Is your message telling us at the end that you want to try LF and MF, or
reproduction lenses on a 35mm camera?
Some of the Rihco (spelling???) lenses were made for photocopiers and
refitted for 35 mm use and were in fact advertised as such, so that question
is answered. We use 'barrel lenses' originally designed for litho
reproduction work all the time. Projector lenses are not built for capture,
the book by Kingslake "A History of the Photographic Lens" available by
order, mostly and listed under testbooks within Books In Print (which it is
so hard to find) as an answer to your question his explanation of the Gauss
effect will explain it clearly with both finite detail and an overview a
smart grammer school kid can understand.
Quoting Ansel when I asked him about depth of field from an enlarger, he
said it was of no concern. The aperature was to control the AMOUNT of light,
not depth of field. There is no way to improve depth of field off a
negative, and the light from the enlarger onto the paper is basically from
one flat surface to another. The only thing to concern yourself about
besides the amount of light is diffusion distortion as the light bends
around the elements of the iris or aperature of the enlarger lens.
Then you mention you don't care about the quzality, only the sharpness of
the lens. HUH! I find that hard to believe, especially that even the color
of the bulb may give your print an unclear quality, let alone the poor
aprochromatic quality of the lens. The clarity of the glass and
construction of the elements of the lens, seperation of th eelements and
balance of the mounting threats that centers on the horizontal all make for
focusing qualities to give a 'clear' end result.
I mean, you could project the negative through a piece of cardboard with a
hole in it if you didn't care about lens quality, only clarity.
But, one question . . . How do you plan to fit a large format lens on a 35mm
camera? And Why? I sincerely advise you to read Kingslake.
The book is facinating and hard to put down, actually.
Steve Shapiro, Carmel, CA
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gregory Fraser" <Gregory.Fraser@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students"
<photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 11:28 AM
Subject: Lens for macro bellows
I read recently that certain lenses work better on a macro bellows than
other lenses. By 'better' I presume they mean sharpness and perhaps longer
DOF. I read somewhere that reversing a Tessar formula lens is a good idea.
I have also heard that enlarger lenses make good bellows lenses.
Now always one for a tight budget, I want to be frugal and I don't care
how the end result looks as long as the images are clear. If an enlarger
lens is good (or even if it's not), would a photocopier lens be good? How
about a projector, microscope or telescope lens? Would using a lens
designed for a 5x7 camera on a 35mm camera be of any benefit in macro
work?
I've got several types of old (approx 100 years old) large format lenses I
plan to try and some medium format lenses but I like to know why they
might work or not work and experimentation won't tell me that.
Greg
