Focotar enlarging lenses.

[jjphoto]

And Pentax made Durst enlarging lens, or so I have heard.

Never confirmed though.

 

[Dali]

And Pentax made Durst enlarging lens, or so I have heard.

And who did Omicron-EL lenses?

 

[jjphoto]

And who did Omicron-EL lenses?[/QUOTE

And who did Omicron-EL lenses?

Bogen W. A., Hoya EL, Osawa Tominon EL, Omega Omicron EL, Beseler ColorPro(?), Yashica (enlarging lenses) are the same. I have about half dozen of them (40, 60 , 50, 75, 105) and they all are excellent. The Hoya EL 2.8/50 in particular is IMHO about as good as any of its competitors, and possibly sharper, barring 50mm APO or Focotars which I don't have so can't comment on. These are actually much better lenses than their second tier name suggests.

See Omicron ad here;
http://www.khbphotografix.com/Used/Omicron.htm

See Beseler ad here:
http://www.khbphotografix.com/Used/ColorPro.htm

But who made them, good question.

 

[Patrick Robert James]

I think those Osawa, Tominon, Bogen, etc were made by Tomioka. Sort of an educated guess. If I am not mistaken, the Tominon lenses for Polaroid cameras were made by Tomioka. They later became Yashica IIRC. The Computar DL is different from the plain Computars which were the same as Omnicron/etc. I have a 90mm plain Computar. It is sharp. I also have a bunch of Computar DLs which were also branded as Kowa. Some of the Beseler Color Pro lenses were Computar DLs and some appear to be Omnicron types. They both have similar barrels. The ones that are DLs have a blue coating. The others have a straw colored coating. I have no idea who made the DLs. If the aformentioned Tominon/Bogen/etc lenses were made by Tomioka, they happen to be highly regarded, especially in hindsight. Zeiss trusted them...

The Neonons are branded made in Japan, but don't look like anything else. The 50mm I have has a larger front element than rear, kind of like a Schneider Componon-S, but the coatings look a lot like Pentax coatings. I think I read somewhere that someone in Japan had a Pentax enlarging lens that was the same as the Neonon, but that could just be an internet legend... They do kind of resemble the Pentax-M lenses.

By the way, I don't stand by any of that information. Lol. Just what I seem to recall. Could be totally wrong and probably am!

 

[chip j]

FWIW, I called Ctein some years back, and he said the the 50mm Focoater 2 DIDN'T make the cut in his famous enlarging lens tests.