Well, you got me to go look at mine again. I have the 515/2. Do you really think it will blur at the edges wide open? It is an f/6.3 lens. That isn't a fast lens for a 105mm. It does have the Vario shutter. I wasn't aware it was a pronto. I do think the Nettar lens is sharp, or maybe I am confused by the amount of real estate to choose from. I haven't made 20x30 enlargements with it. I was curious
That by the way was one that I have not had to service in any way. The shutter works quite well, and the lens is clean. No pinholes in the bellows, and the window cover is working well and still has the knob to open and close it. The lens board opens well when the button is pushed. I guess I got luck on that one.
i dont think it would blur at the edges wide open so much (although all lenses do get less to some degree toward the edges at full open aperature) as it just doesnt have the resolution or aquetance compared to the tessar across the whole neg, thats not to say ,as you mentioned that the pictures or negs dont look sharp-there is a lot of neg to make up for the 15-25 or so lines of resolution, just that next to the tessar it will have less detail that becomes more noticable the larger the print.
the novar on those also came in f4.5 it may be that it, may blur at the edges (not ness a bad thing, it can be nice for portraits) but i havnt tried it so its just a guess from me. in therory tho it should be comparable as the glass is bigger to make up for it.
the vario and pronto i am prety sure were released at the same time, basically the same shutter but the pronto has self timer, usualy slighty more robust cable release conections and dial.
depending on the year of the shutter they always seem to be a slightly different shutter to each other...but only minor things are different some years, whilst other years the differences can be greater. generaly the way i see it, is the pronto was always meant to be a slightly higher featured shutter than the vario and when the pronto was given an upgrade the vario was slightly upgraded as well i.e; design, speeds, number of leafs increased ect on the next model pronto , then the next model vario was often given some of the previous pronto features, though not the self timer i am pretty sure from memory.
so some vario will have a top of speed 200 (i think it was only the late 50's that vario went to 250) or so and 5 leaf. also some very late vario had 4 speeds (pronto went 4 speed earlier) but mostly they are just 3 speed shutter.
in many cases if i
had to choose, i would probably consider the vario a more reliable shutter, the self timer on the pronto can muck up at times (if something is to go wrong this is often it) whereas the vario just seems to work forever (i have some of the first ones and they still work perfect and i havnt touched them), even though it is not as nice to look at or feel/use as the pronto.
