Found an old enlarger lens, any good?

[MiniD3]

Hi Guys,
Cleaning some old gear out,
Found this old enlarger lens,
H.Roussel Paris Kynor 1:3.5 F 50


Appears glass may need a clean inside and out

Worth keeping or throw it out?
Any good for Macro?
Regards,
Gary

[Harold Gough]

Worth cleaning and trying (reversed).

One seller thinks it is worth at least $100, which is more than I have paid for some enlarger lenses which perform very well for macro.

The donwnside is that I can find no account of anyone using it for macro. You could be the first.

Harold

[MiniD3]

Thank you Harold,
Now the trick is "how to get it apart"?
Regards,
Gary

[Harold Gough]

Thank you Harold,
Now the trick is "how to get it apart"?

You may get some help here:

http://forum.manualfocus.org//viewforum.php?id=1

I recently managed to get to the front of the diaphragm, and of the inner element group, of an old Kiron lens. I found a screw in the barrel, hidden under the rubber focusing grip. Removing the screw allowed me to unscrew the barrel, which took the front element with it. Something similar might work with your lens.

Harold

[enricosavazzi]

Thank you Harold,
Now the trick is "how to get it apart"?
Regards,
Gary

I would try first unscrewing the black ring with the brand engraving at the front of the lens. Get a rubber cork wide enough to press against the metal ring (without touching the glass of the front element) and twist it counterclockwise while pressed to the ring. This usually does the trick. How to proceed from there depends on what you find. The bright aluminium ring might come out the same way, with a wider cork.

There seems to be no rubber ring on this lens, so if there is any screw it should be visible. There is usually one screw that transmits the rotation of the aperture ring to the diaphragm mechanism. Sometimes it is necessary to remove this ring in order to continue disassembling the lens, but usually it is not necessary, so remove this screw only if really necessary to continue. If you can, avoid disassembling the diaphragm into its parts (it may be difficult to put it back together correctly). It is usually possible to remove all elements of an enlarger lens from the front and rear of the barrel, without touching the diaphragm.

When removing lenses and metal parts, keep a note of their front-to-rear orientation and their respective places. You will need to put back all parts without reversing any of them or changing their order. It may help to put each successively removed part into a separate, progressively numbered ziplock bag.

[MiniD3]

>Harold
Appreciate the link, I have some reading to do!
Have bookmarked the forum, just amazing whats around in the WWW
>ES
Thank you!
Will try that trick out, may be an "on going project",
Your right, no rubber ring or screw,
Will see how I go, hope the humidity has not sealed parts too tight

Regards,
Gary

[ray_parkhurst]

Thank you Harold,
Now the trick is "how to get it apart"?
Regards,
Gary

I'd suggest just giving it a light cleaning on front and rear exterior lens surfaces and then trying it for macro IQ before opening it up. You will quickly see if it's worth the extra effort to open and clean it. You will likely get 90% the same IQ cleaned as uncleaned. Even heavy haze will only show up as reduced contrast. If the IQ looks good, then you can judge if you want to open it up.

[MiniD3]

Thank you Harold,
Now the trick is "how to get it apart"?
Regards,
Gary

I'd suggest just giving it a light cleaning on front and rear exterior lens surfaces and then trying it for macro IQ before opening it up. You will quickly see if it's worth the extra effort to open and clean it. You will likely get 90% the same IQ cleaned as uncleaned. Even heavy haze will only show up as reduced contrast. If the IQ looks good, then you can judge if you want to open it up.

Great idea Ray,
Come to think of it,
I did see images from a 14-24 where the front element was smashed and it was amazing how good the images were
Regards,
Gary

[SteveGreen1953]

Great idea Ray,
Come to think of it,
I did see images from a 14-24 where the front element was smashed and it was amazing how good the images were
Regards,
Gary

I saw the same article and it was indeed amazing just how good the photos were from a lens with that much damage. With that thought in mind, I decided to risk buying an El-Nikkor 63mm f2.8 lens with a small nick/scratch right in the middle of the front element.

You would be amazed just how obvious that scratch is in the photos. And it’s not just in the middle of the image, but in every highlight. However, when I reverse the lens the scratch disappears (at least it appears to given very limited testing.) The exact opposite behavior from what I expected.

Cheers! Steve

[MiniD3]

Tks for the heads-up Steve,
This job I have here appears one of those tasks for a rainy day,
Will see what happens
Regards,
Gary

[Ancient1]

Steve,

A small dab of flat black on a lens (or mirror) flaw will prevent dispersion. I have used this technique many times and it always worked well for me.

Gene

[SteveGreen1953]

Steve,

A small dab of flat black on a lens (or mirror) flaw will prevent dispersion. I have used this technique many times and it always worked well for me.

Gene

That’s good to know.

Thank you, Steve

[MiniD3]

Steve,

A small dab of flat black on a lens (or mirror) flaw will prevent dispersion. I have used this technique many times and it always worked well for me.

Gene

Thank you for the heads-up
Regards,
Gary

[rjlittlefield]

A small dab of flat black on a lens (or mirror) flaw will prevent dispersion. I have used this technique many times and it always worked well for me.

For other readers...

This is a classic technique for dealing with small scratches that would otherwise scatter light and cause veiling glare. It works best with "short" lens designs that have all their lens elements close to the aperture so that the glass surfaces are almost perfectly out of focus. "Long" designs that have front or rear elements far away from the aperture may show the filled scratch as a dark blob. The most troublesome lenses are very wide angle and fisheye lenses that have very short focal length compared with the distance between glass and aperture. As a rule of thumb, if you can see individual dust spots on the glass then you'll be able to see a filled scratch also.

--Rik

[MiniD3]

Tks Rik,
Cannot see any scratches,
Getting it appart maybe too hard, I think humidity and time may have done its job over many years
Regards,
Gary