Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2007/05/08

[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]

Subject: [Leica] Photar Lenses
From: henningw at archiphoto.com (Henning Wulff)
Date: Tue May 8 12:16:38 2007
References: <003701c79142$1522f4f0$a400000a@dell810> <E13FA53C-884E-4897-8C20-E26405339838@charter.net>

At 6:56 AM -0700 5/8/07, Slobodan Dimitrov wrote:
>As I looked over the site I noticed the APO El-Nikkor on one of the lists.
>Two 105mm have recently come up for auction, demanding and getting 
>very high bids.
>How good is this lens?
>
>Slobodan Dimitrov
>

The APO El-Nikkor (I'm only familiar - slightly- with the 105mm) is 
as good as it gets in its designed magnification range. Outstanding, 
but a fairly small image circle and when used as a macro range, it 
shouldn't be taken much outside its magnification range. I don't know 
offhand what this is, but I remember that quality did fall off 
noticeably when I tried making too big a print. It still wasn't bad, 
it just wasn't outstanding anymore.

The Photars are excellent, and if you want to get into the 1:2 to 
1:40 or so range there isn't much that is generally as good, let 
alone better. Actually, a number of companies made sets of macro 
lenses, with the later ones almost always being better. The Photars 
are some of the later ones. I have the 25, 50/2.8, 80 and 120 
Photars, plus a Zeiss (from a fellow LUGger) and an Olympus. The 
Zeiss is an S-Orthoplanar and should be better than the Photars as it 
sure cost more initially, and the Olympus is a very late design, but 
in practice all the lenses perform at about the same level. I use 
them on a late Aristophot with a micro Viso III, long bellows and 
Compur shutter. This allows low-shake photography.

-- 
    *            Henning J. Wulff
   /|\      Wulff Photography & Design
  /###\   mailto:henningw@archiphoto.com
  |[ ]|     http://www.archiphoto.com

In reply to: Message from fredhess at phenix-visuals.nl (Fred Hess / Phenix Visuals NL) ([Leica] Photar Lenses)
Message from s.dimitrov at charter.net (Slobodan Dimitrov) ([Leica] Photar Lenses)