Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/01/26
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]JB wrote: > Just as camera lenses make poor enlarging lenses, enlarging lenses make > poor camera lenses UNLESS you are photographing a flat field. Flat to flat. > Like in an enlarger. Flat neg to flat paper. Use the enlarging lens to copy > photographs, artwork, documents, etc. It's much better than a camera lens > for this purpose. But not for 3-D subjects. Leitz originally used camera > lenses on their enlargers. But soon discovered that lenses made for flat > field work would be much better. So they designed enlarging lenses for that > purpose. As did the rest of the industry. That's why there are > enlarger/copy lenses, and there are camera lenses. > > I'm not saying that the resulting photographs will be horrible or even > unusable. They will indeed be usable and possibly quite good. I'm saying > that lenses were designed for a specific purpose and work BEST when used > for that purpose. > > Jim I may be a bit late on this one, I'm afraid, but could somebody be a bit more specific on the disadvantageous of using an enlarger lens when used on a SLR? I am planning to do so with a Rodenstock APO 105/4 on a tilt adapter for macro photography. I do see two disadvantages: 1) I have to set aperture manually (not a big deal IMO) 2) The lens does not decrease its focal length as some true macro lenses do. Therefore I will lose more light working at close distances (and larger extensions) according to the square distance law. Any other disadvantages? Thanks Christoph Held held@biologie.uni-bielefeld.de