Camerz Axinon 90mm 4.5 on a7rii

jamaeolus · Expire: 2015-08-20

This lens came in a lot with 4 other 90mm 4.5 enlarger lenses. 2 each fuji es and vivitar. They all look to be unused. I am not sure but strongly suspect the Camerz is a rebranded Friedrich. The livery matches the others that I have seen and the Axinon name was definitely used by Friedrich. The thread on this lens are 35mm but NOT m39. Much finer. I used my macro setup with the minolta auto bellows iii and a minolta m42 adapter and some blue tak. If you are interested in macro I highly recommend the auto bellows iii. It has front movements both tilt and shift. It is extremely well made and a joy to use. First shot:

alex ph · Joined: 16 Mar 2013 Posts: 1674

A crisp one! Great shot. Have you done it WO?

kds315* · Expire: 2021-03-09

Yep, that should be a Friedrich AXINON indeed!

danfromm · Joined: 04 Sep 2011 Posts: 595

It is a taking lens, not an enlarging lens. Camerz made long roll cameras used by school photographers.

For those of you outside the US, our schools had, when I was in elementary school, may still have a "school picture" custom. Every spring a photographer with a long roll camera would come by and shoot portraits of every student. Parents who wanted to buy prints bought.

There were many vintages of long roll cameras. TLRs, SLRs, 70 mm, 35 mm. Camerz used Friedrich and Ilex lenses.

jamaeolus · Expire: 2015-08-20

Dan, I did read up on Camerz before bidding. I just assumed it was an enlarger lens as friedrich made an Axinon enlarger lens, and of course you could get enlargements of school photos. Do you think friedrich did a different calculation for this taking lens? I have been very impressed by the quality of the optics on all the Friedrich lenses I have tried. This was at f8, i was trying to get most of the flower into reasonable focus. It is nearly as sharp wide open.

danfromm · Joined: 04 Sep 2011 Posts: 595

No idea. There was a time when the same prescription was used for taking and enlarging -- think of pre-WW II f/6.3 Tessars -- but I have no idea what Friedrich did.

jamaeolus · Expire: 2015-08-20

OK thanks. I knew that in the "old" days it was common but I think this lens dates from the 60's or so. Anyway I am quite pleased with the results of my ~10 dollar investment. Photo Cornucopia has a Friedrich Axinon 90mm 4.5 listed as a 4 element ( which this seems to be as the elements on both ends just unscrew and don't seem complicated) but the mounting thread is a 27mm. I'm pretty sure these are 39mm by 0.75.

danfromm · Joined: 04 Sep 2011 Posts: 595

visualopsins · Expire: 2025-04-11

"old days"! LOL I remember those from Elementary School in 1960s. They were also used until 1980s in Sears & in Montgomery Wards stores with a whole department, a studio, for portrait-making.

I have 75-150mm 1:4.5 zoom for Camerz made by Tamron.

Camerz used medium format film iirc. The lenses should have big image circles. I almost bought one of the camera bodies, but went with Asahi Pentax 6x7 instead.