Fujinon SW S 90mm f8 -> is this a Super Angulon?

[pellicle]

Hi

sadly I'm quite uneducated in this area of photography. I've seen images of the Schneider super angulon f8 and it looks close. Would it be fair to say that they are similar or the same?

Thanks

 

[Uhner]

The two lenses certainly have similar specifications. Take a look at this link:

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/lenses/LF4x5in.html

 

[pellicle]

hmm ... yes they do don't they

say, someon has said that there should be some sort of 'washer' or spacer between the back 'section', but when I bought mine there was none.

There is an outside thread (for the "nut" which tightens the lens board) and an inside thread (for the back section) but that's all I've ever seen.

 

[JMC1969]

hmm ... yes they do don't they

say, someon has said that there should be some sort of 'washer' or spacer between the back 'section', but when I bought mine there was none.

There is an outside thread (for the "nut" which tightens the lens board) and an inside thread (for the back section) but that's all I've ever seen.

I don't think there is supposed to be a washer. The two pins (one circled red) hold it away from the lens board. I've seen them like that before anyway.

 

[randyB]

The pin fits into the small hole on the lensboard, it keeps the lens from rotating, some lenses have one pin some have two.

 

[Kent10D]

The "pin" is actually a small screw that you'll need to remove when mounting the lens on a board that doesn't have the corresponding hole.

(Tape that tiny screw to the inside of the lens case/box somewhere -- assuming you have one -- so you don't lose it.)

 

[pellicle]

Hi

The "pin" is actually a small screw that you'll need to remove when mounting the lens on a board that doesn't have the corresponding hole.

(Tape that tiny screw to the inside of the lens case/box somewhere -- assuming you have one -- so you don't lose it.)

yes, I know, I've already unscrewed it and taped to that linhof board. I now use a Toho which has a round board and no hole ;-)

 

[Kent10D]

yes, I know, I've already unscrewed it and taped to that linhof board. I now use a Toho which has a round board and no hole ;-)

Round board!? That sounds like fun.

Coincidentally I have just recently purchased the same lens -- a Fujinon SW 1:8/90 -- and it's ... gee, I dunno, haven't used it yet. Let us know how yours goes!

 

[pellicle]

Round board!? That sounds like fun.

Coincidentally I have just recently purchased the same lens -- a Fujinon SW 1:8/90 -- and it's ... gee, I dunno, haven't used it yet. Let us know how yours goes!

Sure

I've had it for about 4 or so years. I quite like it, but it definitely performs better when stopped down to 11 or less. For example, this image

is from a '1/2 sheet' exposure, the other 'pano' looks good too. It seems to be uniformly sharp from edge to edge, however the scan I have is made by a bureau at 1600dpi. I'm not sure of their scanner, but anyway it does not quite do justice to the image. Its a few meg (like 18 as a JPG), but let me know and I'll send you a JPG if you're interested.

I keep thinking a Nikkor SW80 would be nicer ... but then I look at the price again.

 

[pellicle]

larger size here

http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=6459500&size=lg

 

[pellicle]

oh what the heck ...

main image is 7964 x 3062 Pixels

bottom corner

right corner

the mountain

printed at 254dpi (durst epsilon native) it makes a 79.6 x 30.6 cm print which looks pretty darn nice if you ask me ;-) If a Nikon doubles that sharpness (which it might) I want one

 

[Antje]

Wow. Impressive. Did you use a roll film back for that?

Antje

 

[pellicle]

Hi

Wow. Impressive. Did you use a roll film back for that?

Antje

no, just sheet film with a 1/2 dark slide allowing me to get 2 exposures to a sheet (a poor mans roll back

 

[Nick Zentena]

If a Nikon doubles that sharpness (which it might) I want one

It won't. At F/16 or more you're more worried about diffraction.

The main thing the F/8 Nikon would give you is a little more coverage.

 

[Kent10D]

no, just sheet film with a 1/2 dark slide allowing me to get 2 exposures to a sheet (a poor mans roll back

You mean you shot in vertical orientation with the standard slide pulled out half way, or you have a special "1/2 slide"?

If the former, do you have a mark on the slide so you know when it's exactly half way out/in?

Interesting trick.

 

[pellicle]

You mean you shot in vertical orientation with the standard slide pulled out half way, or you have a special "1/2 slide"?

If the former, do you have a mark on the slide so you know when it's exactly half way out/in?

Interesting trick.

As it happens an old one ;-) Toho (my camera maker) makes one Dead Link Removed. They were about 1900yen at Yodobashi, so I just bought one ;-) Of course its easy to make one if you have an old dark slide or slice one in half.

 

[pellicle]

It won't. At F/16 or more you're more worried about diffraction.

The main thing the F/8 Nikon would give you is a little more coverage.

thanks Nick, though I haven't tested for sure, but my observations are that 22 is about the point where I see losses by going any smaller. Does anyone know any rule for diffraction diameter? Is it related to mm diameter than F??

 

[Kent10D]

Cool! Thanks.

I'll keep my eye out for one of those little widgets.
All my film holders are in good shape so there are no spare slides lying around, and I wouldn't want to sacrifice a perfectly good slide/holder for the purpose, but I will grab one if I can find one.

 

[Nick Zentena]

Does anyone know any rule for diffraction diameter? Is it related to mm diameter than F??

The F/stop. Depending on the light but roughly 1600/F stop is the max you can get. Then the lens etc come into play so you get lower then the max.

 

[pellicle]

Hi

The F/stop. Depending on the light but roughly 1600/F stop is the max you can get. Then the lens etc come into play so you get lower then the max.

ok ... so then at f27 (1600/22 = 52.3) I'm not at the diffraction limits of the lens (well not on film anyway), at least according to these aerial tests as in this test of the lenses (and assuming my lens is a super angulon) he gets:
f/16 60 54 21 (for center middle edge {of radius of image circle I assume}).

Meaning that even at f16 I'm not hitting diffraction limits (at the edges). Sadly he didn't test anything other than f11 (f/11 67 67 17) which seems to show that the middle is getting worse while the edges improve as he stops down. But (using the above formula) lp/mm will still be 100 @ f16 (suggesting that diffraction is not the limiting aspect).

He does rate the Nikon very highly = f/16 67 67 60 only (apparently) loosing to diffraction at f/22 60 54 54

now, if I could get my hands on a Nikon and see them side by side I could make a decision.

Thanks all

 

[Dan Fromm]

Um, Pellicle, revisit Chris' site and look closely at what he tested. You'll find that he reports on more than one example of the same make/model lens and that within make/model not all examples do equally well. What this means for all of us is that every lens should be presumed bad until proven good and that all lenses, new or used, should go through acceptance testing on arrival.

You lens isn't a Super Angulon. Super Angulons are made by Schneider and their designs are patented. No one else can make Super Angulons. So give up that fantasy.

Other makers can and do produce similar wide angle lenses. The three f/8 Ilex w/a lenses (47, 65, 90) are widely reported to be f/8 SA clones but I doubt this is true. But each design is unique so knowing that a 90/8 Nikkor is good has no bearing on whether the apparently similar 90/8 Ilex is good. So give up the fantasy of treating lenses as members of broad classes rather than as unique items.

If you want to know how good your lens is, test it formally, as Chris and Kerry did. Shoot resolution targets. The images you posted aren't useful for assessing your lens' performance. There's visible haze and there's no way of telling whether the blurry details of the trees are blurry because of wind or because of the lens.

 

[pellicle]

Hi Dan

perhaps this is not your intention, but this is perhaps the first example of rudeness I've received on this forum.

So give up that fantasy.[/B]

...

The images you posted aren't useful for assessing your lens' performance.

firstly, earlier I asked if the Fujinon was a SA design so that I could make some estimations

secondly I didn't post that image for making any claims of its sharpness, another poster asked if I had some example, so I posted that.

 

[Dan Fromm]

Friend, if I'd wanted to be rude you'd really know it. I didn't intend to be rude, regret that you mistook bluntness for rudeness.

I'll tell you again, since you don't seem to have understood what I wrote. Super Angulon is a Schneider trade name. It is not a design type. Only Schneider can make Super Angulons. And what Schneider means by SA has changed over time.

Schneider has patented at least two different families of designs that were sold as Super Angulons with no suffixes XL, XXL, ... ). f/8, six elements in four groups; f/4 and f/5.6, eight elements in four groups. And then there are the newer designs with suffixes. For more information on Schneider's wide angle lens designs, visit http://www.schneiderkreuznach.com/archiv/archiv.htm and www.schneideroptics.com

You can't reason from what a good example of one design will do to what a good example of another design type, even if closely related to the first, will do. And you can't draw conclusions about how good a lens in hand is from published tests of other examples of the same lens. Revisit Chris' site, and notice the great differences he found among lenses of the same make, model (model means design, focal length and maximum aperture; it has little to do with trade name). That's reality. The idea that one can make decisions about the lens in hand using data from tests of other examples of the same lens is fantasy.

I don't care why you posted that broad vista. It communicates little about the lens' performance.

Good luck, have fun,

Dan

 

[Ole]

pellicle, that wasn't rude.

First of all the degrees of freedom within even the simplest lens design ensure that different lenses from different manufacturers will never have exactly the same properties - just look at all the discussions on the relative merits of various Tessar-type lenses and Tessar derivatives: They are not all equal, ans indeed not all Carl zeiss Tessars are equal.

So the original question can only be answered in the negative, unless the lens in question should be a renamed Schneider Super Angulon like some Caltars may be. And the Fujinon lens certainly isn't.

As for the picture - it's sharp enough for all practigal purposes. So is www.bruraholo.no/images/Lodalen.html - which was shot with a plain old non-super Angulon. A shot of a test diagram might have been useful for assessing lens performance, but "ordinary landscape shots" are not. Conversely, shots of test diagrams have only limited relevance to lens performance for "ordinary landscape shots".

 

[Dave_B]

Pellicle:
Dan can be a little grumpy with folks who ask questions that have been answered here many times that could be found with the search engine or people who do not listen to his considered anwers to their poorly posed questions. In general, he is one of the most knowledgable folks here about lenses and is quite generous with his time and knowledge. He has an "in your face" style that some find offensive but if you want the benefit of his expertise which is considerable, you'll have to learn to put up with it. Many others are more amiable but have nothing to say worth listening to. Mt advice is don't take his style personally and learn from what he has to say.

His answer to you is one based on a lot of testing he has done and is not an off the cuff answer. He believes from his experience that one should consider every LENS as unique, perhaps quite different from other nominally identical ones. Questons like "is this type better than that type, model manufacturer, etc." tend to earn his scorn. This is a pretty consistent view he has had over the years and he is not trying to be rude, frustrated with the fact that people keep asking the question is probably closer to the mark.
Cheers,
Dave B.