Kledging a Canon 50mm FL as an enlarging lens

[CuS]

Well, I got my darkroom up and running and while awaiting the arrival of my nikkor 80mm 5.6 and leitz 50mm focotar, I decided to bash together a work-around.

I had an extra lens board, so I cut the center out of a rear canon FL lens cap, glued it to the board (gotta love gorilla glue) and mounted an old 50mm 1.8 FL lens (with the stop lever jammed) and fitted it to my enlarger.

Granted, the focusing distance to the paper is short but it is perfect for 5x7 and 8x10 printing and really super-sharp.

I am using some Agfa MCP312 (really fast paper - iso160 at 2.5) so I have to stop the lens down to f11 and f16 to get workably long exposure times on my dichroic enlarger.

I'm sure others have done this sort of thing.

Any experiences/advice to share?

 

[tripod]

You can use any 50mm LTM rangefinder lens for this. In fact, the 50f3.5 Elmar was recommended by Leitz for this purpose. Enlarger lens boards are ususally 39mm threads, just like the LTM cameras.

 

[CuS]

Thanks!

Thanks!

Thanks for that - I wish my 50mm f2 heliar was ltm - but its an M-mount . . .

 

[venchka]

I love Canon lenses. I hate Gorilla glue.

Try an enlarging lens for macro photography sometime.

 

[raid]

You also could use an enlarging lens in place of the SLR lens.

 

[CuS]

I will 🙂

I will 🙂

You also could use an enlarging lens in place of the SLR lens.

My Leitz Focotar 5cm/4.5 came last night (its the oldest version with the DOOCQ extension of the back). The lens is in pretty good shape and seems to focus sharp - I'll fire it up this weekend. Anybody used this EL before.

My Nikkor 80mm 5. should be here today - can't wait!

 

[raid]

I have a Spiratone/3.5 flatfield macro th can be screwed on to "something". I have no clue whether it is meant for bellows or for a lens. Does anyone here know? It seems to be very sharp.