Enlarging Lenses on a RF...

[P. Lynn Miller]

Through various trades, swaps, salvages and etc, I have ended up with a dozen or so enlarging lenses with the M39 thread. A few have seen better days with scratches, fungus, cleaning marks and etc, some are very old, with engraving such as Kodak and other English marques, along with a few Schneiders and Rodenstocks. Nothing flash or desirable, just a collection of old glass.

As everyone knows, enlarging lenses are virtually worthless these days, so while I was contemplating what to do with them, I thought is would be neat to see if I could use them on one of my Bessa's.

Most obviously, I need a focusing helical to mount these lens on. RFF member, John aka CLE-RF, has article on his website about hacking a Wollensak onto a Industar 22 of some sort.

Anyone else ever done such a stunt with enlarging lenses or should I just use them for paper-weights.

 

[venchka]

Visoflex and bellows would be my guess. Leitz made a Visoflex focusing mount for 90mm lenses. I'm clueless for the Leitz code name. I've seen photos. Some folks even adapted them to DSLRs.

I know the lens heads on my 50mm DR Summicron and 90mm Elmarit unscrew. The threads may be 39mm, but not the same pitch as LTM 39mm lenses. Guessing, but I suppose the threads match enlarging lenses.

A nice Nikkor or Durst (Pentax) 50/2.8 would make an awesome macro lens. Or my 150mm Componon-S. Hmmmmmmmmm......................

 

[P. Lynn Miller]

Wayne,

It would be simpler to adapt these for an SLR or DSLR, but since the apertures are pretty slow, the viewfinder would be really dark. I think it would be more fun on a RF as well!

Thinking, thinking...

 

[ZorkiKat]

I was thinking of doing the same with a 90mm Wollensak on an old focusing barrel of a 90mm Elmar. But it turns out, the focusing barrel is matched to a particular lens where the actual focal length and its necessary helical pitch mattered. The marked focal lengths are at best nominal.

Using moderate aperture 5cm lenses may be easier.

The threads may be 39mm, but not the same pitch as LTM 39mm lenses. Guessing, but I suppose the threads match enlarging lenses

@Wayne/Venchka: enlarger lenses used the LTM 39 thread pitch, the same used for Leica cameras. The mounts had to be the same since the original reason for installing LTmounts on enlarger lenses was to allow Leica camera lenses to be used in enlargers as well.

 

[P. Lynn Miller]

The lens that intrigues me the most is a - 3 1/4" Beck Anastigmat f4.5 - it as some internal haze but it appears to be uncoated and in reasonably good condition otherwise.

Let's see... 3 1/4"... would be about 80mm or so. Sounds like a good portrait length... hmmm...

 

[ZorkiKat]

The lens that intrigues me the most is a - 3 1/4" Beck Anastigmat f4.5 - it as some internal haze but it appears to be uncoated and in reasonably good condition otherwise.

Let's see... 3 1/4"... would be about 80mm or so. Sounds like a good portrait length... hmmm...

Converting it for SLR use will be far more feasible. You only have to think about how to mount it, as well as a means to allow it to focus. A scrapped focusing helicoid from another lens perhaps.

But for RF, there are three critical things- mount, barrel, and RF coupling. A focusing barrel has to be made where distance marks can be made for focus setting. Focusing will be by scale, since it is unlikely that a multi helicoid that translates the focusing position of an 82.5mm lens to a screw movement which will actuate the RF coupling cam can be easily made.

 

[P. Lynn Miller]

You are right, it would be alot simpler and less painful to modify the lens to work on a SLR. If the lens turns out to be a real head-turner, then it may be worth the effort to make it work on a RF.

But a Lucky 50/3.5 should be a little easier to fit into a RF...

 

[P. Lynn Miller]

I suppose that this thread should be moved to 'Evil SLR's' now!

I did a very quick and dirty hack job to get the 3¼ Beck Anastigmat f4.5 on the front of a camera this evening. I found that the Beck fit snugly into the front of a Kodak film canister. Then after some head scratching, I took the optical cell out of a Helios 44-2 58/2 that I have sitting on my desk and found the the film canister thread into the helical. After cutting the bottom out of the canister and cutting it to the length need to get the lens to almost focus at infinity, I had a working lens!

And then I grabbed the D70, held the lens against the mounting flange snapped a photo...

And by golly, I am pretty impressed with the results. The Beck was wide-open at f4.5 and a distance of 4' or so. Very goodly... in fact, I am not much of a color person, but I really like how this lens deals with color, OK, it is digital, but all I did was set the camera white balance for 'incandescent', add a touch of contrast and unsharp mask. Nothing major.

I really think this lens needs to teamed with Kodachrome, so the Spotmatic is loaded with KR64 as I type this. I will toss some matte black paint inside the film canister and a wrap of black electrical tape around the lens/canister joint to make sure the lens does not fall out.

This lens could be a cracker of a portrait lens... and Efke 25 might just be the B&W film of choice.

 

[Windscale]

If you can set the focus to infinity it will become a distinguished landscape lens as well. I have done this many years ago. No focusing mount and just set the focus to infinity. I used the word distinguished as the pics will come out different from other normal type lenses. They may not be the sharpest but they do convey a different atmosphere.

Your lens is also different. I think I can see the image was sharper in the front and rear and more blurred in the middle. I have to get my eyes tested!

 

[Al Kaplan]

Most enlarging lenses are standard 39mm LTM but some older Schneider lenses have a smaller diameter Schneider thread. An adapter was commonly available but might be harder to find now.

Some short focal length "micro" lenses have standard "microscope" thread. Thes differe from microscope objectives mostly because they have diaphrams while microscope objectives don't. Adapters were made for these also for use on LTM bellows, etc.


All lenses are optimized for a particular focusing distance. This is mostly accomplished by the spacing between the optical groups in the lens. for extrme close-ups reversing the lens will usually give beter results. The "rear" of the lens should face whichever is closest ~ film or subject.

 

[P. Lynn Miller]

With the Beck mounted in the helical of a Helios 44-2, I mounted the 'lens' on a Spotmatic loaded with a roll of Efke KB25 EI 32 which was stand-developed in Rodinal 1:100 for 60 mins. The negatives were scanned on my Epson V500 at 3200dpi as raw files, converted to positive in ColorNeg, dust-spotted, resized to 900 with the smallest amount of 'Unsharp Mask'. No curves, no contrast boost or exposure changes... the only exception is the last photograph with the dog as the AE on the Spotmatic severely over-exposed that frame and I applied some curves and contrast to salvage it.

Definitely a vintage lens...

While it flares and very badly, the negatives are very sharp, but the obvious 'veiling flare' gives the negatives a wonderfully soft rendering at the same time. There appears to be a hot-spot in the middle of the frame which I am pretty certain is coming from the shiny aperture blades, as it only visible when the lens is stopped done to about f8 or so.

Technical details of the Beck include the lens being a triplet with a single front element and two rear elements. The aperture is f4.5 to f22 with 'modern' f-stops in between. The lens is uncoated and the barrel and mounts are brass, weighty little lens. Not sure the vintage, but I would guess it would be from the 1930's. A Google search revealed almost nothing about the Beck.

I am hoping to organise a portrait sitting soon, as I think this lens will make the most gorgeous portraits. And I should have some Kodaochrome scans to post in a few weeks, but I may grab a roll of Portra 160NC so I don't wait for the Kodachrome to make a trans-Pacific crossing to see how this lens deal with color film.