Angulon not Super Angulon for color

[mark]

SO I have been tossing around the idea of a wide angle lens for my 4x5. I thought I had settled on a 125 but now I see a 90mm angulon for the right price, but I am having trouble finding info on it. Specifically Image circle.

I did read that the QC on angulons was iffy in the beginning. If I do get an angulon what should I do to see if it is a dog or not? I do not have the ability to get a sheet of film developed right away. Will the effects of a dog angulon be visible on the GG?

 

[cperez]

90mm Angulons can be wonderful teenytinythings. 130grams. 4 surface to air interfaces. If it was made in the 1950's and labled Linhof, or made after 1960 it could be quite sharp. Mine matches my 110XL superwonderoptic in terms of resolution (even to the edge of a straight-on 4x5 frame) and contrast.

The IC of a 90Angulon is something like 160mm +/-. Shot it straight on and I think it'd be OK.

If you need a bit of wiggle room, look for a nice mint Kodak 100mm Wide Field Ektar f/6.3. These can be surprisingly cheap too, and provide similar performance.

Dogs may not be visible on the GGlass. It all depends on if they're standing within the field of view or not. Hold on a moment. No, you can't really tell a dog lens from a good lens on the groundglass. You'll need to shoot and develop some film. There. That's better.

 

[Ole]

It's possible that it isn't poor QC that's responsible for the "dogs", but poor storage:

Only the outer element of each half is actually mounted to the lens barrel. The two inner elements are attached to this by the lens cement only. So if an Angulon is stored "standing" in high temperatures, it's quite possible that the lens elements can "creep" out of alignment. This would be more likely with older lenses - partly because they have some more years for creep to occur, partly because of different cement used.

All of mine are excellent - 90, 120, 165 and 210. Two of them are pre-WWII. All are bought in Northern Europe

 

[Claire Senft]

If you use a clear bulb with a small filament in a dakened room with a 20-25x loupe on the ground glass some of the effects will be visible. For example if you focus wide open and view the image with the loupe as you stop it down focus shift can be very evident..open the aperture and it comes back into focus. Angulons have a very narrow tolerance in diaphragm placement. Some photographer's can be twmpted to diddle around and srew things up.

I think that when buying any lens that is 50 years old a test period is reasonable to expect from a seller.

 

[Frank Petronio]

As I mentioned on the other forum, I have seen some 90 Angulons made as late as the early 1970s and in late chrome dial Compurs and Copals (with even spacing between stops on their apertures scales). I had one and it was excellent. In general I'd look for one in a Synchro Compur or chrome dial Compur with a serial number above 7 million. Individual lenses will differ of course, but by then I think they were all very good.

 

[nworth]

The Angulons are closely related to the Dagors, but the order of the glasses in the elements is different. They lack the internal light baffles of modern lenses. As a reult, they have a very large image circle, but sharpness falls of a lot as you go out. This may also give a lot more flare than you would normally expect for a two group lens, depending on your camera. They are marvelous as moderately wide angle lenses, but you need to stop way down (f/32+) for really wide angle or big movements. They are also very compact and light. Color correction should be good, but is probably no better than the newer Super Angulons.

The Super Angulons have changed design several times in their history. The newer ones, especially the Super Angulon XL, are truly marvelous. The design separates the front and back elements and adds additional elements in the newer designs (8 instead of six). With the additional degrees of freedom, the corrections are better and the light falloff at the edges is less. Better baffleing and multi-coating solve most of the flare problems. The newer designs cover a wider angle than the Angulons ever imagined. Color is very well corrected, probably better than in the Angulons. But - they are very big and heavy.

 

[Seele]

The Angulons are closely related to the Dagors...

A small clarification: while both Angulon and Dagor are symmetrical lenses with three cemented elements in each group. the Angulon is related to the Voigtlander Collinear rather than the Goerz Dagor; a quick look at the schematics will show this very clearly.

 

[df cardwell]

Checking my Kingslake:

The Dagor (1892) is the most efficient arrangement of the elements. Derived from the Dagor, but using alternate arrangement of elements to be royalty free, the Collinear (1895) and Angulon (1930) are quite different from each other.

In order to achieve the same performance of the Dagor, the Angulon had to solve the vignetting inherent to the inferior arrangement of the elements. By increasing the diameter of the first element, they did this. The Angulon design took advantage of a larger selection of glass types to improve the overall performance of the design.

All this said, ANY of these lenses are fine, uncoated for good color. I respectfully disagree with NWORTH's the assesment of Dagors: while f/22 is the optimum for balancing coverage, center and edge performance, there is no more flare in an uncoated Dagor - or Angulon - than a single coated Symmar... or circa 1992 multi coated super wide angle lenses.

While slightly lower contrast, the Dagors and Angulons offer higher resolution than Super Angulons, et al, of the '90s.

The new super wides are remarkable objectives, solving the serious problem of covering a field greater than 70? without the falloff inherent to wide field designs. Although negative shooters could ( and can ) live with a WF Ektar or Series V Protar, the high contrast of transparency films demanded the furthest development of the SA possible ( typical CI of a B&W neg being .6 or less, a color trannie 1.4 or greater... magnifying the effect of the slightest density variation ).

Every air-glass surface gave the designers more ways to correct the lens, and ways to build a lens effcient to manufacture without the need to cement ( and center ) elements together. But every surface increased flare and the need for baffling and multi-coating. The performance of the current super wides is fantastic, with enormous coverage without giving up much performance.

But all said and done, for B&W shooting, there is little - if any - advantage to be gained with a Super Wide lens over a Dagor or Angulon, save the covering power of short lens. It is obvious a 105? lens is a better choice than a 70? if an extra wide field is needed. The 90 Angulon may or may not give you enough coverage, but it is certainly stellar over it's field.

OLE: you'd love my 4x5 field camera, a 9x12 Juwel with a 4x5 Deardorff back adapted to it, retaining all the movements and painted a pretty black lacquer to match the Zeiss camera. The lens which LIVES on the camera is... 120 Angulon, c 1938. Given a tiny bit more development than for a 125 Fuji neg, the results are indistinguishable except for a more pleasant, less 'commercial' look.

And if I was still shooting 8x10 chromes for reproduction, I'd use the newest Super Wide I could

.

 

[Dan Fromm]

df, if we move away from wide angles to process lenses, modern glass has an unsung advantage over at least some old glass.

For example, I have a 210/7.7 Boyer Beryl S. This is a dagor in all but name. Sorry, I don't know Boyer's claimed coverage for the lens. And I have a 210/9 Konica Hexanon GRII.

As I shoot 'em, the GRII is sharper, not quite as contrasty without a hood, than the Beryl S at apertures wider than f/22. I shoot the GRII at f/11 when that's appropriate. At f/16 it has only a slight edge. But the Beryl S is pretty good AND its a lot smaller.

Also, FYI, Boyer's f/6.8 Beryls are also dagors, claimed coverage 85 degrees. The french photographer and publisher Henri Gaud, who's used them and modern super-wides, is adamant that given the choice one shouldn't use a Beryl. Not that they're unusably bad, but that the modern designs shoot better. Henri works to a very high standard and I respect him and his work.

 

[Ole]

I have only the best experience with using Angulons for colour: Dead Link Removed is an example shot with a 165mm Angulon on 5x7" (really 13x18cm) Ektachrome. I have a 50x70cm print of this on my livingroom wall. I do not believe more contrast could have improved that image in any way.

I also have a very old uncoated 210mm Angulon, which has a greater coverage than the later ones: The original specifications said 105°, about the same as the Supers... A redesign after WWII lost 15° of coverage, but improved general image sharpness.

BTW: The Dagor is +-+, Angulon -+-, and Kollinear ++-. They are all different.

 

[Ronald Moravec]

For color, get the SA. The colors produced by the A are dull compared to the MC SA I have now.

You can`t see it on the glass, but when the color prints are made, the difference is obvious.

You also get a hugh boost in image circle to match. I have raised mine 2 inches on a vertical composition into the the sky without ill effects. I`m sure schneider won`t back this though.

 

[Ole]

Thanks - I'll stick to my Angulons. If the contrast were any higher, the picture in my link on the previous page would have been unusable.

The difference in image circle between Angulon and SA is real, though. And Schneider does back it. What they don't back is the change in image circle of the "plain Angulon" with the 1948 redesign.

 

[Frank Petronio]

Sometimes the older Angulons are kinder than modern glass for shadow detail, especially in architectural subjects and harsh light.

I wouldn't worry about a lens being contrasty or not myself, since you can control contrast in printing.

 

[nworth]

Checking my Kingslake:

...

All this said, ANY of these lenses are fine, uncoated for good color. I respectfully disagree with NWORTH's the assesment of Dagors: while f/22 is the optimum for balancing coverage, center and edge performance, there is no more flare in an uncoated Dagor - or Angulon - than a single coated Symmar... or circa 1992 multi coated super wide angle lenses. ...



.

In general, I agree. The problem with flare with the Angulon would only come about from excess light bouncing around the inside of the camera. This can happen because of the large, unused part of the image circle in some cameras. But it is entirely camera dependent. The falloff in image quality at the limits of the image circle is important in the Angulon. The lenses reliably cover a bit less than 90 degrees, although the image circle is a lot bigger than that. The 165mm Angulon will cover 8X10, but only at f/32+ for good edge definition. Stopping down really helps on the edges. On the other hand, as a moderate wide angle lens, The Angulon is excellent even at f/11. I've seen some tests that show that the Angulon's center definition is actually less than the definition half way out at the bigger f stops. (It's pretty good everywhere, though.) This may have been a design compromise to achieve a wider field.

Thank you for your other comments. Most illuminating.