Schneider-Kreuznach Angulon 6.8/65 on 6x9

[iangreenhalgh1]

I picked this lens up on the correct Graflex lens board to fit my Century Graphic for a very good price. It's in great condition, the glass is clean and the Compur shutter works like new. I read a lot of mixed reviews on this lens so I was a bit worried how it would perform Well, my copy seems good, I use it at f16-22, maybe the people who said it wasn't that sharp, especially in the corners were shooting it wide open?




So far, only thing I don't like about it is 6.5 makes for a dim ground glass in the typical British overcast, but so far I've not had any problems focusing it.

This is the little village of Ravenglass on Fomapan 100, some slight camera shake sadly.



A couple of general street scenes on Kodak Industrex MX125 x-ray film, both at f22, nice and sharp and not much distortion for a wide angle:




My dad's Rover P4, Industrex MX125 again, this film gets rather contrasty in strong light, last two are at f11:





All in all, I really like this lens, it might not be as sharp as a more modern wide angle but it's more than adequate and will serve me well.

[Attila]

Handsome looking combo, sharpness probably more depend from scanner than camera and lens. I know you have old scanner , might next most important step to have a newer sharper scanner. Tonality is nice on pictures , look forward more.

[iangreenhalgh1]

Cheers. The Industrex is ortho and has microscopic grain, but sadly it's also coated on both sides so this means the sharpness is a little less than with a normal single coated film, but it's good for learning to use this thing and try different lenses. I only paid 99p for a box of 100 sheets of 40x15cm, I cut each sheet up into 8 6.5x9 sheets to fit the Century Graphic so it's very cheap.

My scanner is an old Epson 3200 and it's on it's last legs, so yes, a new scanner is definitely on the shopping list.

[luisalegria]

Great results with that.

A lens I want plus film I need to try, very interesting post.

If I were you I'd give that village of yours another try in better light.
If you can get blue skies and sunshine, red filter and a tripod.
Yep, probably happens about twice a year in your parts, but when its time its time.

[iangreenhalgh1]

Cheers Luis, quite a steep learning curve but I'm getting there slowly.

I've tried to shoot that village a few times, seems I'm always cursed with bad light though.

What would a red filter do with ortho film? I think this film is not true ortho and is just blue sensitive.

The use of coloured filters for bw is on my list of things to try soon, as is movements on the Century for architectural shots with the Angulon.

[Jesito]

Nice results, Ian.
I like a lot the Ravenglass one, good gray scale, fine contrast, nice details.

[paulhofseth]

In my brief experience, the Schneider 65 was quite good, but the old Linhof roll film back sometimes worked, sometimes not. Double exposures are not twice as good.

Sheet film 6x9mm was ok but laborious, if you fcorgot using the filmshield, you had lost the snap. Excellent gradation of colours though.

The wide 65, the normal 105 or so, and the tele were optically OK and the combination regularly outperformed my 35mm film bodies. The main problem was that the (very compact) Technica IV did not fit in my (big) pockets like the 35s. I swapped the Technica body for an olympus 50\2 macro in Bievres a long time ago, and also stuck with the Wetzlar-Solms products + perceived alternatives as suitable for jacket pockets.I cannot recall what happened to Schneiders wide , normal and teles.They were good, but the combo was too large, so they had to go.

If you have room for bringing such stuff out and have a decent film back (like the more recent Linhofs), do try bigger formats.

p.

[iangreenhalgh1]

Cheers Jes, I plan to go back there on a nicer day.

Hiya Paul. I have several backs for my Century, the one I have used so far is the Graglex 23 6x9 one, it works very well, not had any flatness issues. I also have Mamiya RB67 120, 220 and 70mm backs, not used them yet. Linhof Rollex backs seem pretty common and fairly cheap on ebay, I've been tempted to get one.

I've almost run out of 120 bw film and it's hard to find cheap, hence I tried using sheets as i already had a lot of x-ray film.

I've found I really like the view camera method, using a ground glass back and loupe, cut sheet holders etc so a move to 4x5 is definitely in my future.

I'm happy with my Angulon 65 and Xenar 3.5/105, they are both good enough, I'd rate them as 'good', capable lenses but there are better out there for sure, eventually I want to upgrade to 'very good' or 'excellent' lenses and in the case of the 65mm, the lens I will go for is the Mamiya K/L 65, it's superb and the cells can be removed and put in a standard shutter. Pretty common and not expensive on ebay. I'm very tempted by the Mamiya 50mm too, that would be very wide on 6x9.

[hifisapi]

I had an angulon 90mm and a super angulon 65mm, both of which I used on 4x5 and both were quite satisfactory....

[iangreenhalgh1]

I think, in larger formats, the lens is not so critical as with 35mm, and there are a lot of lenses that are good enough. That said, I do drool over the Planar, Biogon and Sonnar that were supplied for the Linhof Technika 6x9.