Hoya Enlargers

[tinybynature]

Any experience with Hoya enlargers?

I see they have a 50mm Super EL F2.8 (6 elements)

Also a 75mm Super EL F4.5 (not sure how many elements)

Is there a large difference between say a 6 element Hoya or Nikkon and a 3 element Industar? Is it mostly CA, or is there a large image quality difference as well?

[themoleman342]

I assume you looking at them for picture taking?

I think the hoya el series lenses are re-branded computars dls. Same as beseler color pros.

The industar should be 4 elements and yes, there should be a noticeable quality difference. Center performance may be close but the industar will falloff towards the edges. That, however, becomes less apparent when stopping down. I don't know about CA. Never used enlarger lenses off of an enlarger...

[iangreenhalgh1]

Made by Kowa so should be good quality.

If using an enlarger lens 75-80mm or longer, it doesn't really matter whether it is a 4-element Tessar type or a 6-element Planar type as the edges will be outside the part of the image circle used by an APS-C sensor.

[tinybynature]

[tinybynature]

Hoya Super EL (enlarger) arrived, in better condition than advertised. Not a mark on it, anywhere!!

50mm 2.8 (fairly weighty lens)

Now I just need to wait for my helicoid and I am off to take some pictures.

[themoleman342]

I'm not sure if anyone cares about this anymore but I have been researching these lenses lately and have my doubts that the Hoya El = Computars = Beseler ColorPro equation is actually true. At the time, I just repeated what I had read elsewhere but there's definitely some inconsistencies.

I believe the Beseler ColorPro and Hoya EL were the same lenses for a time. I have yet to determine the actual manufacturer though. The lenses have a golden single coating and look very similar (not just cosmetically but size of elements, etc). After a point though, the ColorPro name gets put to a different set of lenses, the Computars. I don't think the Computars were ever Hoya ELs, so that means that the ELs were probably not made by Kowa. Computar/Kowa enlarger lenses have a blue/purple coating and the 50mm has a large back element, right to the edges of the 39mm mount.

[iangreenhalgh1]

Computar is a Kowa brand so I think anything with the Computar brand on it is made by Kowa.

How that relates to Hoya ELs I dunno.

[themoleman342]

[iangreenhalgh1]

All the large format Computars are Kowa. Have you seen Computar lenses that were not made by Kowa?

[themoleman342]

That does not mean that it was Kowa's brand, it means that Kowa was their manufacturer. I think a majority of the designs were actually calculated by Burleigh-Brooks in the U.S. for Computar.

[scsambrook]

I'm sure I recall selling Komura branded enlarging lenses back in the 1970s/80s that looked very much like the one shown in this thread... not sure of that's any relevance, but there you are

[themoleman342]

I have a Komuranon-S 3.5/50mm enlarger lens. It is, without a doubt, an older (not N) EL-Nikkor 2.8/50 with an aperture stop at 3.5 built in. Never seen a 2.8 version.