Printing negs from old Zeiss Ikon HELP

[Anton Lukoszevieze]

I have a Zeiss Baby Ikonta for 127 film.
It is in very nice shape, shutter speeds are good and the uncoated Tessar lens is very clean. I have some Efke 100 film I have developed for 6 mins in 1:25 Adox APH09. When I print the negs they are very uncontrasty, and flat looking I know this is because of the old lens etc. Any advice on printing them, for a bit more clarity? I am using a Meopta Magnifax 4 colour head (tried Grade 2 filter setting), Adox Fibre Fine Print paper, Moersch War Tone developer.
Thanks!

 

[Ian Grant]

I've been using an uncoated 135mm Tessar, and they are flat compared to coated or multi-coated lenses. However they are quite reasonable lenses and just lack bite & corner sharpness until stopped well down. f22 is the optimum aperture for the 135 7 150mm lenses..

Try printing on about Grade 3.5 or 4. You may need to use a lens-hood to minimise flare.

Ian

 

[Anton Lukoszevieze]

Thanks Ian,
yeh I was stopping down quite a bit to between f8-22 for shots.
I'll try increasing the grading. I do like the softness, but want a bit more bite. Nice cameras, smallest I have, makes a change from 15x12

 

[Doremus Scudder]

Uncoated lenses often reduce contrast.

The best solution is to increase the development time for the rolls shot with the uncoated lens.

For printing what you have already, simply use a higher paper contrast grade.

Easy.

Have fun,

Doremus Scudder

 

[Ian Grant]

Uncoated lenses often reduce contrast.
Doremus Scudder

Uncoated lenses always reduce the contrast, but the degree of reduction is very dependant on the amount of internal flare which varies with the direction of the light etc.

While it's quite easy to match the overall contrast of images/prints taken with an uncoated lens to those from a single or multi coated lens by adjusting development times or paper contrast there is still a subtle difference in the micro-contrasts in the images.

I've just printed an image made with a Symmar S (multi-coated) and compared it to an image made at the same location under similar lighting conditions earlier in the year with an uncoated Tessar. At f22/f32 the Tessar is for all practical purposes almost as sharp as the Symmar at 10"x12", both using 5x4 film, but the Tessar image just lacks the fine tonal details in things like grass leaves, rocks etc.

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)
This image with the Tessar was made under fairly ideal lighting conditions and the drop in contrast due to the lack of coating isn't much at all, but other images suffer much worse with muddy highlight details.

Ian

 

[CBG]

Expanded development is in order. But the lens flare and presumable extra light bouncing around in the camera body will end up adding non-image exposure most noticeable in the shadows. The slight bump in shadow exposure from an uncoated lens might justify a very slight reduction in exposure, especially in flare prone scenes such as high key and where the sun is in or near the scene and the like... Maybe I'm being a bit too picky so take this with a grain of salt, but, once you get your development where you want it, and if your negs start being a bit heavy in the shadows, but your overall contrast is where you want it, try a slight backing off of exposure.

C