[pure-silver] Re: Kodak Enlarging Lens

Jerry Lehrer once recommended that very lens as an excellent 2 1/4 enlarging 
lens.  "the one with the large knurls".  Not surprised at all.

I've been shooting with an ancient 12 inch Kodak Anastigmat in a barrel in 
front of a Packard.  absolutely excellent.  Even or especially wide open.  
Amazing.  kodak did good lenses.
> 
> From: "Richard Knoppow" <dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 2005/09/27 Tue AM 03:14:01 EDT
> To: "Pure-Silver Free" <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [pure-silver] Kodak Enlarging Lens
> 
>    Last week I picked up a Kodak Enlarging Ektar at one of 
> the local camera sales. I wanted to test it against my 
> Schneider Componon. The lens was in excellent conditioni and 
> was a late one. The date code indicates it was made in 1958, 
> Kodak discontinued consumer lenses sometime in the early or 
> mid 1960's. Its a 75mm, f/4.5 lens. My main lens for 2-1/4 x 
> 1-1/4 is a Schneider Componon 80mm, f/5.6, one of the older 
> chrome barrel type. The serial number indicates it was built 
> sometime between 1961 and 1963. I've had this lens for a 
> long time and its been quite satisfactory.
>    My preliminary test was to examine both film grain and 
> image using a high magnification grain focuser with the 
> enlarger set for about 8x10 prints. Result: the two are very 
> close but I think the old Kodak lens may be slightly better. 
> I was surprized that the effect of diffraction blur is 
> visible when going from f/8 to f/11. The effect is slight 
> but unmistakable when examining the grain. The difference is 
> greater for the Kodak lens suggesting it is has somewhat 
> higher resolution.
>    The Schneider lens is of the Plasmat type, six elements 
> in four groups, the Kodak lens is a Heliar, five elements in 
> three groups. In principle the Plasmat should have somewhat 
> better performance at the margins but both lenses are 
> operating will within their angular field limits.
>    I can't say I am surprized. The Kodak Enlarging Ektar 
> series was intended for high quality color printing and the 
> lenses are very well corrected, its just interesting to see 
> just how good this old timer is.
>    More when I do some actual printing with it.
> 
> ---
> Richard Knoppow
> Los Angeles, CA, USA
> dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
> 
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Be Just And Fear Not

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