For Sale Nikkor 63mm Elarging Lens

j_nickels · Aug 18, 2010

Legendary lens in perfect condition. Check it out! $150 or best offer. Thanks.

Steve Karr · Aug 18, 2010

This is a Super Sweet lens indeed... somebody scoop it up !!

E76 · Aug 19, 2010

What, exactly, makes this lens so special and how does it compare to Schneider and Rodenstock lenses?

fschifano · Aug 19, 2010

E76 said:
What, exactly, makes this lens so special and how does it compare to Schneider and Rodenstock lenses?

Nothing really. I suppose it would be ideal if you were working with 127 negatives, but otherwise there's no point. It doesn't have enough coverage for 6x4.5, so it's not even good for the smallest of currently available medium format negatives. It will work for 35mm negatives, but you'd need to raise the head higher for a given print size, and I don't see where that's of any practical advantage unless your aim is to make small prints from 35mm negatives with a 4x5 enlarger. But in that case, you can easily use a more common 80 mm enlarging lens. The higher end 50 and 80 mm enlarging lenses from Nikon, Schneider, and Rodenstock are very, very good and I'm hard pressed to see anything that works substantially better.

RalphLambrecht · Aug 19, 2010

fschifano said:
Nothing really. I suppose it would be ideal if you were working with 127 negatives, but otherwise there's no point. It doesn't have enough coverage for 6x4.5, so it's not even good for the smallest of currently available medium format negatives. It will work for 35mm negatives, but you'd need to raise the head higher for a given print size, and I don't see where that's of any practical advantage unless your aim is to make small prints from 35mm negatives with a 4x5 enlarger. But in that case, you can easily use a more common 80 mm enlarging lens. The higher end 50 and 80 mm enlarging lenses from Nikon, Schneider, and Rodenstock are very, very good and I'm hard pressed to see anything that works substantially better.

I would be interested in the reason why Nikon decided to produce this lens. I have one, and it is just as good as the other 6-element Nikon, Schneider or Rodenstock lenses I've tried. It should have a bot more coverage than a regular 50mm lens, and therefore, have less fall-off.

Anscojohn · Aug 19, 2010

RalphLambrecht;... It should have a bot more coverage than a regular 50mm lens said:
******************
That's why I use a six element 60mm Rodagon for my 35 mm negs. Ye olde lab ratz told me always use a lens of longer focal length than necessary to cover the image for better edge sharpness and most even illumination possible. Who am I to quibble with them?.

fschifano · Aug 19, 2010

First of all, I never implied that it was a bad lens. I only said it's nothing special. It was designed for negatives larger than 35mm and smaller than 6x4.5 - makes it just about right for square 127 negatives, but who shoots that stuff anymore outside of a very user baby Rollie and similar camera users? I have one each of the 6 element, 50 mm high end enlarging lenses from Nikon, Schneider, and Rodenstock and have never seen a fall -off problem with any of them. While that argument may be valid for lesser lenses, it is meaningless when held up to the shorter high quality enlarging lenses.

This lens does have some popularity among the UV (not IR, but UV) photography crowd because this lens is supposed to be somewhat better corrected for focus shifts in the near UV light range. Mount it onto a bellows and you can have a near UV lens on the cheap, or so they say. And while it is true that enlarging papers are sensitive to UV light, there's not a whole lot of it coming out of the business end of an enlarger, so that's a lame excuse too.

RalphLambrecht · Aug 19, 2010

fschifano said:
... I have one each of the 6 element, 50 mm high end enlarging lenses from Nikon, Schneider, and Rodenstock and have never seen a fall -off problem with any of them. ...

I haven't seen it either, but I'm sure there is some visible if you do a medium-gray test print at grade 5. Anyway, I doubt that it is a big deal. Edge sharpness wide open may be another reason.

fschifano said:
... This lens does have some popularity among the UV (not IR, but UV) photography crowd because this lens is supposed to be somewhat better corrected for focus shifts in the near UV light range. ...

UV? That rings a bell. Is that what this lens was designed for?

fschifano · Aug 19, 2010

Not really. The UV correction was touted mostly as a selling point; Nikon saying, "Our lens is corrected for focus shift aall the way down to the near UV range and the competition isn't." But from what I've read, the DIY UV photography crowd have been rigging up some Rube Goldberg devices to mount these things in focusing helicals or bellows for use on 35 mm SLR's. Here's one guy's efforts doing it with the older f/3.5 version of the lens. Poke around a little more and you can turn up some more info.

Who goes around making medium gray test prints on grade 5 paper? I suppose some nerd somewhere will think it's great fun.

ic-racer · Aug 19, 2010

fschifano said:
I have one each of the 6 element, 50 mm high end enlarging lenses from Nikon, Schneider, and Rodenstock and have never seen a fall -off problem with any of them. .

How are you using them? If you are not doing big enlargements, you are only using the center anyway. For big enlargements, the corner resolution will fall off to some extent with all 3. Easly minimized by a longer focal length lens or a "High Magnification" lens of the same focal length.

RalphLambrecht · Aug 19, 2010

fschifano said:
... Who goes around making medium gray test prints on grade 5 paper? I suppose some nerd somewhere will think it's great fun.

John Sexton promotes this in his workshop as a technique to check the evenness of lens and light source illumination. I second his approach, because it works well as a test. That makes two nerds. There may be more!

fschifano · Aug 19, 2010

ic-racer said:
How are you using them? If you are not doing big enlargements, you are only using the center anyway. For big enlargements, the corner resolution will fall off to some extent with all 3. Easly minimized by a longer focal length lens or a "High Magnification" lens of the same focal length.

How do you figure that if you don't crop? OK, it's true if you do crop, but I don't always do that. They're all good to about 11x or maybe a little more. That's often much more than I need and I never need more for a 35mm negative. I mean, 11x enlargement is an 11x16 inch print from that size negative and honestly, even that's too much most of the time. It's the rare negative that's even good enough for a print that big. The enlarging lens is the last thing you need to worry about.

j_nickels · Sep 25, 2010

ic-racer · Sep 25, 2010

fschifano said:
How do you figure that if you don't crop? .

As you move the enlarging lens closer to the negative (focusing for a big enlargement) the image circle gets smaller.

Large format taking lens manufacturers frequently give the image circle at infinity. The image circle is twice as big at 1:1.

Since enlarging lenses are never used at infinity, a stated image circle at that focal point is a little useless. Process lenses sometimes are listed with image circles at 1:1. In general enlarging lens image circles are not stated by the manufacture probably because neither 1:1 or infinity are common uses of enlarging lenses. But, just be because they don't state the image circle, doesn't mean an enlarging lens has infinite coverage or or doesn't follow the laws of physics

Steve Karr · Sep 26, 2010

Hmmm .... you guys are talking tech. stuff... I have this lens (63mm), a Rodenstock Apo-fancy something & a Focatar 2. The specs are better on the Roden. & terrible on the Leitz, but the Leitz is my go-to 90% of the time because it is simple beautiful. Nikkor 2nd ... APO ... well it's sharp anyway.

Stephen Frizza · Sep 26, 2010

I know that the 63mm nikkor was used on some Very expensive scanners, so it had a very big digital application. I have used it for both digital and analog use and it is a nice piece of glass.

frotog · Sep 26, 2010

In making prints 30x40 and larger from 35mm negs I've found that the only lens with better edge to edge sharpness than the Nikkor 63mm f3,5 is the rodagon G.

For Sale Nikkor 63mm Elarging Lens

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency