Q4 2023 (Oct-Dec) — Through Your Adapted Lens

Shot with a Tamron Noritsu 48.5 mm f/2.8 enlarging lens:

Christmas is in the air... by simple.joy, on Flickr

and this one with a Fuji P-Fujinon 2 1/2 inch f/1.7 (projection) lens:

Bokeh is no laughing matter... by simple.joy, on Flickr

Questions that may be useful, or may just show my ignorance:

The letters look to have been engraved and then filled. Was the engraving done by hand or machine?

The letters are monospaced. The font used is very familiar to me: typewriter-like. Were the metal holders themselves made in Europe/USA, or with an imported machine?

Does the use of the decimal point indicate American involvement, or did German lenses not use a comma in those days? (In Britain, as opposed to the USA, the decimal point is above the line, not on it.)

Does the use of both ft and m mean anything, or was there always an international format on lenses when labelling focussing distance?

David

A fisheye lens from the other end of the size spectrum. An Ukranian made Arsat 30 for the Pentacon 6 medium format film camera. I use the lens with a P6 to Pentax 645 adapter. The lens is large with the front element being about 110mm. It is well built, but the adapter is a little lite weight and care must be taken when attaching or detaching the lens. It performs well when stopped down some. Rear of lens is threaded for filters and as ususal a filter must always be in place since it is part of the optical system. I only have the clear filter. Need to hunt down some others.
This was taken at f8 at 8 seconds, ISO 100. I walked out onto the bridge and sat on the concrete lane divider with the tripod. It was a long time exposure so I had to shoot lots of frames to get one without cars or camera blur. The semi trucks bounce the whole bridge when they go by.
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Thanks for looking,
barondla

It certainly is not. Unless, chocolate is in involved :). The Tamron has a neat aperture shape.
Thanks for sharing,
barondla

Thanks a lot for your observations and interesting questions... it made me look at the lens again and I've realized that the labeling is indeed not quite uniform in terms of spacing and angle of the single letters. Not sure what it means for how it was made...

I'm not sure what the decimal point means, but I guess it's likely an indication that this lens was not made in Germany (which was my second suspicion) but Japan. Everything else is pretty much out of the question in 1938, due to the political situation. The most likely manufacturers (given the connections of Omiya Photo Supply, responsible for the famous Hansa Canon Camera, the first ever Canon-made camera, featuring a Nikkor lens) are the following:

1.) Nippon Kogaku (later Nikon)
2.) Tomioka Kogaku
3.) Another Japanese manufacturer
4.) Some German manufacturer

From the details on the markings there are more things pointing towards Nippon Kogaku being responsible, however I don't know why a.) they wouldn't put their own name on it (given that they did on the 1936 Hansa Canon camera lens) and b.) I have no idea if the serial number No 816 is realistic, given that they would have already made lenses in significant numbers for two years. On the other hand, it's impossible to say when this particular lens was made, so who knows.

I also thought about Seiki Kōgaku Kenkyūjo (later Canon) being responsible, but it seems impossible, given they released their first lens in 1946.

Here's one more shot with the interesting Fuji P-Fujinon 2 1/2 inch f/1.7 (projection) lens:

In part wholesome by simple.joy, on Flickr

A Snowflake in the Christmas tree.

Drawn by Leitz Focotar 50mm f:4.5

Very nice! Which version of the Focotar do you have? The Schneider-made one or one of the earlier Leitz lenses?

I think this is the Schneider version. There is engraved Leitz Wetzlar at the lens barrel. It's Serial Number is between 11458893-12364598. So I guess, according to Delta Lenses ( deltalenses.com/product/leitz-wetzlar-focotar-50-lfe-4-5-v5/ ), it's V5: LFE. But why do you ( and Delta ) think it's made by Schneider?

Did you look at the bokeh balls in the first picture? I forget to mention that I used ~10 degrees swing which distorted those balls.

Btw. You have shown pictures made with Focotar II. Do you know what are the differencies between Focotar and Focotar II ?

Excellent images. I noticed something was up with the bokeh balls. There are measurements of 5 different Leitz Focotar 50 lenses here: www.ultravioletphotography.com/content/index.php?/forum/639-uv-lenses-non-helicoidal/. Lots of this info pertains to UV response. The Focotars are some of the best "accidental" UV lenses around.
Thanks,
barondla

There's a short writeup here (not nearly finished): deltalenses.com/the-leica-story/

I don't know where the Schneider theory originated, but it seems very likely due to the different serial number system, as well as clear differences in style, materials and finishing to the Leitz made lenses. If I remember correctly the story was something like that:

1.) Leitz made several Focotars 50/4.5
2.) some review in a magazine appeared and critizised the Leitz Focotar for too much field curvature
3.) Leitz (perhaps not quite finished with developing a successor to the Focotar) made a deal with Schneider, who created a lens of similar quality with improved field curvature for them.
4.) Leitz finished and released their Focotar-2, a clear improvement in almost every way and so in-house production took over once again.

Why it's likely?

• serial number seems to match the Schneider system, not the one of Leitz
• Schneider Kreuznach made a number of Leitz labeled lenses over time, so it's not exception

All of this is from top of my head, so I may misremember some things... it's a very good lens though.

Very interesting! I have noticed the strange shapes, but didn't think of swing movements... some shapes like that can appear when bokeh balls are actually some kind of reflected/distorted light sources as well. My bellows doesn't feature swing movement, so I've no experience with it, but quality seems fine for 10 degrees. The Focotar (LFE) is a very good lens for T/S movements in my experience. The Focotar-2 is significantly better though.

It depends... do you mean the Focotar II (which is the latest 100 mm enlarging lens made by Leitz) or the Focotar-2 50 mm f/4.5? I've made several images with both of those. The Focotar-2 50 mm f/4.5 is remarkable in terms of sharpness and incredible ability to hold a lot of its images quality even when tilted extensively.... It's quite remarkable for a normal lens.

Twofold unfold by simple.joy, on Flickr

So far I've not been able to find a better normal lens for that than the Focotar-2... Apart from this feature, it does have nice rendering (like almost all Leitz lenses) but nothing really special. It's clearly not a fast lens at f/4.5 and it's usually quite expensive, because it still is highly interesting to both people with enlargers as well as macro enthusiasts. Someone specializing in astro-photography also told me that the Focotar-2 was rumored to be quite good at that. I did some tests, but I'm not sure if it really is anything special in that regard.

The Focotar II is a similar story, but even more extreme in some aspects...

Very interesting info even if I don't take UV shots. Thank you!

This makes sense, I believe the serial numbering shows the origin of the lens.

You have written a nice story there. The Zenotar type Componon-S 50mm f/2.8 is a very interesting lens. I guess it was the only one of that type in Componon-S line with it's big max aperture. The longer (and maybe later) Componon-S lenses were double Gauss type with six elements.
Btw. it looks like my Focotar's max aperture was a little limited by the iris. Maybe for image quality reasons. When I open the aperture it'll never be full open.
Focotar could be a f/3.5 or f/2.8 lens if not limited.

I did mean Focotar-2 but I did write straight from my memory without checking the facts...

And here I tried mimicking simplejoy but failed again... At least I got mother and child in focus with f/11 and 9 degrees of tilt.

Looks good. If you go further (that is, if you have a tilt adapter or bellows which does more than 9 degrees) you'll likely see image quality decrease significiantly with most lenses.

Here's a shot I've made with my (Schneider Kreuznach made) Focotar 50 mm f/4.5 yesterday:

Buckle up for hiss second try! by simple.joy, on Flickr

Compared to the (older) Componon-S (5-element Xenotar) 50/2.8 the Focotar 50/4.5 is slightly better when both lenses are compared at f/4.5, visibly at the edges of the frame. Judging by reflections these two lenses might be identical in terms of optical design, however they certainly seem to have different coatings and I also think the Focotar may be better at dealing with stray light.

I'm sure Schneider might have learned a thing or two by these dealings with Leitz, as the latter company was known to be extremely harsh in terms of quality control and oftentimes demanded changes to be made, whenever they decided to use another makers lens.

Yes, I agree.
I have not tried very big amounts of tilt with many lenses. I have to check that.
My bellows ( Cambo Actus ) gives me +-10 degrees of tilt and unlimited swing ( at the same time if needed! ). In practice with the bellows no more than ~45 degrees swing is possible. So Actus is not the limiting factor.

Very nice shot. At f/4.5 I guess? Did you look at the iris when the aperture was at 4.5? Did you see the same as I did, the maximal opening was limited?

Indeed - the Actus seems like a great device.

Yes, that's normal. The diaphragm doesn't fully open. I've compared the lens to the Componon-S (5-element version without illuminated aperture indicator) and it is indeed pretty much identical in terms of reflections, so it might have been the basis for the Schneider-made Focotar. I've made a comparison shot and the Focotar is better at f/4.5... not by much, but enough that it makes me think Leitz has a.) done their additional checks in order to just use the best samples and b.) made some additional changes. It's a pity the Focotar doesn't open up fully, but I'm sure for enlarging Leitz had good reasons to limit it.

Winter warmth by simple.joy, on Flickr

Very nice color. Looks very natural. Leitz has always been good at that.

Remember years ago a consumer magazine group tested several different brands of current 50mm film lenses. One of the "tests" rated the lens coatings. Leitz wasn't one of the brands tested. They wrote a letter to the magazine saying it was nearly impossible to separate lens design from coating quality without testing the same design with and without coatings. Leitz then said it took them over 200 different tests to tell if a lens was good or not. The magazine did 7 or 8 tests. I disregarded their tests after that.
Thanks,
barondla

One thing I've learned is lenses aren't the same efficiency through their range. Glass lenses become more opaque as they descend into UV. Eventually they let no light in. Different glass responds differently. The Nikon EL-Nikkor and Leitz Focotar enlarging lenses reach 310-320nm. This is very good for glass based lenses. To do better takes something like a Nikon 105 UV lens that records down to ~250 nm. All quartz elements and about $7K new. The interesting part is the Quartz 105 UV lens is less efficient than the glass EL-Nikkor 80 in the 350-400nm range. Some glass lenses don't manage much below 400nm.

This can also affect standard photography. Olympus ILC have less UV sensor filtration and can run into fringing when using Panasonic lenses. The fix is a Zeiss UV or Tiffen Haze E filter. These filters are much stronger than a normal UV filter. No wonder lenses look different.
Thanks,
barondla

The Q4 of 2023 is near of it's end. Happy New Year with Travegar 105mm!

Very nice! Wish you a Happy New Year as well!

Excellent image. The 105 renders nicely. Ready for 2024. Happy New Year everyone.
Thanks for sharing,
barondla