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90mm 4.5 APO-Digitar

thrice

thrice

Active member
I'm about to pull the trigger on this lens, does anyone have any examples?

I'm going to use it with the PGS on my alpa for portraits so I'd like to see the rendering wide open ideally.



Copied from the Alpa website:

Product
Schneider Apo-Digitar 4.5/90 mm N, SB 34
Details
Shutter: Copal 0
Aperture: f 4.5 - f 32
Image circle at full aperture: 90 mm
Image circle at f 11: 90 mm
Max. angle: 53 °
Distance settings: 1.5 m - infinity
Filter thread size: 40.5 mm
 
T

torger

Active member
I have the lens, but unfortunately any wide open shots, I only use it for landscape. If noone else replies I could make some test shot for you. I do not think the look of f/4.5 has any significant shorter feel to it than f/5.6 though so say if you already have the 120 f/5.6 I would guess it's just as good.

(edit: found one full-figure wide open test shot, sent in private message.)
 
T

torger

Active member
I love the foggy foreground bokeh (a little soft-focus feel to it), while the background bokeh is a little bit more worried. You can see up in the left corner of my test picture how specular highlights are rendered, they're a little bit sharp-edged. I'm no bokeh expert though, I don't know how well the expertise thinks it competes with the alternatives, and "bokeh kings" I've looked at also have edgy specular highlights. I do think that it stands out quite well due to their relatively low amount of correction. I've got the impression that most/all Digitar lenses have similar bokeh due to their similarity in design.
 
thrice

thrice

Active member
I like the foggy foreground as well. I have noticed most lenses get a bit nervous at medium distances. I'll mostly shoot tight headshots so the out of focus areas will be obliterated anyway :)
 
danlindberg

danlindberg

Well-known member


Shot right now from reading your post while having a coffee on the terrace. Should you want to look at pixel level the original is as usual a 16bit Tiff!

Background blur busier than foreground.
 
thrice

thrice

Active member
Interesting Dan, other than the rare 95/3.5 is there a lens you recommend more for portraits? How does the 120N compare?
I don't find that bokeh that busy though, the Leica 90/2 APO is similar.
 
danlindberg

danlindberg

Well-known member




Both shot with the SK 120N, love it and prefer it over the SK 90 N when it comes to out of focus rendering.
 
E

epforever

Member
This is an old thread, but I'm looking for an overall opinion on / evaluation of this lens. Is it sharp out to the edges of the 90mm image circle? Is it usable at, say, f/5.6? Anything else about it I should know? I'd be using it on an H5D-50 (CCD) back at this point.

I currently have a rodenstock 40mm HR and a Schneider 60mm XL on my Alpa, so a 90mm lens would be a great way to fill out the range.

thanks
ethan
 
B

Boinger

Active member
I have this lens and use it daily for my product photography. Very sharp and very usable movements. I compared it with the Rodenstock 90mm sironar digital and found that the Schneider was sharper and better. The Rodenstock will give you more movements as it has a larger IC.
 
N

narikin

New member
Boinger said:
I have this lens and use it daily for my product photography. Very sharp and very usable movements. I compared it with the Rodenstock 90mm sironar digital and found that the Schneider was sharper and better. The Rodenstock will give you more movements as it has a larger IC.
Click to expand...
Agree. A good lens. Better than the blue ring 90mm Rodenstock, which has a bigger image circle, but is not anywhere near as sharp. (The yellow ring HR-SW is another story, but that's $10,000+ !)

Conversely to others here. I owned the SK 120N, a late version, and found it not that sharp. Sold it. Clearly... YMMV.
 
dchew

dchew

Well-known member
Well, I just dove in on one of these from Alpa. They now have them in an aperture-only mount for e-shutter use. 300 grams, wow; that's 1.5 lbs less than the 90hr-sw. Narkin, I would have gone for yours @ Lula but I really need the sb34 mount. We will see how it goes...

Ciao,
Dave
 
N

narikin

New member
dchew said:
Well, I just dove in on one of these from Alpa. They now have them in an aperture-only mount for e-shutter use. 300 grams, wow; that's 1.5 lbs less than the 90hr-sw. Narkin, I would have gone for yours @ Lula but I really need the sb34 mount. We will see how it goes...

Ciao,
Dave
Click to expand...
Yes I saw the Alpa announcement today. Its optically very similar/identical, but what they are doing here is re-purposing the Schneider 90mm Apo Componon enlarger lens. I'd imagine it will be the same end result, but just 2 things: it has no shutter of course, so only can be used with Electronic Shutter, or a Silex/FPS unit. And it has a rather poor 5 blade aperture, not remotely circular, so will give strange halos, if shooting into the light.

Otherwise, yes SB is very useful to have for tilts/shifts. Hope you enjoy it.

It's interesting that Alpa are re-working enlarging lenses for some units. I can only hope that the legendary Apo-El Nikkor's 105mm's get mounted this way, but being as Nikon don't make them anymore, and they are still $2500+ used, it's unlikely.
 
dchew

dchew

Well-known member
narikin said:
Yes I saw the Alpa announcement today. Its optically very similar/identical, but what they are doing here is re-purposing the Schneider 90mm Apo Componon enlarger lens. I'd imagine it will be the same end result, but just 2 things: it has no shutter of course, so only can be used with Electronic Shutter, or a Silex/FPS unit. And it has a rather poor 5 blade aperture, not remotely circular, so will give strange halos, if shooting into the light.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I was hesitant about the 5-bladed aperture, but my 250 SA is the same structure, and I have not run into that in my images. That is part of my, “we will see how it goes” comment. If I find limitations, I won’t be selling my 90-hrs anytime soon.

Dave
 
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