Elgeet Colorstigmat 4.5/135 Enlarging Lens

luisalegria · Expire: 2018-01-18

Elgeet was one of the less common US makers. One can find Wollensak enlarging lenses anytime, but Elgeet only occasionally.

Left - 4.5/90, Right 4.5/135

Both are labelled "Colorstigmat", which was an Elgeet trademark for some of their camera lenses also. I have mounted both on M42 plastic body caps for convenient use on bellows or focusing tubes.

Elgeet was yet another of the "Rochester" companies (the cluster of companies in Rochester NY that dominated the US photo and optical industry), one of the later ones in fact. It began as a post-WWII venture by some former employees of Kodak and Ilex. At one time they even owned what remained of Steinheil.

Elgeet tried its hand in many other markets, some very specialized, but other than 8mm cine lenses their products are rather scarce. They had a full line of enlarger lenses in the 1950's-60's, which was carried on for a while by their successor D.O. Industries.

I have two Elgeet enlarger lenses, a 90mm and a 135mm. They are very similar to the Wollensak enlarger lenses even in construction and finish, and are made to the same high build standard. Both are coated.

I have some shots from the 90mm here -

http://forum.mflenses.com/elgeet-90-4-5-enlarger-lens-flash-t9356,highlight,elgeet.html

The 135 suffers from heavy cleaning marks unfortunately, so it is prone to ghosts and flare. Its sharp enough for what it is, but I have to say the Wollensak 135 is better as a bellows lens. Perhaps a better example would give better results.

All flowers today unfortunately.

mo · Expire: 2016-07-30

Beautiful....

kds315* · Expire: 2021-03-09

great results!

Minolfan · Joined: 30 Dec 2008 Posts: 3437 Location: Netherlands

Very good results. I did not see anything of Elgeet before, may be they did not export very much to Europe?

luisalegria · Expire: 2018-01-18

Very few US-made lenses ever got to Europe I think. Any that are found there are mostly because they were probably brought by travellers or sold by US Military PX's, or are military surplus.

The USA was always the high-cost producer, even in the 1890's. European lenses were much cheaper in Europe. The only reason the European makers didn't take over the US market early was probably because of tariffs. Even so there were plenty of European lenses sold in the USA for the whole of the last century.

patrickh · Expire: 2011-11-18

Very nice results Luis
I never heard of the company before, but Rochester was almost the center of the photographic universe for quite a long time

patrickh

pich900 · Expire: 2012-12-27

Superb pictures, verry sharp and the colours are so beautiful Shocked

......but how is it possible to use this kind of lens on a DSLR pentax body Question

......

patrickh · Expire: 2011-11-18

@pich900

Mounted on extension tubes, helicoid or bellows. Most (but by no means all) enlarging lenses are M39 threaded. Best value available for high quality macro/closeup.

patrickh

pich900 · Expire: 2012-12-27

Thanks patrickh for your answer Wink

...
But then this kind of lens (with M39 mount) can be mounted on the G1 (micro 4/3) with adapter M39/Micro 4/3 and with infinity focus (or at least with more DOF than for macro work), am I right?
Anyway, again congrats for the beautifuls results Very Happy

....

wilson.c · Joined: 18 Jan 2010 Posts: 363 Location: Hong Kong

Nice macro shots !!

I've got a Schneider-Kreuznach Componar 75/f4.5 that I want to adapt, but the adapter for 25mm x 0.75 thread pitch to M39 or M42 are hard to come by. I may have to butcher the Durst adapter that I found it in to make it work.

luisalegria · Expire: 2018-01-18

Hi Pich, Hi Wilson,

I use bellows or focusing extension tubes as Patrick says.

It should be possible to mount a bellows on a Micro 4/3. Any bellows for which you can get a Micro 4/3 adapter should work, M42, Nikon, Minolta, Canon FD, etc.

I like mounting smaller lenses like this on drilled plastic body caps. You can get these for any mount and they go perfectly on bellows. If you have a Nikon bellows get a Nikon body cap. Drill and file the hole just the right size and you can easily and securely screw the lens into it.

Most US-made enlarger lenses (Wollensak was the biggest maker, I know these well) are not M39, they have all sorts of non-standard threads. The European ones probably are mostly M39, but I have only a couple of small Schneiders with smaller threads so I can't say from experience.

pich900 · Expire: 2012-12-27

Hi luisalegria,
Thanks for your answer.
I have actually this lens, a Steinheil Munchen Cassar 3.5/50mm, but I have no idea if it's an enlarger lens Confused

...It has a screw mount with a diameter of about 30mm, here is a picture of my lens:

Do you may be know if this is an enlarger lens Rolling Eyes

?

martinsmith99 · Expire: 2013-11-18

It is an enlarger lens.

I have one too and I can say I'm fairly disappointed with it.

jjphoto · Joined: 17 Mar 2009 Posts: 406

I can't figure out what the thread is on this thing, the Elgeet 135/4.5, so does anyone know?

It seems to be 32 or 32.5mm and I can't tell if it's 0.75 or possibly even finer. Then again it might not be metric at all as 1 1/4"=31.75mm. Does any one know?

Thanks
JJ

RioRico · Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2011 4:29 am Post subject:

luisalegria · Expire: 2018-01-18

I will measure the thread on my Elgeet when I get the chance, but I doubt it will help much. The thread is certainly not metric.

The usual US enlarger mount was on a flange screwed into a lens board. The flanges came with the lens, they did not interchange into standard threads.

The plastic body cap system works very well, its easy and cheap. The problems are with lenses that are too large for body caps.

I have the Steinheil Culminar 135/4.5, and the thread is M40. It perfectly fits the thread of the Exakta extension tubes - Exakta extension tubes are peculiar in that they screw together to the required length and then you screw on the male/female bayonets at either end. I don't think its a coincidence that Steinheil made the lens to fit. Its extremely easy to mount this lens on any Exakta macro equipment without any special arrangements, and without the need to provide a special Exakta bayonet mount.

A macro/bellows lens would be expected to fit on the macro equipment that it is intended for without a fuss, so I certainly would think that a lens with M42 was made for that purpose.

M39 is something else. There is a lot of old macro equipment around designed for M39, such as the many flavors of Visoflex bellows and Novoflex bellows, etc.

Lenses designed for Visoflex, both lens heads and lenses with focusing mounts, are all M39. Komura and Kilfitt both made many lenses with M39 as a base mount, with the various SLR, cine or whatever camera mounts fitting with a screw on adapter.

The lens end of many Novoflex bellows are M39, with an adapter used for the camera end, like the Kilfitt lenses.

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

Beautiful pictures, well done! Lens also pretty!

jjphoto · Joined: 17 Mar 2009 Posts: 406

Thanks guys.

It seems, but is not confirmed, that the thread for the Elgeet 135/4.5 Colorstigmat should be 1.25" at 30TPI. I need to make some more enquiries but this seems to be the case.

Phenix jc · Joined: 19 Dec 2009 Posts: 398 Location: France

rafoarc · Joined: 04 Mar 2014 Posts: 7

luisalegria · Expire: 2018-01-18

The ring was meant to secure the lens on a lensboard, which is exactly what it sounds like, a thin flat board. I use body caps in the same way as lens boards.
Unscrew the ring from the lens. Drill a hole in the body cap so the rear thread is a snug fit. Stick the rear of the lens in the hole. Screw the ring on the thread that's poking through the hole. Tighten the ring and the lens will be snugly held on the body cap.

hinnerker · Expire: 2015-08-09

For those of you, who are trying enlarger lenses on �FT, FT, Fuji cams or any cam for that are 52mm reverse rings available to bring a focussystem to it, a short hint to my VNEX or V�FT System.

As i read, often people have trouble with different diameter of a lens-given screw threat, my system do have 4 special parts for convert the lens thread to M39 thread simply by 4 rings with different diameters, 25mm, 27mm, 30mm and 32,5mm... so you can connect any enlarger lens different to M39 standard...

(rings are shown in the front row)

With this rings, you can connect an enlarger (or any other) lens to the focus system..

After establishing one of the rings to the lens thread, you can simly connect the ring to the focus-system...

So this system helps a lot, if you want to handle different threads up to 32,5mm without the need to work only in fixed focus positions.

Lots of lenses in 50-80mm range can be used as normal taking lenses from infinty to a close focus distance of 20-25 cm...

For more informations, please read the VNEX and V�FT Ads, Attila made "sticky" at the beginning of this forum section.

Cheers
Henry

rafoarc · Joined: 04 Mar 2014 Posts: 7

Thanks Luisalegria! Everything makes sense, except that the ring that is on this lens, is not like the ones I usually see (on photos online mainly), that have holes that will allow you to screw them on the body cap. This ring is without holes (and is actually quite thin in the direction where the holes should be)... so I guess that I have to find one such ring...

Update: ok, I got it now. I had a different type of ring in my mind... so this is going to work too!

philslizzy · Joined: 07 Aug 2012 Posts: 4748 Location: Cheshire, England

Elgeets were used on American cine cameras too, Bell & Howell I think.

pterpm · Joined: 17 May 2014 Posts: 15