Battle of the Focotars (135 film)

[erik_danielsson]

<p>I am curious:<br /> Has anyone compared all the Leitz Focotar enlarging lenses for 135 film?<br /> - Focotar 50mm f4.5 (Focomat Ic)<br /> - Focotar-2 50mm f4.5 (Focomat Ic)<br /> - Focotar 40mm f2.8 (Focomat V35)<br /> - Focotar 60mm f4.5 (Focomat IIc)</p>

<p>Which one is regarded as the best?</p>

<p>I guess that the Focotar-2 50mm f4.5 is widely renowned as the top notch lens of the 135 film Focotars, but how big is the difference? Is it hairsplitting differences, or is it a visible downgrade to go from, for example, the Focotar 50/4.5 (first version) to Focotar 60/4.5? <br />(I am mostly doing 8-10x enlargements)</p>

<p>I ask since I'm planning to invest in a Focomat IIC. At the moment I have both the Focomat Ic with a Focotar v1 50mm (i love it) and Focomat V35 (don't really like it). I mostly print 135 film, sometimes 6x6 (on a Durst 670).</p>

[SCL]

<p>I checked the lens guru, Erwin Puts, but he didn't have the comparisons in his last edition of the Compendium. So, I can only speak from experience, having owned the 40/2.8. It was a spectacularly good enlarging lens for 135, and the focal length was just right for most normal sized enlargements on the Focomat V35 baseboard. Sharpness across the field was excellent, as good as, if not better than, any other lenses for 135 that I've seen. I have no experience with earlier models, but Leitz's history is one of continually improving their lenses to reduce distortions (which manifest themselves geometrically as the aperture increases), improve contrast, and apparent resolution. With that in mind, I would think the substantive differences in the models you cited, would be highly dependent on the degree on enlargement, and the character of the images you want to print...if you're looking for clinical sharpness and an even field without signs of vignetting or edge distortion, I'd say the latest iteration is clearly the best. If you're not printing professionally or for gallery work, probably the others can do a fine job...but why not go with the best?</p>

[james_elwing]

<p>I only ever owned the Focotar 50/4.5. It always gave me corner to corner grain in focusing, even with Kodak Tech Pan, and I therefore felt no need to replace it.<br>

I never knew of the 60, presumably to also cover medium format 6x6cm? As the 40, and Focotar II 50 were later lenses, I assumed they were sharper & more contrasty. A 40 2.8 would be easier to focus casually, but the focomat IIc would stay in focus, wouldn't it?</p>

 

[Troll]

<p>Of these, I prefer the 40mm lens on my V35, but IMO Rodenstock's lenses are even better, especially the 50mm APO.</p>

[wgpinc]

<p>On my Focomat 1C when I printed B&W a while ago I used the 50mm Rodenstock Rodagon 2.8. I liked the look much better than the 50mm Focotars, El Nikkors (too contrasty) and the Componons (super sharp but not contrasty enough). The 2.8 large aperture was handy for shortening exposures to speed up processing. I'm sure there are master printers who use any one of the three and make beautiful prints with them. All depends on which look you prefer. Good luck! </p>

[ray .]

I have the 40mm on V35 and it's the best set up I ever used, though I don't have experience with any of the

others you list. I'm curious what you don't like about it. Unfortunately after

going to inkjet prints, it's been well over 5 years since I've used it so I should probably put it up for sale, but

never seem to get around to it.

[erik_danielsson]

<p>All recommendations are good (for future readers), but I mainly asked for comparisons between the Focotar lenses.<br /> Please don't go too far off topic.<br /> <br /> I have used the V35 and all the IC versions for about six years. I find the construction of the IC superior to the V35, I also find the Focotar 40mm to be a little soft in the corners.<br /> I guess that the condensor light of the IC also is a major reason why I prefer the IC over the V35. <br /> But I would never say that the V35 is a bad enlarger, of course.<br /> <br />I have not tried the Focotar 60mm or the Focotar-2 50mm. <br /> I have read that the Focomat IIC (with Focotar 60mm) is not optimal for 35mm film enlarging. This made me curious how big the difference between the lenses was.</p>

[dan_fromm2]

<p>You might want to take a look at <a href="http://ctein.com/booksmpl.htm" target="_blank">http://ctein.com/booksmpl.htm</a></p>

<p>This is a book on printing with a report on selected enlarging lenses. Its hard to be sure that they were evaluated but if they were none of the short Focotars made the cut. The 100/5.6 Focotar did.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>Dan, Ctein's work (with another physicist-photographer Ken Werner for the lens tests) was a benchmark for darkroom photographers. Thanks for mentioning it and the free Internet version.</p>

<p>Their test standards were lofty and perhaps some (but not all) of the discontinued lenses in the 80s were not tested, and those tested and rejected include (as they say) some fine optics, so it doesn't mean the other focotars are slouches. If I remember a bit the original article in Werner's discontinued Camera and Darkroom magazine, Ctein tested as many as 3 samples from each manufacturer and noted that even the best sometimes showed variations in performance between samples (which he thought was due to element de-centering in assembly or later).</p>

<p>I believe in using a good enlarging lens at least until I find it has too many limitations for my purposes, which might be seen in less than good resolution and contrast at outer areas of a highly magnified image, and/or fuzziness in the grain structure of the negative. I don't bother much about the relative stated quality of different lenses until I reach that point.</p>

[vahe_sahakian1]

<p>I went through similar search for the optimum enlarging lens. This was a long time ago and I primarily used slow films such as Tech Pan, H&W EI 25 VTE Ultra grainless panchromatic film and several others.<br>

I started with El Nikkor 50/2.8 but did not like the results, tried several others including Leitz 50/4.5 focotar and Rodenstock 50 apo, I finally ended up with a very hard to find 63/3.5 Fax El Nikkor, not to be mistaken with the later offering 63/2.8 El Nikkor which is a ordinary enlarging lens. The 63/3.5 is single coated and was intended for microfilm applications, I bought mine about 30 years ago, at that time it was priced at three times that of 50/2.8 El Nikkor, the resolution is above average and it starts showing up in very large enlargements where other premium lenses just do not cut it.<br>

Vahe</p>

[mark_welsh1]

This question went conspicuously unanswered . . .

[wgpinc]

On my Leitz Focomat I used the 50mm Zeiss Planar. The Schneider Componon was a tad low contrast and the El Nikkor 50mm was a tad contrasty, for my taste. I didn't easily have access to the Leitz Focotar but I'm sure it was at least as good as the Zeiss Planar.