Avotius
Some guy
The Enna Lithagon appears to be a very rare lens by the small and somewhat enigmatic Enna company in München (Munich) Germany. Mine says "Made in West Germany" and despite the very striking look that heralds to the classic Schnieder barrel design, the lens is indeed plastic bodied with what appears to be glass elements.
A wave of disappointment washed over me when I realized this. The second big disappointment with the lens was that the focus ring was so tight that it unscrewed itself from its M42 mounting when I turned it. Slow sticky focusing that took a full 10 seconds to rotate from infinity to the 0.5m minimum focus distance. Another thing that surprised me is the aperture ring is on the same ring as the focus, so turning the focus rotates the aperture ring, not changing the aperture itself but moving the scale to around the lens, luckily there is a scale on both sides of the lens. The aperture ring itself rotates with full stop clicks but is very loose and easy to knock off the desired setting simply by focusing since the proximity to each other is so close and the aperture ring is much larger then the focus ring so your hand first falls on the aperture rather then the focus.
Also out of focus areas shot at f3.5 are awfully ugly, a lot of doubling and harsh color edges that really distract from the image.
Just a junk shot of stuff on the table.
The lens is very small and light, using a 52mm filter, and having a body of plastic with shiny chrome bits that really show off well but indeed is plastic and not entirely reassuring. The M42 screw mount however is metal and seems very solid. Mounted on my M42-EOS adapter the scales do not line up with the vertical axis of the body but nothing to worry about as infinity focus is fine. As my Canon 20D body is not exactly small the lens looks very much out of place on board but interesting none the less. On a 5D the back lens element sticks out too far and will contact the 5D's mirror assembly during exposure.
So far the lens is not stacking up too well, but it has two aces up its sleeve. First this lens is rare, very rare, my research online found no reference to this particular lens at all. The fact that Enna used to make so many OEM elements and bits for the likes of the biggest names in the optical industry says something though. There are even Enna lenses for Alpa cameras. Enna telephoto lenses are quite common on the market but the wide angle lenses seem to be hard to find.
My version of this lens had very very hard to turn focus, which very much put me off to the idea of the lens as I dont like to take lenses apart due to how easy it is to mess it up. There is the option of sending it off somewhere to repair but I know of no place here in China that does repairs on old lenses or how much it would cost. Since I paid about 112 dollars for the lens I was put off by the idea of having to send it off for repairs and also the fact that it contacts the mirror of the 5D, which soon will replace my near worn out 20D. I ended up deciding that it might be too much trouble and am pondering trading it back to the seller for a late Carl Zeiss Jena 135mm f3.5 Sonnar in very good nick.
Up there I said the Enna Lithagon has two aces up its sleeve. The second is shown below (crop from center of my test frames, I stuck the Canon lens on 35mm which still was a little different but good enough for this test) Tripod, same focus spot, you know the drill:
I think you get the point. This only strengthens my thoughts about how lousy a lens the Canon 17-40 L is, yes it has been my work horse for a a few years but lately the more I use it the more disappointed I am after using the likes of Zeiss and the sort.
Anyway, the Enna Lithagon is a good lens no doubt. The plastics and all the little nitpicky stuff can really get to you though. It almost seemed worth it to keep the lens because of how rare it seems but then again I need to use the thing and it proved to be quite unusable in its current state for the way I shoot.
Pity.
Real life test shot outdoors, note the unpleasant looking grass.
The Enna company http://www.ennawerk.de/ still exists and does plastic injection molding for things like CD cased and the sort. Their Logo still bares the lens element design of their past.
A wave of disappointment washed over me when I realized this. The second big disappointment with the lens was that the focus ring was so tight that it unscrewed itself from its M42 mounting when I turned it. Slow sticky focusing that took a full 10 seconds to rotate from infinity to the 0.5m minimum focus distance. Another thing that surprised me is the aperture ring is on the same ring as the focus, so turning the focus rotates the aperture ring, not changing the aperture itself but moving the scale to around the lens, luckily there is a scale on both sides of the lens. The aperture ring itself rotates with full stop clicks but is very loose and easy to knock off the desired setting simply by focusing since the proximity to each other is so close and the aperture ring is much larger then the focus ring so your hand first falls on the aperture rather then the focus.
Also out of focus areas shot at f3.5 are awfully ugly, a lot of doubling and harsh color edges that really distract from the image.
Just a junk shot of stuff on the table.
The lens is very small and light, using a 52mm filter, and having a body of plastic with shiny chrome bits that really show off well but indeed is plastic and not entirely reassuring. The M42 screw mount however is metal and seems very solid. Mounted on my M42-EOS adapter the scales do not line up with the vertical axis of the body but nothing to worry about as infinity focus is fine. As my Canon 20D body is not exactly small the lens looks very much out of place on board but interesting none the less. On a 5D the back lens element sticks out too far and will contact the 5D's mirror assembly during exposure.
So far the lens is not stacking up too well, but it has two aces up its sleeve. First this lens is rare, very rare, my research online found no reference to this particular lens at all. The fact that Enna used to make so many OEM elements and bits for the likes of the biggest names in the optical industry says something though. There are even Enna lenses for Alpa cameras. Enna telephoto lenses are quite common on the market but the wide angle lenses seem to be hard to find.
My version of this lens had very very hard to turn focus, which very much put me off to the idea of the lens as I dont like to take lenses apart due to how easy it is to mess it up. There is the option of sending it off somewhere to repair but I know of no place here in China that does repairs on old lenses or how much it would cost. Since I paid about 112 dollars for the lens I was put off by the idea of having to send it off for repairs and also the fact that it contacts the mirror of the 5D, which soon will replace my near worn out 20D. I ended up deciding that it might be too much trouble and am pondering trading it back to the seller for a late Carl Zeiss Jena 135mm f3.5 Sonnar in very good nick.
Up there I said the Enna Lithagon has two aces up its sleeve. The second is shown below (crop from center of my test frames, I stuck the Canon lens on 35mm which still was a little different but good enough for this test) Tripod, same focus spot, you know the drill:
I think you get the point. This only strengthens my thoughts about how lousy a lens the Canon 17-40 L is, yes it has been my work horse for a a few years but lately the more I use it the more disappointed I am after using the likes of Zeiss and the sort.
Anyway, the Enna Lithagon is a good lens no doubt. The plastics and all the little nitpicky stuff can really get to you though. It almost seemed worth it to keep the lens because of how rare it seems but then again I need to use the thing and it proved to be quite unusable in its current state for the way I shoot.
Pity.
Real life test shot outdoors, note the unpleasant looking grass.
The Enna company http://www.ennawerk.de/ still exists and does plastic injection molding for things like CD cased and the sort. Their Logo still bares the lens element design of their past.
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Avotius
Some guy
No love for the poor lithagon 
S
Scarpia
Guest
I have had an Enna Lithagon 35mm F2.8 in Exakta mount for over forty years. In all that time I managed to use it once, three years ago. It yielded good results, its just that I don't use my Exaktas very much. The barrel is entirely metal.
Kurt M.
Kurt M.
M. Valdemar
Well-known
If you look at the ads in old photo magazines, the Enna lenses were always sold as low cost loss leaders or stuck on used bodies as cheapo "package" deals.
They were not well-reviewed by the critics of the day.
I don't have much direct experience with them.
They were not well-reviewed by the critics of the day.
I don't have much direct experience with them.