Best 60mm enlarging lens to "photo scan" with Bowens Ilumitran?

[fabianoliver]

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Hello all.

I've bought a bowen ilumitran system, not bad at all to scan fast and i hope, with good results.

It came with a clean Agfa Magnolar 4,5/60 enlarger lens, after a good cleaning, it looks very good.

BUT, the final quality seems to be less than the system can deliver, so here's the question:

What's a goooood 60mm enlarging lens? i've a componon 50/4 from my past life, with some fungus, maybe i can do the effort, but the componon is not top notch anyway...

Any ideas on that?

Thanks for your help!

Here a picture scanned with that system, with the Agfa, as a sample.

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Edited July 8, 2024 by fabianoliver

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[jankap]

Do you scan the positives/negatives format filling?

The lens is best in the middle of its view field. You could scan at a larger distance and crop the result in post-processing.

[FDS]

Not a 60mm, obviously, but the Leitz 50mm Focotar-2 is an excellent enlarging lens for digititaly copying slides and negatives on a Bowens Illumitran.  

[Danner]

Any 6-element 50mm or 75mm enlarging lens should work very well in that application.

[fabianoliver]

Thanks all for your replies

jankap, is for negatives, the Agfa doesn't shows very good resolution even a t the center at the image at f8 or 11...

will put my eye on a 50, good option.

i'm starting with a Focotar2

Txs all

 

 

[BernardC]

60mm isn't a standard focal length for enlarging lenses. The best enlarging lens close to that would be the EL Nikkor 63mm f:2.8 N.

The best lens for 1:1 reproduction of 35mm negs is probably the Rodenstock Apo-Rodagon-D 75mm, which is available new.

As @Danner mentions, any high-quality lens in the 50-to-80 mm range should suit your needs.

[M.Hilo]

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Butkus has the manual for this set-up: https://www.cameramanuals.org/pdf_files/bowens_illumitran-3.pdf

(Send the man some $'s when it is useful to you)

It does talk about the Bogen WA 60mm, but I would say a 50mm could work as well (I do not base this on any specific knowledge or experience). The WA Bogen 60mm has 8 elements, perhaps this is why it is mentioned.

Just in case the 60mm is important: there exist 2 Rodenstock Rodagon 60mm lenses, 60/5.6 and a 60/4. (both 6 elements). There's also the 6 elements Meopta Meogon 60/5.6 enlarging lens which is what I use next to the Focotar-2 lens. This last one came out on top of a 1980ties enlarging lenses test that included all the usual suspects. This lens has the large metal zebra barrel which makes using it in a darkroom very easy.

What I find remarkable is that an Olympus Pen F half frame is mentioned in this manual. Could that be just because you get double the images . . . ?

Edited July 10, 2024 by M.Hilo

[zeitz]

6 hours ago, M.Hilo said:

Just in case the 60mm is important: there exist 2 Rodenstock Rodagon 60mm lenses, 60/5.6 and a 60/4. (both 6 elements).

There is also a Novoflex / Staelble-Katagon 60mm f4.5 that was offered for slide duplication with their bellows and slide holder.  I recall that I had difficulty framing with a 50mm lens and the Novoflex set-up.  There must be something about 60mm that makes slide duplicating easier.

[PCPix]

We had the Elinchrom equivalent of the Bowens and it had a Schneider 80mm enlarging lens on it. Gave very good results with 35 and 6x6/6x7 copies onto a 35mm camera. 

Edited July 10, 2024 by PCPix