Rodenstock Rodagon 80mm f5.6 with Fixed Aperture?

Hi Everyone,

I recently purchased a Rodagon 80mm f5.6 off ebay and upon receiving it realised that the lens I purchased had a fixed aperture. I was puzzled by this, so I did some research and it turns out my lens looks nothing like the other Rodenstock Rodagon lens' that I can find.. I'm wondering if anyone knows anything about this fixed aperture version, and why can't I find anything about it? Was I sold a fake?

Any input would be appreciated, I'm undecided as to what I'm going to do with it.. I'm not sure I want a fixed aperture for enlarging, unless someone has some other input?

Thanks!

Ben.

It probably was manufactured for use in the machine printers that used to be found in photo labs.

MattKing said:

It probably was manufactured for use in the machine printers that used to be found in photo labs.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the clue, you helped me to find another one through Google. Looks like they were taken from a Scitex Film Scanner.

The only thing an adjustable aperture on an enlarging lens is good for is oddball situations. Otherwise 'f5.6 and be there...'

Your particular lens might be for 35mm format.

Rodenstock made a large range of lenses for machine vision applications as well as typical enlarging lenses. I'm not sure what this lens was intended for but it's definitely a Rodenstock Rodagon lens, albeit not a typical F4 80mm lens.

Printing is often done at "aperture priority" anyway. That is, stopped down 1 or two stops to the lens's sweet spot and you expose for whatever time is needed. Presumably 5.6 is the sweet spot for this lens, aside from a little less brightness for focusing, it should theoretically perform well at it's fixed aperture.

Thanks for all the replies! I'm going to do a couple of test runs with the lens this week and see how it performs on the enlarger this week. It's good knowing that it's not a fake, and that the glass is still good quality.

I've got a Lucky 50mm 2.8 enlarging lens and there is no aperture ring on it!! Hard to print at that speed.