EL Nikkor 75mm f4 enlarger lens?

[Dali]

What is a neonon? It sounds like a second tier off brand lens that was included free with an enlarger.

Far from it. These are excellent lenses as good as Nikkor-EL.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

I just bought a bulk lot which included this lens. I already have a durst neonon 80mm 5.6 which I use for medium format enlarging.

Is this Nikkor worth keeping? I get the impression it's not as good as say the el nikkor 80mm f5.6

not sure never heard of it but the Neonon and the EL Nikkor are both excellent keepers.

 

[Mal Paso]

Durst made/makes nice equipment, but the naming sounds like Ikea products.

LOL

All the brands made second tier lenses. I used a 105 mm Componar for years and thought it pretty good but I used it on 6x6 negatives, that may have been why.

The neonon is likely a second tier lens as a Componon or other first tier lens would appear under its own name. If it was me i would have tested the two lenses side by side but this is an old thread.....

I was using the El Nikkor 80mm 5.6, a tiny lens but pretty good until I found a set of late Componon Ss. There are likely more lenses than enlargers now and deals can be had.

 

[Mal Paso]

Far from it. These are excellent lenses as good as Nikkor-EL.

It could be a very good lens from a lesser known manufacturer too. Like I said I would have tested the two.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Elaborating on what I posted way back earlier, I have a high regard for El Nikkor lenses in general, but not every one of them; and in longer focal lengths, prefer enlarging with my even better f/9 Apo Nikkor process lenses, which are in fact optically superior to any brand of official enlarging lens (but the shortest these come is 180 mm).

The 75/4 is one of the few "dogs" in the El Nikkor lineup. I bought one for exactly one reason : It was dirt cheap, yet it does a good job with 35mm negatives because you're only working with the center of the optic in that case. It might be OK for 6x6. I dunno; I don't shoot 6x6. But it would be a poor choice for 6x7 or anything larger. There is also a focus shift between wide open and f/5.6. In other words, you have to slightly refocus at f/5.6; but the brighter f/4 is fine for general composition. So it all depends. The El Nikkor 80/5.6 has a much better reputation.

What I personally use for 6x7 and 6x9 negs is either an Apo Rodagon N 105, or else the Apo Rodagon N 150. I have sufficient column height for even the latter choice. Why? By using just the center of the optic in the case of the 150, I get completely even illumination, and don't need to burn in the print corners and edges at all, at least relative to any illuminance falloff issue.

 

[Randy Stewart]

I just bought a bulk lot which included this lens. I already have a durst neonon 80mm 5.6 which I use for medium format enlarging.

Is this Nikkor worth keeping? I get the impression it's not as good as say the el nikkor 80mm f5.6

The Nikkor was one of two budget, 4-elment lenses Nikon made for a while. Sales were indifferent, and Nikon didn't like the company image of working both sides of the high quality v. budget sides of that street. It is equivalent to other 4-element lens, but far from the best available. The Durst Neonon was a name Durst applied to several high quality, 6-element lenses it sourced from different suppliers over the years, those being Rodenstock, Schneider and Pentax. It is a superior lens for medium format use, equivalent to a 80mm El-Nikkor.

 

[Randy Stewart]

The 75/4 is one of the few "dogs" in the El Nikkor lineup. I bought one for exactly one reason : It was dirt cheap, yet it does a good job with 35mm negatives because you're only working with the center of the optic in that case. It might be OK for 6x6. I dunno; I don't shoot 6x6. But it would be a poor choice for 6x7 or anything larger. There is also a focus shift between wide open and f/5.6. In other words, you have to slightly refocus at f/5.6; but the brighter f/4 is fine for general composition. So it all depends. The El Nikkor 80/5.6 has a much better reputation.

The 4-element El-Nikkors were a marketing idea for budget sales which Nikon abandoned fairly quickly. I bought a used 80mm 5.6 El-Nikkor decades ago, and it is the only enlarging lens I hated from first use. I suspect that my copy is either damaged in some way I cannot see or was just one of those stinkers which slip though production. The only thing it ever did for me was to spur me to try a Fujinon EX 90mm enlarging lens, which caused me to replace all of my El-Nikkors - the Fujis are that good!
Note that the El-Nikkor 75mm will cover 6x6, but not 6x7. Nikon does not claim that the 80mm will cover 6x7, and I believe them.
The idea of using the "next focal length up" in enlarging lenses to claim the sweet center spot of the image was a myth which I thought died decades go, but seemingly not. The longer the focal length, the lower the overall resolution of the lens. For a high quality lens like an El-Nikkor, the center of the image may be "better" than the edges, but it will not be "better" than the overall image of the shorter focal length lens. The reason is that the shorter lens can be designed to optimize coverage over a smaller negative area, which will always give it the advantage. We're speaking optical theory here, in that in practical use, no one is ever going to see a difference in the final image, at least not for that factor.

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

I had a 50/4 Nikkor and I thought it was rather good. I couldn't see that much difference between the 50/4's prints and the 2.8's. And the 2.8 is comparable to my Apo-Rodagon and Focotar. Maybe I have a bum Apo and 2.8, and maybe I am blind (though better after cataract surgery) but I would be satisfied if a 4 were the only 50 I had.

With all the foofaraw over Holgas and pinhole cameras it's hard for me to get all lathered about lens resolution. I guess it has to be really good or really bad to be accepted. In my book, lens resolution, with rare exceptions, isn't what makes or breaks the picture.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Randy - concerning 4-element lenses, note that the Apo Nikkor line is a symmetrical 4-element airspaced lens, true apo, and extremely crisp all the way from macro to infinity. But these were originally expensive top-end graphics lenses, and only now bargain priced because their main application on big process cameras has been replaced by scanning in the pre-press industry. The same is the case with similar graphics lenses by Rodenstock and Schneider, which were designed for higher performance than even their regular taking and enlarging lenses. The 4-element design not only can be adapted to the very highest standards, but often has been, at a price of course.

And you're also incorrect about longer than normal focal lengths being a liability in enlarging. Just the opposite. And yes, the proof is in the pudding. I have enlarging lenses all the way from 50mm to 760mm. Some I got as full sets for free, and don't really need the extreme focal lengths. Everything from old chrome barrel Componons to fully modern apo designs. I've sold off the old Componons, and even Componon S lenses, but still have quite a few options. I also enlarge film formats all the way from 35mm to 8x10. I have the finest of enlargers. Try looking at a four-foot wide Cibachrome sometime where you really do need reading glasses to see the degree of detail. I'm not implying that is necessarily the esthetic objective of every image. Quite the contrary. But in the context of comparing enlarging lenses, it does have its relevance. I've done my homework. Even my precision negative carriers cost way more apiece than typical complete enlargers, or at least than they did back in the day. I got some of those superb carriers free too when big labs retired.

But 35mm is my alter-ego, and in that case, I seek poetic little prints where graininess and even an amount of ambiguity is perfectly acceptable. But I only print 35mm once or twice a year, and prefer the longer than normal 75mm or even 105mm lens not only for more work space below the lens than a 50mm lens would allow, but also to use just the center of the lens potentially at wider apertures than normal for sake of especially slow printing media, like old Azo contact printing paper, or in the former color realm, heavily masked Ciba prints.

 

[Paul Howell]

I think Durst lens were rebranded German lens, the 50mm I have somewhere is listed as being made in German, not sure by who. Soligar, Vivitar, Spritone all oftered rebranded enlarging lens. My Vivitar 150 is a 6 element lens.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Rodenstock 4/3 construction Rogonars were often private labeled as both student grade enlarging lenses, including the Durst "Neoteron" lens, as well for inexpensive stat camera copy usage. Neonons are rumored to be Japanese made. The basis is that Asahi Pentax was at one time the distributor of amateur Durst enlargers in Japan, and bundled them with enlarger lenses of their own making, whether directly or through some kind of Japanese subcontract arrangement is hard to say. These were also apparently exported as Agfa Magnolar lenses.

 

[xkaes]

Since we are discussing enlarging lens performance & focal length, here's a Darkroom Techniques review by Bob Mitchell of the Fujinon EX lenses that some might find interesting:

http://www.subclub.org/fujinon/e-lenses3.pdf

 

[DREW WILEY]

That link won't work for me. Fuji has been making superb optics for quite awhile. The potential issues with the Fuji EX lenses is that they are hard to find, were made only up to 135mm, and that particular focal length had a peculiar thread size mandating a custom mounting ring.

Go to Photo Cornucopia : "The Big List of Enlarging Lenses" to get an idea of just how many brands and focal lengths have existed, still possible to encounter today. There are certain lenses conspicuously missing, but it is nonetheless an impressive list. They even give a partial list of what are unquestionably the best enlarging lenses ever : the f/5.6 APO EL Nikkor series. But those are now rare, simply too heavy for many enlarger supports, and tend to be stratospherically expensive. The last 360 which showed up sold for $11,000 and was installed on a $90,000 enlarger. But the most common were 105's and 210's. With luck, you might find a used one of those for a couple thousand dollars.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

The Nikkor was one of two budget, 4-elment lenses Nikon made for a while. Sales were indifferent, and Nikon didn't like the company image of working both sides of the high quality v. budget sides of that street. It is equivalent to other 4-element lens, but far from the best available. The Durst Neonon was a name Durst applied to several high quality, 6-element lenses it sourced from different suppliers over the years, those being Rodenstock, Schneider and Pentax. It is a superior lens for medium format use, equivalent to a 80mm El-Nikkor.

+1;right on the money!

 

[MTGseattle]

I'm not trying to steer us back into a "why spend a lot of $ on a enlarging lens?" debate here but a sub question of why multi-coating for a lens that sees controlled use (specific light sources) in a largely controlled environment?

In Drew's large Cibachrome example, would an image likely made with a multi-coated optic in camera lose some aspect of fidelity printed with an un-coated or single coated enlarging lens?

 

[DREW WILEY]

No. In fact, I still keep on hand certain parallel examples in focal length, both single coated standard enlarging lenses and multi-coated Apo ones. That was an easy way to make subtle changes to Cibachrome contrast without resorting to making a new mask, and I still sometimes employ that option with RA4 prints, and even black and white prints.
It's not a matter of which lens is technically "best" - all of mine are good, but how they render a specific image on the print medium according to my own specific expectations.

So why didn't I ever acquire examples of the "best of the best" (Apo El Nikkors), even though I had a couple opportunities to do so at reasonable price? There can be too much of a good thing. Those lenses are so extremely acute that they can potentially reproduce tiny inconsistencies in even the carrier glass itself and make it more evident in a high contrast print, like the Anti-Newton texture, for instance.

 

[JPD]

I had the El-Nikkor 75/4 for many years and stopped down a bit it gave corner to corner sharp prints from 6x6. Now I have the 80/5,6 and I don't see any difference, except that I can use it for 6x7 (which is why I bought it).

Why not try it?

 

[xkaes]

There is no definition of "multi-coating", but few enlarging lenses are multi-coated, anyway. Most are coated, however, but the coating varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. And there's no easy way to visually determine what lenses have what coatings. For example, you can visually compare a Fujinon EX lens (which has EBC multi-coating) with a Minolta CE lens (which has MInolta achromatic-coating) and think that the Minolta is muilt-coated due to the different colors, and that the Fujinon is not due to the lack of colors.

 

[DREW WILEY]

The Apo Rodagon N's, and probably the equivalent Schneider HM series too, are multi-coated.

 

[xkaes]

My G-Componon is marked "Multi-Coated", while my Rodagon-G isn't -- but the reflections on the two lenses look very similar.

 

[MattKing]

I would guess that multi-coating would have been most useful in reprographic applications - lots of light reflecting off flat/bright originals.
Using the lenses in the other direction - light projected through a negative or transparency on to a display medium - less of a concern.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Copy lenses have been around even before any kind of coating. Many thereafter were only single coated. There were even wide angle single coated ones with minimal flare due to their cemented design with only 4 air/glass interfaces, like the Goerz Trigor series or the early G-Claron WA dagor-style ones.

 

[Nige]

The Durst Neonon was a name Durst applied to several high quality, 6-element lenses it sourced from different suppliers over the years, those being Rodenstock, Schneider and Pentax.

I had a 50/2.8 that had 'made by Schneider' written on it. Mine came with a Durst C35 enlarger I purchased in the early 1980's

 

[MTGseattle]

Thanks for the responses to my slight hijack. Interesting stuff.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Yep. Right now, the big auction site lists examples of Neonon both "made by Schneider" and "made in Japan".