The main barrel of the 135mm f/5.6 EL-Nikkor A that I own has a 50mm mount, but the lens came standard with an adapter ring to reduce that to the more common 39mm Leica thread.

 

[rfaspen]

The 2 most common would be 39 and 25mm. Looking through all of my enlarger lenses I think I only have those 2 sizes. The longer lenses (135 and 150) might be larger than 39mm, but don't appear to be. I haven't used any of them for a while, especially the long FL ones. Kind of sad.

 

[Muggins]

Thanks - I suspect mine may be 32.5 and 39mm (and that one funny Meopta lens must be 25mm, or even smaller), but I'm going to have to get the calipers out and measure. Annoyingly, I think I might be ending up using one enlarger for some formats and the other for others because of the different sizes relative to what lenses fit! Ah well, good job I'm used to muddling along...

 

[santino]

39mm totally makes sense. There were parts of the world where one had a camera, an enlarger and only one 50mm lens with m(L)39 mount.

 

[Cascadilla]

My 50, 80 and 105 El Nikkor enlarging lenses are all 39 mm, but my 150 El Nikkor is 50 mm. When I had an Isco 50 mm on my Durst M 600 it was 25 mm. Older enlarging lenses were often slower so they could have smaller barrels, and thus smaller thread sizes. The idea of using camera lenses used to be much more common--Zeiss made a 35 mm enlarger in the 1930's and made an adapter to use Contax 50 mm lenses on it for enlarging.

 

[rfaspen]

I know I have at least 2 lensboards for my current enlarger (Omega). Pretty easy to switch lenses and formats. But if I had room (and time), two enlargers might be nicer. I'm just not doing so much film or darkroom anymore. Cyanotype doesn't really qualify.....does it?

 

[Muggins]

Finally got bored enough to get the calipers out. The tiny Meopta one appears to be ~23.5mm, I have a larger Meopta one that seems to be about 31mm (someone has glued it into a cardboard mount), I have a Gino anastigmat which is LTM (fits an LTM adapter I have), and the 3 1/4" Wray Supar that was in the Gamer enlarger seems to be 31mm.

So, as it stands, I don't think I can do 6x9 with any of them unless the modded Belar can be somehow attached to the Gnome enlarger... which would probably then need a different condenser... though I might have to use a diffuser instead... fun & games!