Rodenstock Enlarger Lenses

David · Expire: 2013-01-25

I picked up three rodenstock enlarger lenses today for a good price -- 1:2.8 50mm, 1:4 80mm, and 1:5.6 135mm. The 50 and 80 are in perfect shape. The 135 has some fine dust on the elements, but it appears it will be easily cleaned.

For those of you who have used Rodenstock Rodagons, what are your opinions?

pich900 · Expire: 2012-12-27

Hi David! I have no idea if they are good enlarger lens but I know they are quite impressive as macro lens Very Happy

....here for exemple some samples with the 2.8/50mm: http://forum.mflenses.com/enlarger-lens-rodenstock-rodagon-2-8-50mm-on-d700-t50356.html

rbelyell · Expire: 2014-01-31

i think member Forensail uses them to digitize film and was very happy with them. is that how you plan to use them? if so, i think many would be interested in your planned setup/workflow.
tony

ForenSeil · Joined: 15 Apr 2011 Posts: 2726 Location: Kiel, Germany.

Do you really have Rodagons and not Rogonars etc.?

If yes you've got very good lenses Smile

Congrats!
Only the compareable expensive Focotar-2/Apo-Componon/Apo-Rodagons etc. are better.
Here's a link to an information paper: http://www.rodenstock-photo.com/mediabase/original/e_Rodenstock_Printing_CCD_43-62__8230.pdf

And yes they are known to work very good as macro lenses.
The 80- and 135mm are better for magnifactions from 1:1 to ~1:3 than the 50mm as the 50mm is optimized for higher magnifications. The 50mm could be reversed to reach magnifcations around 4:1 which would be interesting for focus stacking.

David · Expire: 2013-01-25

Hey, thank you all for the input. To answer your questions

1- Yes, I believe all three are rodagons.
2- My first two thoughts for uses were on my enlarger and also for macro work. I have a Pentax Macro Bellows II with an M42 female and K-mount male, so it works nicely on my K-7. With my M39-M42 adapter, the enlarger lenses ought to be very usable on the bellows.
3- Digitizing slides is definitely an idea. I hadn't thought of it, but I have 4500 slides from my girlfriend's father left to scan. It takes about two minutes per slide on my scanner. And the slide duplicator I bought has a flange focal distance about 10mm shorter than M42.
4- Those are really great macro lenses. Time to experiment with focus stacking!

It seems the slide duplicating ought to be fairly straightforward. With a 40.5mm-to-whatever-size step-up ring, one could affix a slide carrier to some distance in front of the lens. With the bellows, the focusing ought to be do-able.

I actually bought them mostly because the lady wanted $50 each. She had been given a darkroom setup to sell and I had helped her understand what the various parts and pieces were. The dude who gave her the setup had an IMPRESSIVE and unused setup, including at least one Toyo 125 4X5. I admit, I wanted that camera but it was missing the lens board and focusing screen. The guy had a home color processing and developing setup for large-format photography. Quite impressive.

Anyway, I can't wait to get these tested out. I'll definitely share pictures as soon as I can.

Farside · Expire: 2013-12-27

I have a Rodagon 150/5.6 which I intend to mount on a lens board and try on Large Format 5x4in and 9x12cm. I have some hopes for it.

Orio · Expire: 2012-12-04

kds315* · Expire: 2021-03-09

Excellent lenses for sure the Rodagons - and especially the Apo-Rodagons.

Orio: if the focal length is long enough (from about 80mm onwards),
even infinity shots are doable, although they were never made for that
(but do pretty well).

ForenSeil · Joined: 15 Apr 2011 Posts: 2726 Location: Kiel, Germany.

Only the repro-"enlarger"-lenses like Rodagon-R, Rodagon-D, Rodenstock Ronar, Schneider C-Claron/G-Claron, etc. which are made for reproduction or small enlargements are pretty useless on infinity as long as you don't stop them down to ~F22 or even above - but they are still very interesting for medium- and especially large format as here F22 and more doesn't cost that much resolution there and they are very good and cheaper than native large format or medium format (macro) lenses.

The other normal Rodagons will work on infinity if stopped down properly, but of course they won't perform as good as about @ 1:15 etc.
But I guess also many native macro lenses do the same.

wupdigoj · Joined: 18 Mar 2010 Posts: 85

I own a couple of apo-gerogons, which I understand are repro lenses, and are perfectly fine for infinity work in a 9x12 camera. They are slow (f9 I think) so the image in the screen is very dim. They are also fine for enlarging, but focussing and composing is a nightmare.

Javier

kds315* · Expire: 2021-03-09