Adapting Enlarger Lens for Film "scanning" - 50mm threads?

runswithsizzers · Feb 17, 2019

I want to use an enlarger lens on a digital camera to "scan" (photograph) 135 and 120 negatives and slides. Hope this is the right forum.

Many of the used enlarger lenses I see on eBay have the common M39 mounting threads (39mm x 26 tpi), and there are many adapters available for attaching those lenses to extension rings, bellows, etc. as necessary to obtain the correct image size with my camera. (a Fuji mirrorless, APS-C, not that it should matter)

One lens I have found is a "Vivitar 100mm f/5.6 VHE" which was apparently made in Germany for Vivitar by Schneider, and it has 50mm mounting threads. I am not familiar with this lens mount size, and a quick search did not turn up any adapter that looked like it would be useful for mounting the 50mm threads to another CAMERA accessory (as opposed to an enlarging board).

Can anyone tell me more about the 50mm enlarger mount and what kind of adapters may exist for it?

L Gebhardt · Feb 17, 2019

Nikon EL 135mm and 150mm lenses came with a 50mm to 39mm adapter. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/36886-USA/Nikon_252_150mm_f_5_6_EL_Nikkor_Enlarging.html

John51 · Feb 17, 2019

I think this would work:

M42 adapter for your camera > M42 extension tubes > M42/M39 stepdown ring > Enlarging lens.

All inexpensive.

jjphoto · Feb 17, 2019

runswithsizzers said:
...Can anyone tell me more about the 50mm enlarger mount and what kind of adapters may exist for it?

I don't have the specifications for the lens you mentioned but the M50 thread for Nikon, Schneider and Rodenstock are all M50x0.75 so presumably the Vivitar is also M50x0.75.

You could make your life much easier by using a more typical enlarging lens with an M39 thread. For example, I have over 100 enlarging lenses and only one with the M50 thread, they are not that common for 100mm lenses. Also, you might be better off with a shorter lens as your 100mm lens will become a 160mm with your crop factor.

Check out this site, they might have what you want.

http://www.customphototools.com/darkroom/enlarger-lenses-adapters

MattKing · Feb 17, 2019

jjphoto said:
Also, you might be better off with a shorter lens as your 100mm lens will become a 160mm with your crop factor.

I've been struggling with understanding this issue.
It seems to me that, when you have a smaller sensor or format, and you are using a lens to copy a standard sized original on to that smaller sensor, you actually do need a longer lens to achieve the smaller magnification you want, at the working distances available to you.

jjphoto · Feb 17, 2019

MattKing said:
I've been struggling with understanding this issue.
It seems to me that, when you have a smaller sensor or format, and you are using a lens to copy a standard sized original on to that smaller sensor, you actually do need a longer lens to achieve the smaller magnification you want, at the working distances available to you.

Possibly

runswithsizzers · Feb 17, 2019

jjphoto said:
I don't have the specifications for the lens you mentioned but the M50 thread for Nikon, Schneider and Rodenstock are all M50x0.75 so presumably the Vivitar is also M50x0.75.

You could make your life much easier by using a more typical enlarging lens with an M39 thread. For example, I have over 100 enlarging lenses and only one with the M50 thread, they are not that common for 100mm lenses. Also, you might be better off with a shorter lens as your 100mm lens will become a 160mm with your crop factor.

Check out this site, they might have what you want.

http://www.customphototools.com/darkroom/enlarger-lenses-adapters

Thanks for that. I believe the Vivitar/Schneider enlarger lens does have mounting thread size of M50x0.75

But apparently the adaptors available on the customphototools website are only for:

For using 50mm x 0.75 mount enlarger lenses on enlarger lensboards with larger mount thread, or
For using 39mm mount enlarger lenses on enlarger lensboards with larger mount thread

What I need to do is adapt 50mm x 0.75 mounting threads to something with smaller threads (like M39 or M42) or to a commonly available bayonet mount like Pentax K or Nikon. Since the 50mm thread size is so uncommon, I am going to follow your advice and stick with an enlarging lens with the M39 threads.

As for the focal length, my best guess is that a 50mm enlarging lens may too short if I want to use a bellows. That is, because the minimum thickness of the bellows(fully collapsed), plus the thickness of two adapters (lens:bellows and bellows:camera) *may* result in too much extension to provide the correct magnification when photographing 35mm slides (and almost certainly will be if trying to fit a 120 negative on the APS-C sensor).

From talking to someone who has adapted a 50mm f2.8 El Nikkor enlarging lens to a Fuji APS-C camera, the amount of extension required to almost fill his sensor with a 35mm negative is 58mm, measured from the front face of the camera mount to the back face of the lens mount. His M39:M42 adaptor plus Pentax bellows (fully collapsed) plus M42:FujiX adaptor added up to 56mm, so that worked. But some other brand bellows + adapters could easily be greater than 58mm and the greater maginifcation might result in mandadtory cropping of the 35mm slide.

Add to that, I would like to also be able to fit a 120 negative on my APS-C sensor, which means less magnification - which means even less extension. But a longer lens will require more extension, right? So I am thinking a longer lens should work out better with the bellows (?) How much longer, I am not at all sure.

Thinking maybe I should I start with the 80mm (El Nikkor f5.6) and see how that works (??)

MattKing · Feb 17, 2019

Remember that your goal is to use an enlarging lens to accomplish a reduction!

mshchem · Feb 17, 2019

Beseler made/makes? Short 12mm extension tubes that go from 50 to 39mm. Plenty of 39mm to F mount etc. I would look for a newer El Nikkor as mentioned in post 2 either to use or find a junker for the adapter.

Patrick Robert James · Feb 17, 2019

With what you are doing you are better off buying a macro lens. Enlarger lenses are not optimized for 2x. You can probably find a Vivitar or another cheap macro lens for around a hundred dollars. You won't have to do anything else except get an adapter to your Fuji which should be a piece of cake to find.

jim10219 · Feb 17, 2019

Patrick Robert James said:
With what you are doing you are better off buying a macro lens. Enlarger lenses are not optimized for 2x. You can probably find a Vivitar or another cheap macro lens for around a hundred dollars. You won't have to do anything else except get an adapter to your Fuji which should be a piece of cake to find.

Except that a lot of macro lenses have a curved field of focus. So you're likely to have trouble getting the corners and center in sharp focus. They did make some macro lenses that were made for things like copying slides, and these would work. And some longer macro lenses made for full frame might do alright on a crop sensor. So while it's possible to get good results from a macro lens, you have to be careful about which macro lens you choose. That's one of the big advantages to using an enlarging lens; they were made with a flat field of focus in mind. That, and most macro lenses aren't optimized for macro photography, as that would compromise infinity focus (though some are). Instead they're usually designed to do all things well instead of one thing great. Enlarger lenses aren't designed with infinity focus in mind.

I actually use a Nikkor Pre-Ai 55/3.5 macro lens for scanning film. It's one of the macro lenses that was designed for copy work, so it actually does a really good job. I prefer it to my enlarger lenses because it's easier to set up on my DSLR. But it's a specialized lens and is pretty soft at infinity.

runswithsizzers · Feb 17, 2019

Patrick Robert James said:
With what you are doing you are better off buying a macro lens. Enlarger lenses are not optimized for 2x. You can probably find a Vivitar or another cheap macro lens for around a hundred dollars. You won't have to do anything else except get an adapter to your Fuji which should be a piece of cake to find.

The way I calculate it, I will be working at magnifications much less than 2x. I believe the magnification required to copy 135 negs to APS-C is about 0.65x - and for 120 film, about 0.35x. I calculated these as [diagonal of sensor / diagonal of film] is that right?

I hear what you are saying, and I agree that a macro lens would be more convenient to use than an enlarger lens. But as mentioned by jim10219, there may be quite a bit of variation in how flat the field of focus is from one macro lens to the next. Sometimes "macro" means close focusing, flat, and sharp; and sometimes it just means close focusing.

Can anyone recommend a macro lens in the 75mm-100mm focal length range known to have a flat field of focus and optimized for sharp results at approximately 0.5x?

gorbas · Feb 18, 2019

You will be way better with good 80mm enlarger lens on APSC sensor than macro lens. I tryed Micro Nikkors 3.5 , 2.8/55 and Zeiss Makro Planar ZF2 2/50mm. Any enlarger lens I tried was better than them.

jjphoto · Feb 18, 2019

I just tried this with a few lenses, mainly because I had some digitising I'd meant to do but never got around to, and TBH I think you can get decent results using either a decent macro or enlarging lens. I tried the EL-Nikkor 80N, EL-Nikkor 105N (both using a Nikon PB-4 bellows with Nikon to Sony adapter) and the Micro-Nikkor 2.8/55 (just using the Nikon to Sony adapter, but not the PB-4) on a Sony A7R2 in APSC mode.

Comparing the results from the EL-Nikkor 80N and the Micro-Nikkor 2.8/55, both stopped down at least a couple of stops, I'd probably give it to the Micro-Nikkor 2.8/55 but not by a significant amount, although the 35mm frame is still a tad small and could use a bit more magnification compared to the images shot with the enlarging lenses.

Edit: I used the EL-Nikkor lenses because I think the OP suggested he might buy one. There are better EL's than the EL-Nikkors, IMHO, so I'm sure better image quality can be achieved with different lenses. I was really only testing the practicality of the focal lengths being discussed previously.

Comparing the El-Nikkor 80 and 105's shooting both 35mm and 6x7 I'd say the 105 is easier to work with mainly because it gives a longer and more practical working distance. If anything the 80mm is probably getting a bit short, at least with my PB-4 setup, but still perfectly usable for both 35mm and 6x7. So if using an EL lens a 100mm or so would be fine for shooting APSC and IMHO preferable to 80mm. I think the results from the 80 Nikkor were slightly sharper than the 105 but I wasn't really testing sharpness.

runswithsizzers · Feb 18, 2019

gorbas and jjphoto - thanks so much for sharing your experiences!

jjphoto, when you say "There are better EL's than the EL-Nikkors" do you mean better for the money, or just better? From what I've seen, the used 80-105mm El Nikkors can be had on the auction site for about $70-100 US. I also see some used enlarger lenses for $300 or more, but those are beyond my budget. I can afford a step up from the entry-level 4 element lenses, but not a big step up.

Lenses from Schneider and Rodenstock are available, but prices are all over the spectrum. Being mostly ignorant about enlarging lenses, I would need to do more research before I could buy one of those with confidence,

markjwyatt · Feb 18, 2019

MattKing said:
I've been struggling with understanding this issue.
It seems to me that, when you have a smaller sensor or format, and you are using a lens to copy a standard sized original on to that smaller sensor, you actually do need a longer lens to achieve the smaller magnification you want, at the working distances available to you.

This is the case. I have a Durst slide copier and am using a 75mm enlarging lens (at the end of the bellows; Komuranon-E, f5.6)) to get pretty much a full frame 35mm slide copied with APS-C (Fujifilm XT-2). A couple of samples:

https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id=157638541@N07&view_all=1&text=kodachrome

I had to modify a Pentax adapter collar to fit the Camera into the Durst (in addition to an M42 to Fuji-X mount adapter). The Komuranon-E lens was M39, and the Durst M-42, so I adapted that also.

markjwyatt · Feb 18, 2019

runswithsizzers said:
gorbas and jjphoto - thanks so much for sharing your experiences!

jjphoto, when you say "There are better EL's than the EL-Nikkors" do you mean better for the money, or just better? From what I've seen, the used 80-105mm El Nikkors can be had on the auction site for about $70-100 US. I also see some used enlarger lenses for $300 or more, but those are beyond my budget. I can afford a step up from the entry-level 4 element lenses, but not a big step up.

Lenses from Schneider and Rodenstock are available, but prices are all over the spectrum. Being mostly ignorant about enlarging lenses, I would need to do more research before I could buy one of those with confidence,

Here is a useful guide (incomplete, but still very useful) to enlarging lenses. The 6 element are the best of course, but since we are not enlarging much, I am not sure how important that is. I got my Komuranon-E (6 elements in 4 groups) for around $40. It has a small spot in the coating, but so far I do not see any issue in the images. I also picked up a Schneider-Kreuznach Componar 75mm f4.5 (4 elements in 3 groups), but realized after I ordered it that it was a "budget" enlarging lens. It even has a square aperture. Again, it may actually be just fine, but for now I have the Komuranon-E mounted. I am just waiting for a little time to free up, and I will crank out a bunch of slides. I will probably throw the Componar on just for comparison purposes.

http://www.photocornucopia.com/1061.html

gorbas · Feb 18, 2019

I tried Componon S 80, Meogon 80 and EL nikkor 80mm and this is basically how they ranked in my opinion. Later I found nice Apo Rodagon D 75mm and never tried another lens.

markjwyatt · Feb 18, 2019

gorbas said:
I tried Componon S 80, Meogon 80 and EL nikkor 80mm and this is basically how they ranked in my opinion. Later I found nice Apo Rodagon D 75mm and never tried another lens.

The APO Rodagon is pretty pricey, but top of the line.

So, you do see significant differences between the lenses? Is it mainly at the edges? Do you shoot wide open or stop down? Are you copying 35mm to APS-C? All the ones you mentioned are either 5 or 6 elements, so should all be pretty good.

MattKing · Feb 18, 2019

markjwyatt said:
This is the case. I have a Durst slide copier and am using a 75mm enlarging lens (at the end of the bellows; Komuranon-E, f5.6)) to get pretty much a full frame 35mm slide copied with APS-C (Fujifilm XT-2). A couple of samples:

https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id=157638541@N07&view_all=1&text=kodachrome

I had to modify a Pentax adapter collar to fit the Camera into the Durst (in addition to an M42 to Fuji-X mount adapter). The Komuranon-E lens was M39, and the Durst M-42, so I adapted that also.

I'm in the process of putting together what I will need to use a micro 4/3 camera on a Bowens Illumitran that I'll be borrowing.
I'm thinking that a 105mm enlarging lens will most likely work best, but we will see.
The Bowens unit is currently set up for Nikon film and digital bodies. Fun times with adapters!

gorbas · Feb 18, 2019

Markjwyatt, i started jurney in DSLR negative copy process 6-7 years ago and was basicaly doing it on my own with out much resources from outside. Basic lines were: Nikon APSC body, bw 35 negatives, later to expand to 6x6. Always at f8 or around. At first I made my own rig based on Nikon F belows holder and then Ps-4 negative holder and Micro Nikkors. Then moving to PB5 and PS-4. Tried many lenses. But had to stop at one moment. Life is too short to try all possible combinations

L Gebhardt · Feb 18, 2019

I was recently testing out the PB4 bellows and various lenses for someone with a DX camera. Using the DX crop on my D800E I found a 100mm Componon S worked well for 35mm negatives fitting on the cropped sensor. Normally I use a 75mm Rodagon D for that on the D800E.

jjphoto · Feb 18, 2019

runswithsizzers said:
gorbas and jjphoto - thanks so much for sharing your experiences!

jjphoto, when you say "There are better EL's than the EL-Nikkors" do you mean better for the money, or just better? From what I've seen, the used 80-105mm El Nikkors can be had on the auction site for about $70-100 US. I also see some used enlarger lenses for $300 or more, but those are beyond my budget. I can afford a step up from the entry-level 4 element lenses, but not a big step up.

Lenses from Schneider and Rodenstock are available, but prices are all over the spectrum. Being mostly ignorant about enlarging lenses, I would need to do more research before I could buy one of those with confidence,

I've never done a proper comparison of 100mm EL's so I'm loathed to suggest one particular lens is 'best' but in my own experience (shooting close-up and product style images with FF sensor with EL's within the magnification range that these lenses are designed for) I've come to prefer the latest/modern Schneider Componon-s (80 and 100) which are all priced in about the same ball park as their competition. Most six element lenses perform about the same and maybe sample variation accounts for most of the differences reported by users. Once you jump into the 'APO' price range then I can comfortably say I prefer the Schneider APO-Componon HM 4.5/90 (which I tend to use most often) but I also have a Rodenstock APO-Rodagon-N 4/80 which is about the same. Both are expensive and arguably not worth the money (depending on application) but they are superb lenses. The APO-Rodagon-N 4/90 and 4/105 are reportedly superb but these days you can buy a small car for the same price.

Note that the APO-Rodagon-D range is designed specifically for 1:1 and 1:2 magnifications and are probably not ideal for use with an APSC sensor, especially copying 120 film. If copying 35mm to FF sensor then they would be ideal.

jjphoto · Feb 18, 2019

markjwyatt said:
Here is a useful guide (incomplete, but still very useful) to enlarging lenses. ...

http://www.photocornucopia.com/1061.html

Thanks, that's been a project of mine for several years and continues to be updated as I get new brochures or specifications from manufacturers/agents/magazines etc. It's a work in progress.

runswithsizzers · Feb 18, 2019

Thanks to all for your help! I just bought a "Schneider-Kreuznach Componon-S 5.6 / 100mm Enlarging Lens" on the auction site. The price was right (I think; haven't seen it yet). And hopefully, I can make it work.

Apparently, there are two versions of this lens, and I think the one I am getting will have the M32.5x0.5 mounting threads (thanks to the Photo Cornucopia for that spec!).

But maybe I should have found an adapter before I bought the lens. I have found a "M32.5x0.5 female to M42x1 male thread adapter" - for $20.

Adapting Enlarger Lens for Film "scanning" - 50mm threads?

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Adapting Enlarger Lens for Film "scanning" - 50mm threads?

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