Convertible Angulon Lens.

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BobUK

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I have a copy of a Schneider Kreuznach lens characteristics leaflet. There is a printing code on the leaflet of 136 111 57 so I am assuming it was printed in 1957.

The Angulon page lists the characteristics for the 95 90 120 165 and 210 lenses.

I have the 90mm Angulon.

A thing that I found interesting in the leaflet is the following statement....


"Since it is a convertible lens, the individual halves can be used for taking portraits or landscapes."


I found that if I unscrew and remove the rear section I do indeed end up with a portrait lens having much softer edges and corners.

So far so good.

My problem now is the portrait lens will have a different focal length. So do I need to calculate new apertures for use in portrait mode?
If so, can anybody point me in the direction of how to do the calculations?

I have seen a lens that had a dual aperture scale, but didn't pay any attention at the time, I think that may have been a convertible lens as well.

Any information will be gratefully received.
Thank you.
 

koraks

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Assuming it's a symmetrical lens, which the notion that it's supposed to be convertible suggests, it would be a 180mm lens. You can verify this by focusing your camera on infinity and measuring the distance between the nodal point of the lens and the film plane. It doesn't have to be super exact, of course. Then the aperture is pretty easy; assuming your 90mm is f/5.6 natively, this means a 16mm physical aperture. Let's say that the 'converted' lens is indeed 180mm, then the max. aperture would be 180/16 = f/11. No surprise there, since it's exactly a one stop difference - but the calculation will also work if you find the focal length is somehow very different. The other aperture values can be as easily derived.

I've used such 'converted' lenses in a pinch - regardless whether they were supposed to be used that way or not. The results can be quite satisfactory.
 

Dan Fromm

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According to the VM:

Angulon f6.8 This was made in 3.5in for 1/4plate, 4.75in for 5x4in, 6.5in for 1/1plate, 8.25in for
10x8in (Amateur Photo, 18/11/1931, Layout Sc014) and covers up to 105/125°. The advert. in 1930 does not
include it so this was a 1931 introduction for the UK at least. It was initially in barrel mounts, (B.J.A. 1932,
p275) and was extended to sale in Compur shutters in B.J.A. 1934, p283, when it was described as
'excellent', and distinctive as the front and rear components can be used as lenses of 2x and 1.5x the focal
length.The original suggestion was to use 4.75in for 5x4 at f6.8, and for 8.5x6.5in when closed to f22, which
suggests it was then thought of more as a f6.8 use lens than later.

Clearly not perfectly symmetrical.
 

reddesert

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Assuming it's a symmetrical lens, which the notion that it's supposed to be convertible suggests, it would be a 180mm lens. You can verify this by focusing your camera on infinity and measuring the distance between the nodal point of the lens and the film plane. It doesn't have to be super exact, of course. Then the aperture is pretty easy; assuming your 90mm is f/5.6 natively, this means a 16mm physical aperture. Let's say that the 'converted' lens is indeed 180mm, then the max. aperture would be 180/16 = f/11. No surprise there, since it's exactly a one stop difference - but the calculation will also work if you find the focal length is somehow very different. The other aperture values can be as easily derived.

I've used such 'converted' lenses in a pinch - regardless whether they were supposed to be used that way or not. The results can be quite satisfactory.

It's not quite that simple, although what you propose will get within a fraction of an f-stop which is moderately close.

- Half of a symmetrical or near-symmetrical lens is not double the focal length, and the aperture also doesn't scale exactly. For example, for older convertible Schneider Symmars that are fairly symmetrical and marked for full lens and the rear-cell-only, you have eg 150/5.6 converts to 265/12; the 210/5.6 converts to 370/12. The ratio of focal length of cell to total lens for a Symmar is usually about 1.75 and the ratio of f-stops is about 2.1.

- There are two reasons for that: 1. Focal lengths of the pair don't double precisely, any asymmetry and the separation of the principal planes also matter. 2. It's not the physical diameter of the aperture that matters, but the apparent diameter viewed from the front, and the aperture is usually magnified by the front cell by some modest amount. That's why the f-number gets slower-than-expected when you take the front cell of a Symmar off. Both of these factors depend on lens design, so the factors for the Symmar won't tell you exactly how the Angulon behaves.

- The formula for the combined focal length of simple thin lenses is 1/f = 1/f1 + 1/f2 - d/(f1*f2), where d is the separation of the lenses. For complex lenses, it's the same but d is the separation of the principal planes. You can't tell where the principal plane is just by looking at the lens, although you can do experiments to find it (such as tilting the lens and looking for zero image shift). Anyway, nonzero d is one reason the Symmar has that focal length ratio of cell/total = 1.75, not 2. For more on principal planes and nodal points, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_point_(optics)

- When you take off one cell, the remaining cell of a Plasmat, Angulon, etc is highly asymmetrical. The principal planes of such an asymmetric lens can even be outside the lens body. For a fairly symmetric lens like the full lens, the focal length is usually fairly close to the distance from lens center to film when focused at infinity (which is close to the flange-focal distance). But for the very asymmetric lens, that assumption is less accurate. A way to measure the focal length of the cell more accurately is to focus at infinity, and then measure the extension needed to focus at some reproduction ratio, like 1:1. The extension past infinity to 1:1 is exactly one focal length. You can then use the apparent size of the apertures to figure out a new aperture scale.

- Symmetric lenses have several aberrations always corrected. Technically this is only true at 1:1 and for fully symmetric lenses, but in practice it works pretty well for other focus distances and not-quite-symmetrical lenses. Using just one cell gives that up, which of course may be useful pictorially, but it's one reason that the old manuals suggest using a yellow filter on a convertible lens for B&W, to reduce aberrations.

Now, all of the above might be making 10-30% differences in inferred focal length and f-stop number of the individual cell, which might not be that significant for pictorial work. I think it's useful to understand the optics foundation, though.
 

koraks

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It's not quite that simple, although what you propose will get within a fraction of an f-stop which is moderately close.

Exactly; I focused on the simple approach that'll get the job done within 2 minutes without getting lost in the woods. I'm aware that getting an exact answer is not quite as simple and thanks for the insight into some of the optics involved!
 

Donald Qualls

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In my experience, most convertible lenses have different focal lengths for the rear vs. front cells. On my 150 mm Componon (which is "unofficially" convertible) the rear group gives about 265 mm, the front comes to about 345 mm. For the rear group, you can directly measure the aperture to calculate the f stop (aperture diameter over focal length); for the front group, you need to measure the aperture as it appears through the front lens group to get the correct entrance pupil size.

Once you have a calculated value, you'll have a conversion factor for what shows on the scale, and that factor will be the same for any available aperture.
 

Vaidotas

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As Dan stated, Angulon 6.8 is assymetrical.
So you have different FL with front and rear halves. F/10-11 wide open, rough guess, not much desirable for portraiture.
I played around with single elements of Angulon and found it forms rather soft an mushy projection unless stopped down significantly.
 

abruzzi

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Here is a clip from a Schneider catalog that was on Camera Eccentric:

1749063718764.png


So the 90 Angulon is a 185mm in the front, and a 140mm in the rear.
 
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