S-Biogon 40mm F5.6 coverage information required

[jo_l_cahane]

Bonjour,

 

I wanted to find specs for the S-Biogon 40mm F5.6

Especially the coverage, necessity of a center filter and MTF, etc

 

 

Thank you for your help and happy new year to all of you

[tor_kviljo1]

Hmmmmm - just in case Kornelius (he has another last name now, though) is not responding..: The S-Biogon 40mm f 5,6 I have owned once, were a barrel-mount lens ONLY used for producing large prints (technical drawings) from super resolution 35mm microfilm images. When repro-cameras gave away for the digital workflow, these very expensive lenses (the one I came across had originally costed approx $$ 4000,- and came with matching set of vacuum film-holders & freshnel-lens for even light distribution). I bought it cheaply hoping to convert it to photographic use (as I did with all the other & many repro-lenses I bought cheaply in late -90). However, poor coverage (only 35mm + - no 6x6cm coverage), lack of internal aperture-mechanism and extremely shallow back focus (as with all biogons) ended that journey. Later, I have seen a few of the lenses for sale on the net. Usually at relatively low prices. Ususally & spesial for the biogon construction - no center filter is needed.

 

MTF: probably far better than any other lens of that fl. you will ever see... - but that dosn't make it easier to use for pictorial purposes. A possible use though: it will probably be useful for getting maximum out of the very high resolution CCD's now being produced - but then there is newly produced high resolution lenses with AF & everything allready being made for that purpose...

 

I contacted Zeiss to get more info about the lens - they never responded..

 

Hope this helps - good luck with any project!

[joachim_inkmann1]

Before I contribute to the subject I would like to encourage you to choose a more reasonable subject line in future unless you are only interested in the opinion of KF. But then you should contact KF directly.

[jo_l_cahane]

Thank you for your answers,

 

If i dared mention Dr Kornelius F..., it was because he knows the subject better than

anyone, and on the suggestion of Rob, our nice moderator.

Will receive this lens and try to use it for large prints from 24 36 mm

May be also try take pictures with it adapted to a bellow.

[andrew booth]

Please don't address forum questions directly to one person - email should be used

for this purpose. I have updated the thread title accordingly.

 

Which Rob suggested that you do this?

[jo_l_cahane]

Sorry again if the formulation of the title shocked you and thank you for those who

helped.

[stephen_w.]

As I posted on the Leica forum:

 

Evidently, this is an enlarging lens.

 

http://www.thefstop.com/forums/LFForum/posts/2194.html

 

http://www.apug.org/site/main/mobile/thread.php?topic_id=476

 

http://www.zeiss.de/de/photo/home.nsf/1e142195de4e09fac12566fe003b2618/27ce1d3d3436fbfdc1256977005277e2/$FILE/CLN4.pdf

 

Steve

[stephen_w.]

Andrew,

 

Rob F from the Leica Forum suggested to place his name in the subject line (probably to get his attention). A request for info was placed there (Leica Forum).

 

I guess it should've been something like this: "To Mr. KF, and Anyone Else Here..."

 

Of course a simple Google, as I did, would've turned up a lot of info.

 

Steve

[jo_l_cahane]

Being still a generous person, i will share with you the data i was

looking for and did not find at that time throuh Google and others : It is situated on

Leica Forum, and the title is S-Biogon

[stephen_w.]

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=001Hjw

[jo_l_cahane]

Merci Stephen.W interesting post from Dr Kornelius.

 

Ooops, i used a french word, sorry

[kornelius_j._fleischer]

The high resolution S-Biogon 5,6/40 is optimized for a magnification of 1:30. At this magnification the image circle diameter is 52 mm to cover an image size of 32 x 45. Field illumination is exceptionally even. Therefore no center filter is required.

 

What a pity that it is not in production anymore! I could have sold 50 of them today for an industrial application...

[jo_l_cahane]

Merci Kornelius J Fleischer

 

I will wait for mine happily thanks to you !

.

And what about the 60mm S-Orthoplanar coverage ?

.

I heard it is not as incredibly sharp but more than the best enlarging lenses on the

.

market today and is highly corrected for colors.

.

May be covers 6x6 ?

[vivek iyer]

Joel, I think you are right to enquire about the S-Biogon specs, etc directed to Kornelius, especially since he is an active, contributing community member.

 

I have received very useful/helpful responses from him although these lenses are now historic.

 

Macrolenses data base, mentioned above, does not always gives the right info. In fact some of the "data" are down right wrong.

Speculations (someone who responded above) about S-Biogon lens performance, remain speculations.

 

Like Kornelius mentions, it will be a very useful enlarger lens (with superb performance) for 30X. Any other range will be a bit of a problem, in terms of distortion and the like.

 

If anyone says that the 60mm f/4 S-Planar or the 60mm f/4 S-Orthoplanar is NOT sharp, I do not understand what sharpness

means!

 

These lenses are not meant for infinity focus.

[vivek iyer]

Few of more additions:

 

S-Orthoplanar 60mm f/4 is for unperforated 35 mm film.

 

360 lp/mm resolution for around 20X.

 

Color corrected well in to the deep blue region.

 

Use of these lenses for modern CCDs as suggested above is a bit too much. There simply is no electronic sensor now or in the near future to exploit the resolution provided by such lenses (be it Zeiss or Nikon or anyone else).

 

Kodak Techpan is the most suitable commercial film (BW only).

[dsms photos]

If anyone finds errors or wants corrections made in the macrolenses site - always welcome! I built that site to bring together in as much info as possible on these "historic" lenses.

 

Thanks for your support!

 

Dr Klaus Schmitt

[vivek iyer]

I did not mean to slight the macrolenses.de site.

 

Truly, a very impressive site displaying an incredible collection (number)of historic lenses.

 

Any attempt to bring together a wealth of information floating around in the web (Greenspun's forum to Photo.net and others) in the form of discussions, into one site, especially for historic macro lenses is highly commendable.

 

I'll be happy to contribute any improvements/corrections if I can and if needed.

 

Back to the thread topic- S-Biogon 40mm f/5.6 (with a fixed aperture)is an enlarging lens for very high magnification (30X), high resolution enlargements of 35mm film. It will be very difficult/impractical to use this (reversed) as a macro lens.

 

Cheers!

[kornelius_j._fleischer]

The original application for the S-Biogon 5,6/40 was the archiving of quality newspapers for institutions like the National Archives and the like. In the pre-computer era this was done with specialized copy-stands. They would capture a double spread, 2 pages side by side, in one shot on high resolution microfilm. The performance requirement in this application was, that the finest detail contained in a newspaper should be still detectable/legible in a large print from the microfilm negative. The S-Biogon served this purpose excellently. The correction and manufacture of this lens is so flawless that its perfomance is limited only by diffraction.

 

At Zeiss today, we have our lab use our last remaining S-Biogon 5,6/40 whenever we order performance demo prints from 35 mm negs or parts of medium format negs at magnifications in the range of 20x to 50x. The results we get are visibly superior to anything generated with even the best enlarging lenses.