Before I stopped (hopefully, temporarily,) making wet prints, the last enlarger lenses I used were Russian. Being cheap and a Zorki/FED/Zenit freak, I thought that the kosher way to go was to print my Jupiter/Industar/Helios captures with lenses of the same lineage.
The two favourites lenses I used were the Vega ("Вега") 11-U and the Industar ("Индустар")-96U-1 or just plain "И-96Y-1". Both are 50mm lenses. The Vega-11U is a 5-element lens with a max aperture of f/2,8. The I-96U is also a 50mm but with 4 elements and a max aperture of f/3,5.
The Vega is built like a more expensive Rodenstock, Schneider or Nikkor EL. Solid and heavy and has click stops (most Russian enlarger lenses have free turning aperture rings). It prints with crisp contrast and colour. I got it for just US$5.00 on eBay.
The I-96U is also an excellent lens. Though it looks cheap, it can definitely make an equivalent Nikkor EL a run for its money. I was able to compare this lens to an f/4 50mm Nikkor EL which was being offered to me. But that Nikkor was expensive so I sent it back. The I-96U came free with a Zorki RF from Russia. I've been able to use this lens only for printing in colour. The prints I got had a colour rendering which seemed to have more depth than those which I got from other, more conventional lenses. These other lenses printed with snap and contrast, but the I-96 seemed to render colours with some subtlety.
Like most Russian enlarging lenses, the aperture ring on this lens does not have clickstops. This might not work well with those who count aperture clicks for setting in the dark. But the stepless arrangement did work fine with printing analysers and exposure meters.
One more caveat about Russian lenses is their longer neck. They mostly have longer barrels which work quite well with the shorter bellows found in most 35mm Russian enlargers. This is like using a collapsible 5cm Elmar, fully extended on the enlarger lens board. Perhaps this was derived from the standards set when Russian enlargers were set up to be used with lenses from FED or Zorki cameras. When dedicated enlarger lenses came, they were given the same barrel lengths as the camera lenses they evolved from.
Longer barrels mean that some Western enlargers may be hampered from printing large prints- their bellow or focus helicoids may not be able to retract short enough to allow the long-barrelled lenses to focus for larger prints. For instance, the flat lens board of the Beseler 23C would allow only postcard sized prints from 35mm negatives with the Vega-11U lens. With the Meopta on a reversed, recessed lensboard, or my Chinese-made "toy enlarger", the lens worked without limitations.
The I-96U-1 came with a removable extension barrel. Removing the barrel made the lens just like any short-barrelled Western or Japanese enlarger lens.
This was the reason that I printed more with the I-96U than with the Vega 11-U.
Jay
The two favourites lenses I used were the Vega ("Вега") 11-U and the Industar ("Индустар")-96U-1 or just plain "И-96Y-1". Both are 50mm lenses. The Vega-11U is a 5-element lens with a max aperture of f/2,8. The I-96U is also a 50mm but with 4 elements and a max aperture of f/3,5.
The Vega is built like a more expensive Rodenstock, Schneider or Nikkor EL. Solid and heavy and has click stops (most Russian enlarger lenses have free turning aperture rings). It prints with crisp contrast and colour. I got it for just US$5.00 on eBay.
The I-96U is also an excellent lens. Though it looks cheap, it can definitely make an equivalent Nikkor EL a run for its money. I was able to compare this lens to an f/4 50mm Nikkor EL which was being offered to me. But that Nikkor was expensive so I sent it back. The I-96U came free with a Zorki RF from Russia. I've been able to use this lens only for printing in colour. The prints I got had a colour rendering which seemed to have more depth than those which I got from other, more conventional lenses. These other lenses printed with snap and contrast, but the I-96 seemed to render colours with some subtlety.
Like most Russian enlarging lenses, the aperture ring on this lens does not have clickstops. This might not work well with those who count aperture clicks for setting in the dark. But the stepless arrangement did work fine with printing analysers and exposure meters.
One more caveat about Russian lenses is their longer neck. They mostly have longer barrels which work quite well with the shorter bellows found in most 35mm Russian enlargers. This is like using a collapsible 5cm Elmar, fully extended on the enlarger lens board. Perhaps this was derived from the standards set when Russian enlargers were set up to be used with lenses from FED or Zorki cameras. When dedicated enlarger lenses came, they were given the same barrel lengths as the camera lenses they evolved from.
Longer barrels mean that some Western enlargers may be hampered from printing large prints- their bellow or focus helicoids may not be able to retract short enough to allow the long-barrelled lenses to focus for larger prints. For instance, the flat lens board of the Beseler 23C would allow only postcard sized prints from 35mm negatives with the Vega-11U lens. With the Meopta on a reversed, recessed lensboard, or my Chinese-made "toy enlarger", the lens worked without limitations.
The I-96U-1 came with a removable extension barrel. Removing the barrel made the lens just like any short-barrelled Western or Japanese enlarger lens.
This was the reason that I printed more with the I-96U than with the Vega 11-U.
Jay
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