Meopta Meogons

Martin Rickards · Jan 19, 2020

OK, I'll admit I have a soft spot for Meopta, owning a Flexaret TLR and an Opemus enlarger. Thinking about enlarging my 6x6 negatives, I realised my cheap and cheerful 3 element 75 mm lens was likely to be a bit iffy quality wise, I naturally started looking for something better. I was rather struck by the range of Meogons.
There appear to be a 60mm f5.6 6 element wide angle(?), an 80 mm f4 6 element and an 80 mm f2.8 5 element. I would have imagined that making an f2.8 lens would require more elements to correct possible distortions than that used for f4 or f5.6 lenses. What is the difference in performance?
Anyhow, looking around on auction sites, they seem to be very rare and outnumbered by even the more modest Anaret from the same manufacturer, let alone the El Nikkor, Schneider and Rodenstock offerings.

Dali · Jan 19, 2020

Not to forget the quite rare Meogon 5.6/80mm...

Martin Rickards · Jan 19, 2020

I was looking for more comparative information and came across this French site: http://www.summilux.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=18118&sid=21c14913eb6b87744c84a20820c2a15f the last post on the page gives a comparison of various leading brands.in which the various Meogons acquit themselves very well, both the 50 mm and 80 mm when compared with other leading brands. My French is too rusty to understand it all especially the last parameter: "Cote d'amour"

gorbas · Jan 19, 2020

My Meogon 4/80 is almost as good as Componon S 4/80. Now, if I have to pay outrageous price for it, I will take less expensive option.
Maybe you can fulfill your Meopta love with buying 75 or 80mm Belar or Anaret. They are also very good lenses, affordable and made in huge numbers and wait for right offer for Meogon

Martin Rickards · Jan 20, 2020

gorbas said:
My Meogon 4/80 is almost as good as Componon S 4/80. Now, if I have to pay outrageous price for it, I will take less expensive option.
Maybe you can fulfill your Meopta love with buying 75 or 80mm Belar or Anaret. They are also very good lenses, affordable and made in huge numbers and wait for right offer for Meogon

The Anaret was tested and has a lower MTF rating at the edges, but at the price seems good enough for me. The Belar was not tested, but seems made to compete with the Rogonar/Componar lenses. Anyway, buying second hand lenses is always going to be a bit of a lottery with the conditions of use/storage playing a big part in the performance. In that respect, the Meopta range also edges it with their all metal construction, whereas the Schneider and Rodenstock have a mixed metal/ABS constructions.

gorbas · Jan 20, 2020

Martin, back in the day I and others around me used what we could buy and what we had. We did not bother with extensive tests and comparisons. I used it for at least 10 years. To save my life I can not recall right now was it Anaret or Belar and what were difference? But you are right, they are in line with Rogonar/Componar lenses. Once I had to make ~1x2.5 metres enlargement from Horizont negative and I did it with that small Meopta lens, It looked great. I think I finally bought Meogon in store in Prague in 1990 and price was around 100 Deutschland Marks exchanged on black market. It was uber expensive for average Czech citizen at the time. It was the first time I ever seen or heard of Meogon line of lenses.

Martin Rickards · Jan 22, 2020

Another question would be is there any point in buying an enlarger lens with a greater power of resolution than that of the taking lens? It obviously cannot resolve detail that fails to get recorded on the negative.

MattKing · Jan 22, 2020

Martin Rickards said:
Another question would be is there any point in buying an enlarger lens with a greater power of resolution than that of the taking lens? It obviously cannot resolve detail that fails to get recorded on the negative.

Which of the taking lens resolution figures do you intend to reference?
The resolution of taking lenses varies significantly with changes in aperture, subject distance and (to a lesser extent) the colour of the subject and the light source. The nature of the film itself also plays into the resolution equation.
It is a lot easier to make an enlarging lens that performs well under the relatively constrained "normal" conditions that they are used in than it is to make a taking lens that that performs well under the much more diverse "normal" conditions that they are used in.

Martin Rickards · Jan 22, 2020

MattKing said:
Which of the taking lens resolution figures do you intend to reference?
The resolution of taking lenses varies significantly with changes in aperture, subject distance and (to a lesser extent) the colour of the subject and the light source. The nature of the film itself also plays into the resolution equation.
It is a lot easier to make an enlarging lens that performs well under the relatively constrained "normal" conditions that they are used in than it is to make a taking lens that that performs well under the much more diverse "normal" conditions that they are used in.

Well, take the case of my Flexaret TLR with a Belar f3.5 taking lens which may be less well corrected than the Anaret f4.5 enlarging lens. Is there any detail that could be recorded on the negative that the enlarging lens would be unable to resolve?

thornhill · Jan 22, 2020

I have a 50mm f2.8 5 element Meogon that's not seeing much use anymore. It's a decent enough lens but the only thing I've got that I can really compare it to is the 40mm APO-Componon that replaced it. Not really in the same league.

Martin Rickards · Jan 23, 2020

thornhill said:
I have a 50mm f2.8 5 element Meogon that's not seeing much use anymore. It's a decent enough lens but the only thing I've got that I can really compare it to is the 40mm APO-Componon that replaced it. Not really in the same league.

The 50 mm f2.8 version of the Meogon rated very highly in the French test I linked to earlier, being only out-performed by the 50mm f5.6 version against Angenieux, El Nikkor, Leitz, Schneider and Rodagon competition, including the 50mm f2.8 apo Rodagon.

Lachlan Young · Jan 23, 2020

Martin Rickards said:
I was looking for more comparative information and came across this French site: http://www.summilux.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=18118&sid=21c14913eb6b87744c84a20820c2a15f the last post on the page gives a comparison of various leading brands.in which the various Meogons acquit themselves very well, both the 50 mm and 80 mm when compared with other leading brands. My French is too rusty to understand it all especially the last parameter: "Cote d'amour"

What is odd about that test is it doesn't pick up on the widely disseminated opinion that the Focotar-2 50mm has a visible field curvature problem - which was the reason I understand Ctein didn't include it in his enlarging lens test in 'Post Exposure' - and I've seen another test in a French language publication of the 48mm Angénieux which suggested that the off centre MTF performance was better than the centre! At the end of the day, most 5.6 max aperture, six element enlarging lenses are likely pretty good because the design is really not being pushed terribly hard.

thornhill · Jan 24, 2020

One Meopta that I forgot to mention is a 135/4.5 Meopar that I acquired, mainly out of curiosity, to try as a taking lens. There's sometimes a couple floating around ebay. Mine came from Belarus and is a Heliar configuration with a 15 (?) blade aperture. It should cover 4x5, taking or enlarging, and is giving nice results on a DSLR.

Hilo · Feb 20, 2020

The Meopta 50/5,6 and 60/5,6 are indeed excellent. Great all metal build with the zebra aperture ring making everything easy. I don't care about tests and use different lenses because they have proved to give something special in a certain area: the Meopta Meogon 50 and 60mm have something 'quiet' about them in the prints. In an almost icy way. The glass industry back then in Czech Republic was very advanced. The Focotar II gives life to rather dull negatives. Wonderful lens that handles 20x24 sized prints very well. I got a 6 elements Olympus 38mm lens for half frame. Wonderful at the larger print sizes.

Martin Rickards · Feb 20, 2020

I ended up bidding and being outbid for an 80mm f2.8 that eventually went for about Sterling 65. Enlarging lenses are getting pricey. There was another similar lens for sale at more than 200 Sterling.

Hilo · Feb 20, 2020

As far as the 80mm Meogon is concerned, I would always opt for the f5.6 version. Lachlan is very right when he says these f5.6 versions have less compromises design-wise compared to the f2.8 version. I have this f5.6 lens too, it is on the same level as the Componon-S 80mm. It depends a bit on your enlarger, but I find the f5.6 versions totally okay to use.

M Carter · Feb 26, 2020

Here in the US, 50mm 2.8 Nikkors are all over the place - an 80 or 105 takes a little more looking, but they're excellent lenses, I think i paid around $65 for each of mine in the last couple years (same for a like-new Componon-S 135mm). Doing big lith prints with their long exposures, I often use my enlarging lenses wide open and the Nikkors don't disappoint. But man, you do need your enlarger in perfect alignment to do 20x24" wide open. The Versalab is really a godsend for quickly checking alignment.

acroell · Feb 27, 2020

Martin Rickards said:
Another question would be is there any point in buying an enlarger lens with a greater power of resolution than that of the taking lens? It obviously cannot resolve detail that fails to get recorded on the negative.

Yes, there is. In an imaging chain, the modulation transfer function (MTF) of the whole chain is defined by multiplying the MTF's of the components, i.e. taking lens, film, enlarging lens, and paper in this case. The MTF of lenses is always smaller than 1, so if we just look at the combination of the taking and enlarging lens for a given frequency (lp/mm), the higher either one, the better. For example, if the MTF of both lenses would be 0.8 for some lp/mm value, the resulting combined one is 0.64. If the enlarging lens has an MTF of 0.9, the resulting MTF would be 0.72, certainly better.

Martin Rickards · Mar 8, 2020

End of story; I ended up being the only bidder for a Minolta CE Rokkor 80mm f5.6, which according to others is on a par with other 6 element lenses.

Meopta Meogons

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