Leitz Focutar Lens???

[Neil Poulsen]

I'm familiar with Schneider, Rodenstock, and Nikon enlarging lenses, models, etc. But, I'm not familiar with the Leitz Focutar lens, about an f4.5.

Where does this lens lie on the quality and sharpness scale? How many elements does it have? In Schneider terminology, is it at the "Componar" level, the "Componon" level, or the "Apo Componon" level?

What kind of contrast does it have?

 

[edtbjon]

A little bit more info, like the focal length etc would be nice. But in general, while the Leitz lenses for their M and R cameras are the best there is, the enlarging lenses are not as good as the enlargers. This is especially true for the early 90 and 100 mm Focotar (and/or V-Elmar) lenses which came with the Focomat IIa and IIc. The early versions could maybe compare to a Componar, while the Focotar-II 100mm which came with the later Focomat IIc performs very well. The 60mm Focotar is considered bettter and is in my eyes as good as a Componon.
The Focotar which came with the Focomat Ic (a 50mm) should be a good one too, but maybe not the best in the world.
I don't know that much about the WA-Focotar 40mm which came with the newer style Focomat, but it does have a good reputation.
But the lenses for the older Focomats, we're talking quite old tech. where the lenses in many cases are 40-50 years old. A modern computer designed multicoated lens should perform better and the top Apo glass is simply "top Apo glass".

//Björn

 

[Neil Poulsen]

Good heavens, I forgot to include the focal length! It's 50mm. And, I think the correct spelling is Focotar.

 

[Mick Fagan]

About 24 years ago a friend was trying to sell his Focomat, I'm not exactly sure what model it was, but it had two features I was really interested in, a sliding turret for really quick lens changes, and, autofocus.

As I was doing a real lot of wedding printing, autofocus would have sped printing up a considerable time for me. This was my real motivation to purchase this enlarger. The lens turret was the icing on the cake.

To say I was disappointed with the lenses, would be a gross understatement. At the time I was using a very old Meopta lens for medium format printing, and my Schneider Kreuznach Componon S 50mm for 35mm work.

The Meopta lens was reasonable to quite fine for B&W work, but for colour, not very good at anything enlarged higher than four times. The Componon S was brilliant at both colour and B&W, so that was my standard.

The lenses on the Focomat were not up the standard of my Componon S. I sort of remember thinking the Meopta was a pretty good lens in comparison to the Focomat lenses.

It was a long time ago, but I distinctly remember that was the day the Leitz legend died for me.

The other outstanding feature of the Componon S lenses, is their click stopped lever, which can be converted to stepless for stepless aperture setting with one click.

But the finest feature of that lever is it's ability to open the lens wide for framing and or focusing, then just pulling the lever around to either a pre-set stepless position, or a set aperture click stop.

This is the most valued feature of any enlarging lens I have used. It is standard on my 50 and 100 Componon S lenses, the 150 Componon S doesn't have this feature.

Mick.

 

[Neil Poulsen]

Focotar

Thanks for the information. Yeah, with the Leitz name, I thought that I might have something in this lens. Will avoid the lens altogether.