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Setting up a repro stand
- Thread starter JeffK
- Start date
Paul Spinnler
Well-known member
A very short flash duration would eliminate any influence outside of having focused it right, ie vibration. With a LED light source you might need to go down to 1/20 or lower if you use extension tubes to go above 1:1. Try scanning a 35mm with a 105 - you need a lot of extension tubes and they swallow light so you really come into low shutter territory, especially if you go to apertures above 5.6 to ensure everything is perfectly in focus. Especially if your light source is not the brightest and your repro stand ist not the most stable ... I sometimes am at 1/10-1/20 when stitching and even that then is on the edge.
It just takes one issue out of the equation. A 105 with bellows and multiple extension tubes can get quite heavy; alternatively you get a heavy duty repro stand, for me the Kaiser RSD was the absolute minimum where I felt comfortable with the whole setup and I would not consider it heavy duty ...
As mentioned earlier, I myself have come to appreciate the ease of use of high-end flatbed scanners because doing stitches in repro is still very fiddly and always takes a lot of time, from making sure every shot is sharp, to not rotating the negative while moving it around so your stitch becomes distorted maybe. To do it really right you need a professional film carrier system which can adjust to the size of the negative and which is always perfectly in place vs. the camera so framing and stitching becomes a breeze, etc. Problem is these DT / P1 systems cost easily 70k or more ... so you are left with a solution which can produce fantastic results, but at the cost of significant manual intervention ... from the capture to the negative inversion.
I think repro in the homebrew fashion works best for dual photographers - ie digital with a dash of analogue out of enjoyment of the medium / process. I guess there's also the concept of "making a great scan" ie wet mounting it, carefully handling the negative, setting the station up, checking for sharpness, stitching, manually inverting etc. So what has become a thing we take for granted - taking a pic off of our memory card - becomes effectively an enjoyable process with "artisanal" elements within the confines of a hobby (as job it would not be so nice to always have to "make" a great scan). Ie it is nice to just have two 8x10 negatives to work with over a weekend and to scan them properly and then proceed towards color correction / dust removal. I think some may secretly or overtly enjoy this process to getting to a nice result (film is always nice, in my view).
So similarly as analogue has a bit of revival it is a nice thing for the tinkerer-photographer - which is a species I'd say well represented in the "enthusiast" category - to "setup their repro stand" - ie it is just something nice and technical to do with low barriers of entry and nice end results. It was a great feeling in fact to see that one can nowadays achieve such high "scanning" quality at home.
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MGrayson
Subscriber and Workshop Member
At the risk of asking another stupid question: Is lens mount to sensor distance ever an issue? I use a Leica S. For anything non-native (with a few exceptions), that means a dumb adapter to Hassy V or Pentax 67 followed by lenses/tubes/bellows/whatever. Do all of the optical systems being discussed here work under those conditions? I wouldn't need to go exotic for anything under 1:1.
Many thanks,
Matt
Many thanks,
Matt
Paul Spinnler
Well-known member
I see no reason why it should not be possible although adapting the S, if such a mount exists, to a bellows like camera with an analogue era macro lens would be the cleanest solution. A SK and Rodenstock macro lens + bellows + S adapted somehow via the bridge of the V adapter. Is there a bridge from V to a bellows camera?
MGrayson
Subscriber and Workshop Member
Well, Hasselblad has its own bellows, but that would be V at both ends. Though adapters are usually not the limiting factor. B&H shows a V to Novoflex BALPRO adapter...
As for flatbed scanners, I've had a lot of trouble with focus. The film carriers for the Epson 750 (ok, maybe not high end) didn't help. I have a Plustek scanner that could definitely use some calibration. Putting the film in upside down is often better, and I have to try it both ways. At least a camera I can focus myself!
Matt
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Paul Spinnler
Well-known member
Well there you have it ... novoflex to 105 Rodenstock ...
MGrayson
Subscriber and Workshop Member
Good lord! Novoflex Leica S bellows system. I'm sure a 105 Rodenstock conversion would be an inexpensive mod...
Paul Spinnler
Well-known member
Dont get T/S for film repro - make sure you get the straight bellows system where everything is 100% parallel...
MGrayson
Subscriber and Workshop Member
Oh, agreed. I was just surprised by its existence!
There is also the Leica S adapter for their normal bellows. They seems to support most MF cameras.
TechTalk
Well-known member
Personally, my preference for flash compared to LED would be first with regard to color. LEDs that I've used produced very good results in terms of color and I have used them for video and still imaging. But for repro work, I haven't found an LED source that could equal strobes for consistently accurate color reproduction across the entire spectrum. LEDs, however, have improved rapidly and are now quite close to traditional still and motion picture light sources for color accuracy. Given the current demand, I have no doubt LEDs will continue their rapid evolution.
MGrayson
Subscriber and Workshop Member
Questions questions - Novoflex sells a Schneider APO-Digitar 90mm f/4.5 lens together with their bellows adapter. This is a lens I have not heard mentioned in macro contexts. Componon-S, sure. But not the APO-Digitar, which I would expect is meant for longer distances. Has anyone experience with this lens and macro?
For that matter, the Zeiss 135 S-Planar Macro T* comes up a lot in connection with Hasselblad bellows, but I've not seen it discussed elsewhere. Is it still competitive to modern (non-Rodenstock) alternatives?
Thank you for your patience,
Matt
For that matter, the Zeiss 135 S-Planar Macro T* comes up a lot in connection with Hasselblad bellows, but I've not seen it discussed elsewhere. Is it still competitive to modern (non-Rodenstock) alternatives?
Thank you for your patience,
Matt
JeffK
Well-known member
I found a M645 bellows N401 for $500 CDN. Can connect a DF/DF+/XF to it. I'm guessing I should look for a 105 Rodenstock. I understand @Paul Spinnler is a fan of that lens.Good lord! Novoflex Leica S bellows system. I'm sure a 105 Rodenstock conversion would be an inexpensive mod...
TechTalk
Well-known member
I think Rob de Loë can answer your questions regarding this lens which is sold under a variety of nomenclatures and price points.
It works well in practice, not just in theory.
Lots of other enlarger lenses and their industrial variants would be excellent too. Keep in mind though that you need a way to focus them. It's inexpensive and easy to put together a focusing helicoid with tubes and mounts (depending on your camera system of course).
MGrayson
Subscriber and Workshop Member
Kidding aside, I think his opinion is justified.I found a M645 bellows N401 for $500 CDN. Can connect a DF/DF+/XF to it. I'm guessing I should look for a 105 Rodenstock. I understand @Paul Spinnler is a fan of that lens.
Paul Spinnler
Well-known member
I heard that too ... that it is still difficult to beat good flash systems. In that regard I was surprised to see that the Einstein flashes which are not that expensive have excellent CRI. Only thing speaking against doing a neg scanning station with flashes is that it makes the whole assembly bigger. You need to put the repro stand on a custom table and build film carrier system in the middle with a flash beneath it. This is bulkier than just a mid-sized Kaiser on the floor / on a table.
Paul Spinnler
Well-known member
Well what can I say - it is a) completely CA free which is nice and b) it can go way beyond 1:1 with a floating lens system meaning you can do full frame 35mm one-shots with an IQ4 150, if you want ... which beats even the Flextight X5.I found a M645 bellows N401 for $500 CDN. Can connect a DF/DF+/XF to it. I'm guessing I should look for a 105 Rodenstock. I understand @Paul Spinnler is a fan of that lens.
What I gleaned from the other close up photography page which was shared earlier in this thread is that the best scanners from back in the day used effectively a Rodenstock 108 macro lens, so I would think this one is at least as good if not better than any other scanner lens ever used in the most high-end scanners. If you can live with the workflow and manual aspects of it, it is a good alternative ... if not THE current standard for neg. scan quality short of now scouring endless machine vision lens datasheets to find the highest resolution optic covering still P1 backs.
JeffK
Well-known member
So I'm shooting with an IQ3100 achromatic. All my film is BW too. CA isn't an issue, but am I really going to see a big difference between the 120 macro I have and the 90 you're recommending?
I'm not actually shooting this close. I just lowered to take the picture.
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MGrayson
Subscriber and Workshop Member
This doesn't answer your real question (how good is this lens in this application), but unless you're using a monochromatic light source, you'll get the same chromatic aberration, but in B&W - which will appear as blurring.
M
JeffK
Well-known member
realistically I know how good the lens is. Way better than what I was doing before. Do I need the best??? No, I don't. I've done some smaller prints 11x17 from a 35mm from a little plustek and 16x20 prints from scans of 6x6 film. Prints looked good to me back then. Now I'll redo all that with this process. I'll definitely have better detailed prints as a result.
rdeloe
Well-known member
The problem when discussing these is that there are a lot of variants of the 90/4.5, and they're not all documented. The three main types are the APO Componon HM 90/4.5 enlarger lens, the many APO Componon 90/4.5 in Makro-Iris industrial housing, and the APO Digitar 90/4.5, which comes in several housings but seems to have one optical formula (e.g., manual Copal, electronic shutters, shutterless iris mount that resembles an enlarger mount).
It's impossible to know for sure how close these versions are to each other because a lot of knowledge was lost during Schneider-Kreznach's bankruptcy and reorganization. So take my findings with a grain of salt.
My lens is labelled as a Type 0024 Makro-Iris version; these are widely available from sellers in Asia on eBay as a Makro-Iris mounted lens -- all seemingly pulled from the factory floor where they did line scanning. All the industrial models are optimized for different magnifications. There's no documentation on my Type 0024. Robert O'Toole kindly contacted someone at Schneider, who suggested the Type 0024s are actually mis-labelled Type 0025s! I have datasheets for Type 0025, Type 0125, Type 0018 and Type 0026.
To make it even more confusing, the APO Componon 90/45 enlarger lens and the APO Digitar 90/4.5 have identical basic data in the Schneider data sheets I have (which suggests they're the same cells in different housings). And they're both very close to one of the industrial variants.
I use my Type 0024 APO Componon 90mm f/4.5 as a standard taking lens. I don't shoot macro (1:1 or higher enlargement) as a rule. At the distances I use it, I think it's superb. If it's really a Type 0025, then Schneider says its range is 1:20 to 1:1, optimized for -0.17x.
In one of his macro tests, Robert O'Toole was not happy with the performance of the APO Componon 90/4.5 Type -0018. He thought that model did poorly in the corners at 1x, but notes that it's optimized for 0.3x.
A lens that Robert considers superb in his macro applications is the Makro Symmar 120/5.6, which also comes in various flavours. Robert thinks that the Schneider Kreuznach Apo-Digitar M 120mm f/5.6 is an updated version of the Makro Symmar 120/5.6. It does very well in his tests. I had one in the hopes that it would be a nice short tele. It was horrendous at distances until f/11, when it transformed into an excellent lens. But at its design distances, it was superb from wide open.
It's a lot more straightforward with the Componon-S 80/4 and the APO Digitar 80/4. Based on the datasheets, they're exactly the same optics, except they somehow became APO when Schneider needed some lenses for the new digital sensors...