Did Canon ever make a 50mm enlarging lens?

chip j said:

I have many, many top enlarging lenses, and I've made at least a few prints w/most of them and they're all different. You're thinking like an abstarct technician rather than living in the real world.

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Sorry, you are correct. I will live in the real world from now on. Thanks for this profound advice.

You're most welcome.

I stumbled upon this old thread researching the Canon 50mm f3.5 enlarging lens I just bought. There are a few really cool junk stores in the SF Bay Area- one of my favorite (East Bay Depot for Creative Re-use) had this very unusual specimen behind the glass. It's in one of those enlarging lens plastic storage bubbles that is stamped "Canon Camera Co. Inc" Japan. What attracted me to spend $10 on an enlarging lens for 35mm neg? I'd never seen nor heard of Canon making such lenses, It's silver (not that I really care about lens color, just that it's unique,) it has an extension tube for reasons I don't understand, and best of all it has this plastic collar with the aperture readings on it that I think would making reading in the D.R. very easy!

I probably own half a dozen, and I work in a college darkroom where I could use any of their two dozen or so 50mm this was just a fun purchase out of curiosity.

Photos to follow.....

(here are the photos...)

Yes, I've seen that one. I wonder how the aperture works?

chip j said:

Yes, I've seen that one. I wonder how the aperture works?

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Peter Kitchingman has a nice write-up on this lens in his Canon rangefinder lens book. To quote, "The aperture markings are on a clear plastic front section, which also has a set of opposing aperture stops with two large black dots on an internal fixed plastic ring. The outer plastic ring adjusts the aperture settings, while the black dots indicate which F-stop is being used."

BTW, the lens in the picture shown is a Tessar-formula lens produced from 1964 to the mid-70's. There was an earlier Seiki-Kogaku lens produced in 1945. Those are very rare.

Jim B.

I was hoping they made a lucious 2.8, cause I like their hi-res 4X loupe so much.

Ian Grant said:

As it's a MF lens it's rather impractical for 35mm negatives unless you only make very small prints. You could make the same claim of any good 105mm because you're only using the central part of the image circle.

In 50+ years of darkroom work 've never seen or heard (read) of anyone using a 105mm for 35mm negatives. You need to provide some evidence.

Ian

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I used a Vivitar VHE 100mm (Schneider) to print some 35mm negatives once but only as a lark. The 23C head was way up high! I regularly use an 80mm with 35mm negative for 8x10s.

Ian Grant said:

Hansa Canon made an enlarger before WWIIso I guess they sold an enlarger lens with it most likely a Nikkor lens at that time. I have the adverts in BJP Almanacs.

Later Canon E 50MM f3.5 Enlarger Lenes do surface very occasionally in the UK, they don't sell for much. One sold in Canada on ebay last month for $3.25 (US). They aren't desirable, buy one if you want you won't need to spend much and just don't expect a lens up to modern standards..

Ian

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Sorry for digging up this older thread... I'm sure the general interest in this niche Canon enlarger lens isn't too great, but I'm very curious, because I recently adapted one of those and used it as a taking lens, and it's significantly better, than I expected


And because I got a significantly older enlarging lens, which probably was on a Hansa enlarger originally, I was also wondering, if you could perhaps share those adverts you mentioned to see if it's possible to recognize the lens on there. Would be very interesting to know because I still have no idea of the maker. The lens is only labeled "Hansa Anastigmat Enlarging Lens".

That's a great shot simplejoy. I clicked on the photo and looked at more of your enlarger lens macro photos. Yes, that Canon lens seems to be the pick of the litter, at least for use as a macro lens.

I'd like to see how it performs w/ a wet print. All the 50 lenses I've used to make prints worked well, even the old Nikkor 50 4 w/ scalloped edges. It made very nice prints stopped down. My 6 element Beseler HD 50 2.8 lens was sharper on big prints, but unless the 2 prints were side by side you would probably not notice.

momus said:

That's a great shot simplejoy. I clicked on the photo and looked at more of your enlarger lens macro photos. Yes, that Canon lens seems to be the pick of the litter, at least for use as a macro lens.

I'd like to see how it performs w/ a wet print. All the 50 lenses I've used to make prints worked well, even the old Nikkor 50 4 w/ scalloped edges. It made very nice prints stopped down.

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Thank you very much - glad you think so! As you mentioned for now there are only a couple of macro-shots on Flickr, because I haven't used it a lot. So overall it's kinda hard for me to say right now where more severe limitations might start to show, but I'll continue testing it and upload a couple more shots, perhaps even some at distance, where it looks like it might do pretty okay - for an enlarging lens that is!

No idea how well it might work in its intended field... For the most part people seem to put Tessar ELs a step below 6 element lenses, but I've heard pretty glowing reports about the Taylor Hobson Ental II lenses (at least the shorter focal length lenses are Reverse-Tessar designs as far as I know) for example, putting them at equal footing or even above many of the 6 element ones. But I'm sure it depends on many factors (some already mentioned in the thread) I don't know anything about...

Dan Fromm said:

Ian, according to Canon Omiya was only a marketing agent. If Canon propaganda is to be believed, the relationship with Omiya was simple. Canon made cameras, Omiya marketed them. Omiya made Hansa brand enlargers and other photographic equipment before Canon's founding and continued to do so until fairly recently.

I've seen Hansa enlarger lenses. Cheapies.

As for names, there were several. Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory was the first name of the firm we now know as Canon. Then Japan Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory. Then Precision Optical Industry Co. Ltd. And then Canon Camera Co. Inc.

See http://global.canon/en/c-museum/history/story01.html for Canon's view of their history.

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That's really interesting - thanks a lot! I'm quite fascinated with the shared history of these two companies because for some time I also only knew about the generic Hansa enlarging lenses, which exist with a variety of other labels (like Soligor, Prinz, Computar, Saunders etc.) on them. But the one I've got seems significantly older. It might really have been on one of the Hansa enlargers around the time they released the "Hansa Canon". So far I'm not convinced that whoever made the newer ones (which are mostly Triplets as far as I know) was also responsible for the manufacturing of this earlier series of lenses.

This is how it looks like:


As far as I can tell it's a Tessar. There's no indication on it that it was made in Japan, but I would assume it was.

Dan Fromm said:

Ian, are you sure there's a connection between the pre-1937 (or is it pre-1945?) Hansa Canon camera and Hansa enlargers and enlarging lenses? I ask because it seems that the Hansa line was owned by Omiya, not Canon and predecessors, and that Omiya marketed the first Canons.

The Canon Camera Museum lists only one lens that might be an enlarging lens. See http://global.canon/en/c-museum/product/sp1.html It seems to be a tessar type, can't be an outstanding enlarging lens.

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I'm not sure if this is the kind of connection mentioned, because it's not possible to determine the maker of the lens by it, but in the Canon History pages there's this ad:



The "Hansa Canon" camera and a Hansa enlarger are shown next to each other (https://global.canon/en/c-museum/history/story02.html), so it really looks like the lens mentioned above dates back to a time, when that relationship between Canon and Omiya could have been active still.

Dan Fromm said:

Ian, are you sure there's a connection between the pre-1937 (or is it pre-1945?) Hansa Canon camera and Hansa enlargers and enlarging lenses? I ask because it seems that the Hansa line was owned by Omiya, not Canon and predecessors, and that Omiya marketed the first Canons.

The Canon Camera Museum lists only one lens that might be an enlarging lens. See http://global.canon/en/c-museum/product/sp1.html It seems to be a tessar type, can't be an outstanding enlarging lens.

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Ian Grant said:

Dan, I'd have to check the adverts, however I did say that any enlarger lens on the Hansa enlarger might be Nikon as Canon camers used Nikon lenses at that time. The cameras were marked Hansa Canon and advertised alongside the Hansa enlarger, they were made by the same company. The Hansa brand name belonged to Omiya but after the Hansa name was drppped the ties between the two companies continued (according to the Canon website) and there was joint stock company, Precision Optical Industry Co., Ltd, at which point only the Canon name was used. That seems to imply a more formal tie up between two companies - but doesn't say who the second company was, one assumption is Omiya taking a stake in the company, particulatly as they continue to handle sales.



That's the same version Canon E 50mm lens, although I posted a link to a completed Ebay sale last month. I do't think there was any other version

Ian

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So I managed to get the advert in better quality. Unfortunately there is no mention of the lens maker on it. Was it this specific advert you remembered?

I'm sure there might have been other adverts in all the British Journal Almanach though... If you can find any mention on the lens maker of the lenses used in these early Hansa enlargers, it would be great - I'd really like to know who made these lenses. BTW. the one I posted isn't even mentioned in the advert... and while I suspected it might be a later lens (because of the faster f/4.5 aperture, the serial number would rather suggest that it's earlier.

It is odd that Canon/Hansa never really got into enlarging lenses & gear like others did -- Minolta especially, but also Nikon, Fuji, Yashica (Tomioka), even Vivitar & Soligor. But Pentax/Asahi, Olympus and others chose to take Canon's approach -- for some reason. Doesn't make sense to me.

xkaes said:

It is odd that Canon/Hansa never really got into enlarging lenses & gear like others did -- Minolta especially, but also Nikon, Fuji, Yashica (Tomioka), even Vivitar & Soligor. But Pentax/Asahi, Olympus and others chose to take Canon's approach -- for some reason. Doesn't make sense to me.

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Interesting that you think so - that's what the creator of this thread seems to have wondered about as well, and after trying the Canon Lens E 50 mm f/3.5 (as a taking lens on a modern camera, mind you... so I can't comment on its qualities for enlarging) I'd say it's a real pity. It's significantly better than I would have expected:
Here are a couple of shots taken with it.