I ordered my enlarger... Low contrast lenses for 35mm negatives?

BMbikerider said:

A low contrast lens will almost certainly be softer in the sharpness stakes as well so possibly defeating your aim of sharp images. A Rodagon 80/F4 is about as good as it gets before going onto stupid money with the APO versions. I use both a 50/2,8 APO and an 80/F4 non APO and the quality of both are outstanding with the 50mmAPO version having the slight edge.

Using multigrade papers will almost certainly cure your contrast problems without compromising the quality. I have never had to go below grade 1 dialed in on my enlarger. Even then it was a little bit on the contrast soft side. The other way you can go about it is to over expose and under develop. You will get more shadow detail and the highlights will be suppressed. My preference is for Ilford Delta 100 exposed at 80iso and the developing reduced by exactly 8% in ID11 at 1-1 dilution. The smooth tones have to be seen to be believed, very close on what I would expect a larger format camera.

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Neil Grant said:

One of the reasons contact prints looks so stunning is that there is little reduction of contrast of the negative on the paper.

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voceumana said:

Callier effect presents mostly in the highlights, not across the whole range of tones. Flare affects all tones to reduce contrast. If the Callier effect is making the highlights too contrasty, most photographers develop to a lower density range or switch to a diffuse light source.

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Juan Valdenebro said:

Hello,

Finally I ordered a recent Kaiser 6x6 condenser enlarger, named 6005. It’s coming from Germany to South America, so it’ll take a few weeks…

About my contrast worries: even if I thought I was going to buy a diffuse light enlarger, someone had a precise comment about condenser enlargers being better for just one thing: sharp grain prints (only type of prints I do)… So, I went for a condenser one in the last minute… Yet I’d like to “cure” my usual negative contrast a little bit while printing, and today I remembered an old darkroom teacher once told me “you should use an old lens instead of that Nikon, for a more gentle contrast…”

Then, here I am asking again… (I couldn’t find a good thread on this…) I’d like to use, for 35mm enlarging, a good enlarging lens with clearly lower contrast (I push film) than my Nikon EL 50mm f/2.8, AND, I think I would prefer bigger prints at maximum height (nicer than floor/wall work…), so:

Question 1: which 50mm, low contrast enlarging lenses would you recommend?

Question 2: which slightly wider than 50mm lenses would you recommend for lowish contrast?

Question 3: does using a lens wider than 50 imply any consideration “for all lenses” about light falloff or image circle for a 35mm negative? I imagine it depends on lens design… So, possibly, there are a few wider than 50mm lenses out there good for low contrast, and with good coverage of 35mm format…

Thanks!

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RalphLambrecht said:

I suggest you control contrast with paper gradation and not with the type of lens.Your Nikon EL lens is one of the best around; just lower your paper contrast if it is too contrasty for you.

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voceumana said:

Callier effect presents mostly in the highlights, not across the whole range of tones. Flare affects all tones to reduce contrast. If the Callier effect is making the highlights too contrasty, most photographers develop to a lower density range or switch to a diffuse light source.

Click to expand...