Sharpest super wide angle lens between 65mm and 80mm for 6x12cm panorama camera

Regular Rod · Dec 28, 2014

You might be happier to discard the notion that 6x12 is some sort of wide angle world. I made a HolgAgon a while ago and am very glad that I continued with a standard focal length of 90mm. The 6x12 images are not wide angle, they are standard with more room for subject matter in the sides. The ordinary Angulon is more than capable and I have no problem with fall off of sharpness or exposure anywhere on the frame.

RR

mnemosyne · Dec 28, 2014

where in Germany do you live? I might be able to help you with a Fuji 65mm/f8 for comparison. at least you would be able to rule out alignment issues.

Dan Fromm · Dec 28, 2014

Regular Rod said:
You might be happier to discard the notion that 6x12 is some sort of wide angle world. I made a HolgAgon a while ago and am very glad that I continued with a standard focal length of 90mm. The 6x12 images are not wide angle, they are standard with more room for subject matter in the sides. The ordinary Angulon is more than capable and I have no problem with fall off of sharpness or exposure anywhere on the frame.

RR

But Rod, ~ 125 mm is normal for 6x12. 90 mm is a wide angle on that format.

Re ordinary Angulon, if you mean the 90/6.8 by all means yes it should do well on 6x12. If you mean the 65/6.8, it barely covers 6x9.

Old-N-Feeble · Dec 28, 2014

Yes, a 90mm lens on 56x112mm format is like shooting a 31mm lens on 24x36mm film or a 110mm lens on 4x5 inch film. Not super-wide but significantly wide. Anyway, A49 is only interested in lenses in the 65-80mm range.

I'm far from being very knowledgeable but I would suggest buying another 65mm f/8 Super Angulon like the one already on the camera. If cosmetic condition doesn't matter one could be found for $150 or less. With return privilege there's very little risk. Plus, modification is very minor or perhaps completely unnecessary.

A49 · Dec 28, 2014

Regular Rod said:
I made a HolgAgon a while ago and am very glad that I continued with a standard focal length of 90mm.
RR

Thank you for sharing your DIY Holga 6x12 project. It is full of interesting solutions for me. Especially the M42 focusing helicoid (which I never heard of before) could be very helpful to prevent my camera from being merely infinity fix focus.

A49 · Dec 28, 2014

Old-N-Feeble said:
Yes, a 90mm lens on 56x112mm format is like shooting a 31mm lens on 24x36mm film or a 110mm lens on 4x5 inch film. Not super-wide but significantly wide. Anyway, A49 is only interested in lenses in the 65-80mm range.

Yes 65mm is already pretty wide on 6x12cm and and 90mm would also be a WA. I have an Angulon 6.8/90mm but I was never quite impressed with its performance for 6x9cm. So I would prefer testing a Symmar-S 100mm, Symmar-S 120 or something similar as a slightly wide "normal" lens and hope that it performes well. (I have a Symmar-S 150mm MC which is the newest and sharpest LF lens that I have used.) I think in the range between 100 and 135 mm it would be much easier to find a cheap and good lens.

So in fact I will try to find a WA and a normal lens for my camera. My feeling is that with the WA I should be much more picky so I asked in the thread for your experiences and opinions.

A49 · Dec 28, 2014

@mnemosyne

Thank you for your nice offer. I live in Leipzig. Which kind of Fujinon is your lens? ( If I want to know something about Fujinon LF lenses I mostly look here: http://www.subclub.org/fujinon/ )

A49 · Dec 28, 2014

Old-N-Feeble said:
I'm far from being very knowledgeable but I would suggest buying another 65mm f/8 Super Angulon like the one already on the camera. If cosmetic condition doesn't matter one could be found for $150 or less. With return privilege there's very little risk. Plus, modification is very minor or perhaps completely unnecessary.

Since this is the most easily done try and one can see in the Perez/ Thalman list how samples can differ I probably will do this first (after I checked for misalignment errors) before buying a newer and much more expensive lens.

mnemosyne · Dec 28, 2014

A49 said:
@mnemosyne

Thank you for your nice offer. I live in Leipzig. Which kind of Fujinon is your lens? ( If I want to know something about Fujinon LF lenses I mostly look here: http://www.subclub.org/fujinon/ )

I'm living close to Frankfurt/M., so unfortunately a bit further away from Leipzig. The Fujinon 65mm is the SW version, third from top on the list. Design and specs are similar to the classic f8 Super Angulon. It's an older, single coated lens from the 1970s. I haven't used it much, as I have a fairly recent Super Angulon 5.6/75mm that is easier to use (brighter image on ground glass) and allows more movements on my camera. The SA is a sharp lens for sure, but I cannot tell you if is any sharper than an f8 SA 75mm would be.
My understanding is that large format WA lenses are rather delicate and sensitive to any form of abuse, so it seems that older lenses have a higher risk of being out of whack for one reason or another. If the softness of the pictures is limited to one side of the image, this should not be due to curvature of field but would be an indication that either the lens suffered some form of decentering or there is indeed an alignment (or film flatness) problem with the camera.

A49 · Dec 28, 2014

mnemosyne said:
If the softness of the pictures is limited to one side of the image, this should not be due to curvature of field but would be an indication that either the lens suffered some form of decentering or there is indeed an alignment (or film flatness) problem with the camera.

I have checked the negatives once again and there are some very slight unsymmetries at F/8 and F/11 which could be due to minimal misalignment of the film plane in relation to the lens plane. The negs are probably good enough for reasonable sharp 25x50cm prints but if you would look closely at them you would see the worse sharpness and resolution on the left and right side. So I think that the lens is o.k and the camera alignment is exact enough to say something about the quality of my Super Angulon 6.8/65mm. In my next test with film I will shoot again with my 65mm Super Angulon and taking Bob Eskridge´s advice to re-adjust the focus for a point that is not centered in the 6x12cm frame but in the middle between center and left or right edge to minimize the effects of curvature. But I fear that the considerable worse resolution and sharpness of vertical lines compared with horizontal ones in far off-center areas of the 6x12cm frame is a general flaw of the 1960ies Super Angulon 65mm lens design (and not a flaw of my sample). So I´m still looking for a more modern and hopefully more sharp (evenly over the full frame) WA lens.

Dan Fromm · Dec 28, 2014

A49 said:
But when I examined them under the enlarger I was really disappointed to see that the most left and right areas of the neg where fuzzy and unsharp at every aperture that I have shot with (f/8, F/11, F/16, F/22, F/32). The middle of the negs was nice and sharp and best at F/16 and still very good at F/11 and F/22.

Thank you very much in advance for your opinions and experiences.

Andreas

This is not a good way to evaluate a negative. You're evaluating the neg, your enlarging lens and your grain magnifier's optics all at the same time. If you want to know what's in the neg, put it on a light table, make sure the section you look at is flat, and use a 12x or more powerful magnifier.

I feel like an idiot for not having noticed at the beginning of this discussion that your procedure is not particularly good.

Old-N-Feeble · Dec 28, 2014

Hey Dan... yoo iz a idjut... but take solace in the fact that yoo iz big more observant than I. Yup... dat don't hep much, do it?

Dan Fromm · Dec 28, 2014

OnF, when I was working I counted a day in which my colleagues didn't tell me to be such an ** idiot at least three times as I bad day. Every village has its idiot, so does every office. I was ours.

A49 · Dec 28, 2014

Dan Fromm said:
This is not a good way to evaluate a negative. You're evaluating the neg, your enlarging lens and your grain magnifier's optics all at the same time.

I have to disagree this time. When I evaluated the negative I centered each section that I was looking at on the negative carrier. I used a 2.8/50mm EL Nikkor at F/5.6 and a grain magnifier. I could clearly see the very fine grain of the TMax 100 film resolved. The EL Nikkor has much more resolving power in its center than the best areas in my 6x12cm test negatives shot at F/11 and F/16 need. I have examined 35mm negatives with considerably finer details in it with this procedure. So for me evaluating a negative under the enlarger is not the problem. Nevertheless to look with a strong loupe on a light table might be much faster and more convenient. I will try it.

Neil Poulsen · Jan 14, 2015

There's always the 65mm SA f5.6, which will likely be more recent and have a greater image circle. You can find reasonably priced examples w/multicoating.

Sharpest super wide angle lens between 65mm and 80mm for 6x12cm panorama camera

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency