1:20 to 1:5 (0.05x to 0.2x)

[simplejoy]

I’m not sure if this has already been mentioned but what about lenses from (flatbed) scanners for large formats or from Repro-cameras such as the Agfa Repromaster/Super-Intergon series? They didn‘t fare too well in the corners in Ray's tests if memory serves me right, but could do significantly better at the magnifications mentioned here. And I suspect that‘s not even the best Agfa lenses for that kind of stuff (that might be the Agfa-Gevaert 107 mm f/4 I‘d guess).

You‘d probably have to find the latest version of those (like the 80 mm f/4 Repromaster or Agfa-Staeble Magnogon R 105 mm) for them to be on a good level, but while they‘re somewhat rare they aren‘t pricey so there‘s no big risk if they turn out to be worse than expected. Just an idea though - I haven‘t done any real testing in those ranges.

[jvanhuys]

Hi everyone,

In order for this thread to move closer to a resolution I've decided to make a little announcement.

I didn't hear back from Shcneider regarding lens quote, they probably didn't want to scare me. I ended up ordering a Super Symmar HM 120mm f/5.6 (late serial number) from Japan. I'm hoping this is 'the one'............

Years ago I downloaded all the LF lens data PDFs from the old Schneider Optics USA site before they took it offline. As far as I remember all the LF non-macro Symmars, the APO-Symmar, Super-Symmar etc were corrected for distortion and MTF at infinity. As they went closer distortion went up and sharpness went down. MTFs were for infinity to 1:10. Also center sharpness went down and corner sharpness improved when stopped down to f/22. I tried to find the Super Symmar 120 lens data but don't seem to have it on my drive!

Large format enlarging lenses should be better suited for your use since they are usually corrected for best MTF and low distortion at 1/5-1/20.

Best,

Robert

Hi Robert,

Just came back from holiday. Thanks for this, I appreciate it. If I knew this piece for crucial info, I probably wouldn't have ordered the SS HM. I'll do some tests and get back to you.

[jvanhuys]

I’m not sure if this has already been mentioned but what about lenses from (flatbed) scanners for large formats or from Repro-cameras such as the Agfa Repromaster/Super-Intergon series? They didn‘t fare too well in the corners in Ray's tests if memory serves me right, but could do significantly better at the magnifications mentioned here. And I suspect that‘s not even the best Agfa lenses for that kind of stuff (that might be the Agfa-Gevaert 107 mm f/4 I‘d guess).

You‘d probably have to find the latest version of those (like the 80 mm f/4 Repromaster or Agfa-Staeble Magnogon R 105 mm) for them to be on a good level, but while they‘re somewhat rare they aren‘t pricey so there‘s no big risk if they turn out to be worse than expected. Just an idea though - I haven‘t done any real testing in those ranges.

Will definitely take this into account, but from my own testing with my Minolta 5400 lens and 95mm Printing Nikkor lens, these kind of lenses are basically unusable outside of their designed magnification range. Robert O Toole did mention to me once, that one of his Printing Nikkors was able to produce a decent looking image at infinity, but no luck with mine.

[simplejoy]

I’m not sure if this has already been mentioned but what about lenses from (flatbed) scanners for large formats or from Repro-cameras such as the Agfa Repromaster/Super-Intergon series? They didn‘t fare too well in the corners in Ray's tests if memory serves me right, but could do significantly better at the magnifications mentioned here. And I suspect that‘s not even the best Agfa lenses for that kind of stuff (that might be the Agfa-Gevaert 107 mm f/4 I‘d guess).

You‘d probably have to find the latest version of those (like the 80 mm f/4 Repromaster or Agfa-Staeble Magnogon R 105 mm) for them to be on a good level, but while they‘re somewhat rare they aren‘t pricey so there‘s no big risk if they turn out to be worse than expected. Just an idea though - I haven‘t done any real testing in those ranges.

Will definitely take this into account, but from my own testing with my Minolta 5400 lens and 95mm Printing Nikkor lens, these kind of lenses are basically unusable outside of their designed magnification range. Robert O Toole did mention to me once, that one of his Printing Nikkors was able to produce a decent looking image at infinity, but no luck with mine.

While the Printing Nikkor and Minolta 5400 lens are certainly among the best lenses ever for a specific magnification, there's a significant difference between a scanner lens optimized for scanning 35 film or other small formats and a lens specifically created for scanning A3 (like the Agfa 107 mm) or be used in a Repro-Camera, like the Repromaster/Magnogon R lenses. At least, if I'm not forgetting about something...

Another lens I was thinking about is the Zeiss S-Planar 120 mm f/5.6. According to the article by Marco Cavina it should be optimized for 1:5 (http://www.marcocavina.com/articoli_fot ... nglish.htm). It's quite an old lens of course but I've heard from someone who has lots of experience with Zeiss lenses that it was said to be as good as the S-Orthoplanars within its range and it does have a good image circle. I can however only confirm that it's a very good lens at higher magnifications than 1:5.

[Lou Jost]

Note that stacking greatly reduces or eliminates some lens defects, like LoCA and astigmatism, using DMap in Zerene.

[jvanhuys]

I’m not sure if this has already been mentioned but what about lenses from (flatbed) scanners for large formats or from Repro-cameras such as the Agfa Repromaster/Super-Intergon series? They didn‘t fare too well in the corners in Ray's tests if memory serves me right, but could do significantly better at the magnifications mentioned here. And I suspect that‘s not even the best Agfa lenses for that kind of stuff (that might be the Agfa-Gevaert 107 mm f/4 I‘d guess).

You‘d probably have to find the latest version of those (like the 80 mm f/4 Repromaster or Agfa-Staeble Magnogon R 105 mm) for them to be on a good level, but while they‘re somewhat rare they aren‘t pricey so there‘s no big risk if they turn out to be worse than expected. Just an idea though - I haven‘t done any real testing in those ranges.

Will definitely take this into account, but from my own testing with my Minolta 5400 lens and 95mm Printing Nikkor lens, these kind of lenses are basically unusable outside of their designed magnification range. Robert O Toole did mention to me once, that one of his Printing Nikkors was able to produce a decent looking image at infinity, but no luck with mine.

While the Printing Nikkor and Minolta 5400 lens are certainly among the best lenses ever for a specific magnification, there's a significant difference between a scanner lens optimized for scanning 35 film or other small formats and a lens specifically created for scanning A3 (like the Agfa 107 mm) or be used in a Repro-Camera, like the Repromaster/Magnogon R lenses. At least, if I'm not forgetting about something...

Another lens I was thinking about is the Zeiss S-Planar 120 mm f/5.6. According to the article by Marco Cavina it should be optimized for 1:5 (http://www.marcocavina.com/articoli_fot ... nglish.htm). It's quite an old lens of course but I've heard from someone who has lots of experience with Zeiss lenses that it was said to be as good as the S-Orthoplanars within its range and it does have a good image circle. I can however only confirm that it's a very good lens at higher magnifications than 1:5.

Hi!

I just want to thank you, right off the bat, for this article share. It was such a fascinating read. Talk about an exotic list of lenses in one place. The part I'm most excited about, is that there were at least 3 lenses in that article that were optimized with magnifications between 1:5 and 1:20 or 1:5 and 1:10.

I'll probably now spend at least a week researching some of the lenses that stood out to me. Thank you for this. I appreciate it.

[jvanhuys]

I’m not sure if this has already been mentioned but what about lenses from (flatbed) scanners for large formats or from Repro-cameras such as the Agfa Repromaster/Super-Intergon series? They didn‘t fare too well in the corners in Ray's tests if memory serves me right, but could do significantly better at the magnifications mentioned here. And I suspect that‘s not even the best Agfa lenses for that kind of stuff (that might be the Agfa-Gevaert 107 mm f/4 I‘d guess).

You‘d probably have to find the latest version of those (like the 80 mm f/4 Repromaster or Agfa-Staeble Magnogon R 105 mm) for them to be on a good level, but while they‘re somewhat rare they aren‘t pricey so there‘s no big risk if they turn out to be worse than expected. Just an idea though - I haven‘t done any real testing in those ranges.

Will definitely take this into account, but from my own testing with my Minolta 5400 lens and 95mm Printing Nikkor lens, these kind of lenses are basically unusable outside of their designed magnification range. Robert O Toole did mention to me once, that one of his Printing Nikkors was able to produce a decent looking image at infinity, but no luck with mine.

While the Printing Nikkor and Minolta 5400 lens are certainly among the best lenses ever for a specific magnification, there's a significant difference between a scanner lens optimized for scanning 35 film or other small formats and a lens specifically created for scanning A3 (like the Agfa 107 mm) or be used in a Repro-Camera, like the Repromaster/Magnogon R lenses. At least, if I'm not forgetting about something...

Another lens I was thinking about is the Zeiss S-Planar 120 mm f/5.6. According to the article by Marco Cavina it should be optimized for 1:5 (http://www.marcocavina.com/articoli_fot ... nglish.htm). It's quite an old lens of course but I've heard from someone who has lots of experience with Zeiss lenses that it was said to be as good as the S-Orthoplanars within its range and it does have a good image circle. I can however only confirm that it's a very good lens at higher magnifications than 1:5.

Also, not sure if these are your images, but I found some sample pics taken with the Dokumar 47 f/5.6, which are unbelievably, sharp, but then this one image suffered from quite a bit of CA. Was this because it's a blade of grass, and thus, so much closer than the Dokumar's magnification range of 1:75 to 1:30? You were probably down to 1:1 on this shot right?
https://flic.kr/p/2mgGwJm

[chris_ma]

While I love old lenses for a lot of reasons, I still expect that changing your method of mounting the camera and using a modern FF lens (like the Laowa 100mm) would result in higher resolution.
The S-Planar 120mm 5.6 was a great lens for it's time, but softer then the latest modern lenses. here the datasheet with MTF curves:
http://www.hasselbladhistorical.eu/pdf/lds/C120.pdf

[jvanhuys]

While I love old lenses for a lot of reasons, I still expect that changing your method of mounting the camera and using a modern FF lens (like the Laowa 100mm) would result in higher resolution.
The S-Planar 120mm 5.6 was a great lens for it's time, but softer then the latest modern lenses. here the datasheet with MTF curves:
http://www.hasselbladhistorical.eu/pdf/lds/C120.pdf

Hi Chris. Hope all is going well. I think I did mention before, that field flatness is a complete must for me. Although I haven't shot with the Laowa or the Sigma, it is a known fact that both are not flat in the corners at close distances as in they have barrel distortion. If memory serves me right, Robert O'Toole did also have findings similar to that effect. I might have a dig around on his site and repost after work.

What I maybe didn't mention explicitly in any of my posts, is that, distortion-wise, I'm looking for a lens with 0.1% or less distortion as the MTF curve nears an image height of between 30-40mm at magnification of 1:20-1:5. At least 3 of the lenses mention so far in this thread achieve that and a fourth, the S-Planar you mention also reaches that seemingly impossible achievement, whether soft or not.

The Sigma as a matter of fact, looking at their official site, has quite bad distortion for my needs... already crossing around 0.4-0.5% distortion at a mere 20+ millimeters of image height. That is not good. Sure it's not visible for general photography, but I already outlined my needs exactly, which is specific, not general. Here's the official Sigma MTF:
https://www.sigma-global.com/en/lenses/105_28_os/

[lothman]

Hi Chris. Hope all is going well. I think I did mention before, that field flatness is a complete must for me. Although I haven't shot with the Laowa or the Sigma, it is a known fact that both are not flat in the corners at close distances as in they have barrel distortion. If memory serves me right, Robert O'Toole did also have findings similar to that effect. I might have a dig around on his site and repost after work.

"not flat" is usually understood as being spherical. This would give either sharp corners or sharp edges but not both, at least not at small apertures. I can assure you that the Laowa and the Sigma are sharp from corner to corner.

What I maybe didn't mention explicitly in any of my posts, is that, distortion-wise, I'm looking for a lens with 0.1% or less distortion as the MTF curve nears an image height of between 30-40mm at magnification of 1:20-1:5. At least 3 of the lenses mention so far in this thread achieve that and a fourth, the S-Planar you mention also reaches that seemingly impossible achievement, whether soft or not.

I still do not understand why such small distortion is so important for reproduction of artwork. And as chris_ma I think you are on the wrong approach, you can lateral stitch several distortion correction single frames and achieve a much better resolution.
But yes instead of mentioning 600 Megapixels your request of ultra low distortion would have been helpful.

The Sigma as a matter of fact, looking at their official site, has quite bad distortion for my needs... already crossing around 0.4-0.5% distortion at a mere 20+ millimeters of image height. That is not good. Sure it's not visible for general photography, but I already outlined my needs exactly, which is specific, not general. Here's the official Sigma MTF:
https://www.sigma-global.com/en/lenses/105_28_os/

this is an older Sigma model, but the newer still has some distortion, see this test here:
https://www.lenstip.com/595.6-Lens_revi ... rtion.html

[Lou Jost]

Just want to re-emphasize that field flatness doesn't matter much if you stack. Robert's tests often show this, as he often has to use different frames for his center and corner best shots, but these stack seamlessly.

[jvanhuys]

So... my Super Symmar HM was lost by DHL (a regular grocery delivery guy accidentally picked it up). We caught him on CCTV, but now they can't find the parcel. Anyways, DHL is offering full refund (I'll believe it when I see it).

So the fact of the matter is, my dream lens, the Super Symmar HM is no more. I still would love to find a replacement, but after Robert mentioned it's optimized for infinity, I had to just find the MTF curves. Here they are. What do you guys think? My thoughts:

• The CA control at f/22 at infinity looks incredible. Almost unreal. But it's infinity. It drops off quickly from -5x to -10x... this is worrying. I wonder how bad this is versus other APO taking lenses at the same distance?

• I would've loved to see the MTF for the distortion over image height at the different magnifications. If someone has it, please do share. I'm slowly losing all hope for this lens at 1:20 to 1:5

• I'm about to pull the trigger on one of the lenses 'simplejoy' gave the link for, which is ticking all the boxes. Now if he can just get back to me about the CA control of that lens... then it's a done deal

I'll update when I can. Have a lovely evening everyone.

[jvanhuys]

Oh and here's the tiniest of crops of one of my new artworks that I shot tonight, followed by even tinier crops of those crops. No stacks, no stiches, no pixel-shifting, no sharpening. Both shot at f/11. This is only a few centimeters diagonally, from an artwork slightly larger than 17x22 inches. As you know 300kb and 1024px is the limit on the site, so don't expect 3D pops! There were so many requests do just use a 35mm lens in this thread that I had to quickly take a shot. Can anyone guess which one is Micro Nikkor 105 f/2.8 and which is 1970s Symmar-S 180mm f/5.6 single-coated (but flocked)?

[chris_ma]

well, if you're shooting at aperture f11 then just take any reasonably good lens and results will be very similar.

it seems to me that you want zero distortion over a broad magnification range, plus high-resolution, plus large image circle, plus corner to corner sharpness, plus APO correction, plus low cost..

not going to happen!

so pick your poison.
as many people already told you, distortion is very easy to correct (actually happens automatically in stitching) with minimal loss in image quality.
much less then taking an old lens anyway..

[simplejoy]

Also, not sure if these are your images, but I found some sample pics taken with the Dokumar 47 f/5.6, which are unbelievably, sharp, but then this one image suffered from quite a bit of CA. Was this because it's a blade of grass, and thus, so much closer than the Dokumar's magnification range of 1:75 to 1:30? You were probably down to 1:1 on this shot right?
https://flic.kr/p/2mgGwJm

Glad you find the Dokumars interesting - however a word of caution: Even if they were among the most impressive lenses for certain magnifications when they were created, I doubt that many of the samples still around are up for the challenge. Don't get me wrong - I like my Dokumar 47 mm f/5.6 and I'm completely aware of the fact that the main point for not being fully convinced about its qualities might be caused by me using it outside of its sweet spot, but I just never felt like it was among the best lenses for anything. I'm not a very artistic person, so I don't have any real artwork to show, but I took a quick shot of one of my recent attempts at motivating my child to color something with wax crayons: Dokumar 47 mm (Stack of 6 images, unedited)
The size of the paper is 420x297 mm.

And here is an image showing the CA correction of the lens on a more challenging subject: Dokumar 47 mm (single shot, SOOC) I'd say it's quite okay actually, but there are better lenses in this aspect as well. The S-Planar 120 mm I just compared it with as well did significantly worse though, so if there are a lot of elements in your artwork which might lead to CA problems, I'd call this a significant flaw.

Just want to re-emphasize that field flatness doesn't matter much if you stack. Robert's tests often show this, as he often has to use different frames for his center and corner best shots, but these stack seamlessly.

I don't have a lot of experience with things like that, but I'd agree that stacking works pretty well in those cases.