Anyone using a Zeiss s-orthoplanar for enlarging?

[patrickjames]

I found one on ebay years ago for a song (I can't disclose how much). I saw it and just bought it for kicks and giggles. After testing it against my other lensed (Schneider, Rodenstock and a Nikkor, all in the 50mm and the best they made) it simply blew me away. It made the other lenses look like mush when I compared prints. It is was so sharp that on a 5x7 print of a delta 100 negative you could see the grain clearly. I actually had to buy a laser alignment tool (zigalign I think it is called) in order to maintain the same level of sharpness across a print. After testing I contacted the Zeiss historical society and they never heard of it. Then I just let the matter rest. This all happened in the late 90's. Today for the hell of it I did a search on google for the lens and found out that it is the best optic ever made for enlarging with a resolution beyond 150 line pairs per millimeter, and cost over $3000 when it was new. So I became curious and was wondering if anyone else had one of these little gems?

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

I never tried them, nor read anything about them, but I heard they're vastly overrated. I'll liberate you for 40$.

 

[Claire Senft]

No. I am well aware of the lens. I wish that I had a 60mm & 105mm S-orthoplanar and a 40mm S-Biogon. These lenses are said to really come into their own at 15x thru 30x enlargements. When Zeiss would produce big enlargements for trade shows I understand they would work with a lab that had these lenses.

 

[edz]

Its an obsolete objective that was designed for early semiconductor "printing" and microfilm capture (many of these have been salvaged from junked microfilm systems). Within the optical band they were designed for they were 30-40 years ago about the best that money could buy (but not the only "game" in town). They were, however, NEVER designed for use with pictorial photographic papers as an "enlarging lens". With multigrade/variograde papers they have poorer performance then pedestrian Componon and Rodagons (which can just be, unlike the S-Orthoplanar, just "screwed" into an enlarger given their standard threads and housing). Its moot, however, since with your example of 5x7" prints it'll be hard to really judge the difference, beyond maybe contrast, between any of these and a "coke bottle". Most multigrade papers have resolutions hardly above 50 lp/mm and most of our photographic capture systems (film, objective etc.) won't get beyond (even using highest resolution microfilms at pictorial contrast with the absolete best optics) 80-100 lp/mm. The main kick of the S-Orthoplanar is the hype in places like Zeiss' Camera Lens News (which, as I've widely commented, is at times hardly above the scientific and journalistic standards of the National Enquirer) and other references where it gets used to break physical and optical laws.

 

[df cardwell]

Well said, edz.

Technical objectives, whether from Zeiss, Olympus or whomever, are specific solutions to specific problems. The cost of their specialisation is the inability to perform mundane tasks as well as general purpose objectives.

By all means use the lens and have fun with it, but you are providing the magic... not the objective.

.

 

[Claire Senft]

Ed, You have found these lenses to have been inferior when compared to regular enlarging lenses thru your own use? I would have thought that a lens made for microfilming with an ortho correction when used at the reproduction ratio for which they were designed would be well suited for papers that are sensitive to blue and green light. A five time enlargement is not within those parameters they were designed for..which is within 15-30x optimum work. Here we have an enthusiast saying that he has evidence that the S-Orthoplanar out performed more conventional enlarging lenses. He is basing this upon some experience.

Camera Lens and News has made statements about the S-Orthoplanar that are beyond the limits of physics? Ed why not quote what Zeiss had to say about these lenses in Camera Lens and news that are false because they are physically impossible and can be be shown to be so.

Enlarging minds want to know.

 

[Thilo Schmid]

I have compared the S-Orthoplanar 4/60, the S-Planar 4/60 and the S-Biogon 5.6/40 to many other EL-Lenses several times. I doubt that anyone can tell the difference between theses lenses and a standard Rodagon lens on a 5x7 print, not even by direct comparison (and not to say in a double-blind test). And hardly by using a microscope to view the print (a loupe won’t suffice).
At 30x enlargements, I found the S-Biogon slightly better. This observation confirms what can be interpreted from the curves in the data sheets of these lenses. The S-Biogon has slightly better resolution due to a slightly wider optimum aperture. However, you cannot make any use of this, if your enlarger is not aligned perfectly.
None of these lenses is able to make a sharp image of the grain itself. Their resolution is simply too weak. I once made a test with an S-Planar 1.6/50. This is so to speak a successor of the S-Orthoplanar 4/60 used in later microlithography. But it is nowadays a surplus, too. It was designed for a single wavelength and a single magnification factor (actually reduction in microlithography) and will resolve around 700lp/mm in this case. Although I didn’t had the correct filter (for the right wavelength) nor the laser inference device necessary to exactly focus this lens, I was able to print sharp images of the grain – as long as no car passed the road near my house. But because my pictures did not get better by this, I gave up on it )

 

[dynachrome]

I think Bjorn Rorslett has written about this lens on his site.

 

[elekm]

The S-Orthoplanar mentioned in the initial post is for general enlarging purposes but is not the same as those used for microfilm.

The S-Orthoplanar reputedly is the best enlarging lens ever made. I use "reputedly" because I've not tested one, so I simply am going by what others have written.

 

[SkippArt]

For me is available S-orthoplanar 105/5.6 in an ideal condition and I am ready to sell it. If someone is interesting, address to me on e-mail: Skat@x-users.ru. Arthur