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Enlarging lens optics
There simply is NO substitute for a high quality enlarging lens!!! As the quality of the negative sharpness is determined by the camera lens, the quality of the print is dependent on the enlarger lens. Proper selection of the enlarger lens will concern the optical characteristics of, and the job done by it to faithfully reproduce the quality of the image in the negative.
Enlarging
lenses are very different than camera lenses. Unlike camera
lenses which gather light from different distances, enlarging
lenses are designed to give a critically sharp image with as
nearly perfect a flat field as is possible. Flatness of field
on two planes, (the negative and the paper) is of maximum importance
in view of the fact that both the photographic paper and the
negative is two dimensional and any deviation in the image flatness
will result in an out of focus enlargement. |
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On the other hand, the camera lens must gather its light from a diverse range of subject distances in a scene being photographed and bring them together at one plane which is where the film is.
Besides
flatness of field, a good enlarger lens needs edge to edge sharpness
and will generally perform better in this respect than most large picture
taking lenses. Evenness of illumination, which is partly controlled
by the Correct condenser lenses must be maintained by the enlarger lens
and there can be no vignetting or fall off of light in the corners of
the projected image.
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