Schneider-Kreuznach Componon-S f5.6 100mm

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

List price on Schneider site: 1,022 dollars.

Secondhand orice on ebay: 4ukp.

M39 enlarger/macro lens with M39 LTM, optically perfect, looks like it has had little use.

Only has 5 aperture blades so bokeh may not be the best.

Removed the M39 ring from a broken Zenit 3M, expoxied it to an M42 extension tube and mounted on EOS 10D with M42-EOS adapter.

Focussing is a bit tricky but this lens is sharp as a razor from corner to corner and has excellent contrast. Flares a lot so I need to make a hood for it, I don't think it has any coatings.

For the price I paid I adore this lens. Will need some practice to learn to focus it accurately in it's crude mount but it is obviously capable of some excellent IQ in the right hands.

One thing I notice, this lens absolutely crushes perspective. All these were taken at f/13:

woodrim · Joined: 14 Jan 2010 Posts: 4060 Location: Charleston

Seems to have handled well the white flowers and tree branches against the sky. How do you see this lens differentiating itself positively from the usual 100mm lenses?

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

kds315* · Expire: 2021-03-09

I use that since years for my work but I'm sorry to say that you must have a pretty bad copy,
as mine is razor sharp, with very high contrast and quite some 3D capability. I always
recommend that one if someone tries to experiment with enlarger lenses.

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

francotirador · Joined: 17 Sep 2009 Posts: 894

Pues por aqui este objetivo se consigue por el 10 o 20% de ese valor. Si a alguien le interesa me pongo a buscar.

Well, here, this objective is achieved by 10% or 20% of that value. If anyone is interested I look for
Greetings.

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

kds315* · Expire: 2021-03-09

Just an example what that lens is capable to do - no complaints from my side.

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

Excellent macro work Claus. I purchased this lens because it's a plasmat design an therefore ideal for macro work, but you know that...

When you lookat my test images, which do you think is the case:

it's a bad copy of this lens

or I didn't get the focus quite right?

francotirador · Joined: 17 Sep 2009 Posts: 894

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

Thankyou Franco.

I did not think you were selling, I thought that you said they were available for 10-20% of the original cost.

I think if you need a macro lens then buying one at those prices would be good, I'm not sure how well it performs for non-macro use yet as I'm having troubles using mine to get the best IQ from it. I think a more experienced photographer could get some great results from this lens.

RioRico · Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 6:36 pm Post subject:

Back to using the lens -- I have a suggestion. Non-camera lenses are generally not designed to shoot into light, and may lack coatings. When using enlarger, projector, copy, print, and similar lenses outside studio conditions, a hood may be necessary. Some of the above photos show much flare, which would be prevented with a hood. A basic hood can be easily improvised, even from a bit of black PVC pipe or black paper.

Mounting the lens: I use many non-focusing enlarger and other non-camera lenses, or lenses scavenged from MF folders or polaroids, with 110mm or 140mm bellows on my Pentax K20D. I find that lenses with focal lengths greater than 80mm will reach infinity focus and can so be used for general non-macro photography. And I just bought a few Ilex iris assemblies, so now I can add apertures to my copy, print, and projector lenses.

A bellows and a handful of 90-105-125-140-162mm lenses are much more interesting than a stodgy zoom!

patrickh · Expire: 2011-11-18

klaus is the Word on these lenses. Used for macro on a bellows or focusing helicoid the results can be staggering. Enlarging lenses from 50 - 150mm by el nikkor, schneider or rodenstock will give results that equal the best of the macro lenses for a fraction of the cost.

patrickh

jjphoto · Joined: 17 Mar 2009 Posts: 406

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

Thanks for the tips. The time of day also played a factor, it was late afternoon so the sun was low in the sky and that emphasised the glare issued.

Weather has been freezing cold here last two days, when it improves I'll get out in a morning with a hood fitted and take some more shots.

I need to make a hood, there's no thread for one on the lens, some cardbord and sticky tape will do I suppose.

jamaeolus · Expire: 2015-08-20

I had my copy of this lens in the garden. The blueberries were blooming and the wild honeybees were working the flowers and the huntsman was working the honeybees; ).

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e6filmuser · Joined: 12 Nov 2010 Posts: 582 Location: Reading UK

I received a copy today. Mine had a small lens screwed into the back of it, something the OP seems not to have had. With that in place, I found 160mm of extension from the adapter gave a FOV 35mm wide on my A7r3, 1:1. 210mm gave a FOV 24mm wide. Working distances from the front of the lens (hand-held tape measure!) were 170mm and 140mm, respectively.

By removing the rear lens unit, the extension was approximately correct for infinity focus, at which the resolution looked disappointing. The flare was as bad as I have seen on any of my lenses, even on a dull day.

My use will probably be for macro to low magnification close-ups.

The smaller lens unit has a cap, used to support it in the fourth image.

The images are a little brighter than the black lens.

stevemark · Joined: 29 Apr 2011 Posts: 3754 Location: Switzerland

Sorry - I don't get it ...

Didn't you simply remove (unscrew) the rear half of the Componon? Of course with the front half alone you would get inferior image quality (though the rear half of the Schneider f5.6 Symmar - lens which has nearly the same lens section as the Componon - could be used separately; see here: https://www.pacificrimcamera.com/rl/00832/00832.pdf).

Or did I miss anything?

S

e6filmuser · Joined: 12 Nov 2010 Posts: 582 Location: Reading UK

BrianSVP · Joined: 09 Jun 2023 Posts: 301 Location: Philadelphia

This thread is really confusing to me. Not just the whole "the lens only achieves infinity correctly with half of it gone" part in the recent messages, but the OP also describes the lens as "razor sharp corner to corner," but the sharpness in a lot of his shots, especially the ones close to infinity, looks like warmed over dog doo doo. I know the post is 13 years old, and processing for the forum might have degraded them somewhat, but the last couple of landscape shots look exceptionally bad.

e6filmuser · Joined: 12 Nov 2010 Posts: 582 Location: Reading UK

e6filmuser · Joined: 12 Nov 2010 Posts: 582 Location: Reading UK

Here is an image with field of view 12mm wide. shot at f11 on m4/3. These slime moulds do not form neat rows so we are only interested in the best bits this time. Normal processing for this magnification. The images is cropped vertically only.

stevemark · Joined: 29 Apr 2011 Posts: 3754 Location: Switzerland

e6filmuser · Joined: 12 Nov 2010 Posts: 582 Location: Reading UK

Here is a crosseye stereo pair, incorporating the above image and another taken for this purpose.

That neither of the single frames has the focus I would like, the stereo is all the better for that.

kds315* · Expire: 2021-03-09