The item you’ve stopped to view is a used Leitz 40mm f/2.8 WA-FOCOTAR Enlarging Lens in superior condition. We appreciate your interest in our products. The 40mm f/2.8 WA-FOCOTAR was designed specifically for the Leica FOCOMAT V35 AF Enlarger but will work on any enlarger using the standard 39mm mount. The use of a wide-angle lens offers a greater range of enlargement sizes for any enlarger. It also decreases the distance between the lens and the baseboard which will increase the brightness of the illumination thereby reducing exposure times!!! As with all lenses made in the Leitz factory, the 40mm f/2.8 is supremely sharp and gives exceptional contrast for color or black and white or color negatives or transparencies.
This lens is in superb condition. The glass is perfect in every way. The coatings are unmarked, the barrel is clean and shows normal marks from light use. It actually looks better in person than it does in the photos. The Leitz 40mm f/2.8 WA-FOCOTAR Enlarging Lens is ideal for the 35mm darkroom enthusiast, student or working professional photographer that needs access to the highest quality enlarging lens available. Also, if you own a Leica FOCOMAT V 35 AF enlarger and you don't have a 40mm f/2.8 WA-FOCOTAR, YOU NEED IT!!!
From the Leica FOCOMAT V 35 AF Enlarger Instruction Manual:
“Optical Performance - The special Leitz 40mm f/2.8 WA-FOCOTAR Lens -
The 40mm f/2.8 WA-FOCOTAR enlarging lens was computed for the FOCOMAT V 35 Autofocus enlarger. By using a wide-angle enlarging lens of 40mm focal length the attainable picture size can be increased by about 30% as opposed to the conventional 50mm lens on a similar mechanism. This means 70% more picture area on the baseboard at the same working distance with a greater level of illumination.
The 40mm f/2.8 FOCOTAR is a modified Gauss type with five elements in four components. The high performance level of this wide-angle enlarging lens is attained by the employment of a new highly refractive glass produced in the Leitz glass laboratories. The absorption characteristics of the glasses used, in conjunction with the effective coating of the glass/air surfaces, results in excellent spectral permeability over the whole visible spectrum, whereas the UV component is absorbed entirely. These filter characteristics of the lens, in conjunction with the spectral permeability of the IR-blocking filter in the light mixing chamber, are well suited to both black-and-white and colour materials available today.
The 40mm f/2.8 WA-FOCOTAR, as an enlarging lens with a wide range of use, is corrected to a ten-times enlargement. In the adjacent ranges, down to 2.6 times and less and up to 16-times and more, the lens still has high reserves of performance for optimum image formation at the working apertures. The large maximum aperture of f/2.8 serves as a “light reserve” in order to allow precise control of sharpness an confident assessment of the picture. The WA-FOCOTAR lens at it’s full aperture of f/2.8 already demonstrates high contrast and good focusing performance over a large part of the picture area. As with any other enlarger lens, stoping-down does bring a noticeable improvement in performance in the picture area and at the edges. Optimum performance is reached at f/5.6 which should be regarded as the working aperture. Further stopping down only improves the optical performance to an insignificant extent: the iris then only serves as a dispenser of light, used in order to be able to adhere to a particular exposure time, or to increase depth-of-focus when enlarging mounted slides without glass or to deal with lack of flatness in the negative or slide.
The 40mm f/2.8 WA-FOCOTAR lens comes in a metal casing, although the outer adjusting elements are made from glass-fibre-strengthened material. A transilluminated aperture scale, as usual in modern enlargers, is provides on the WA-FOCOTAR. The aperture adjusting mechanism is suited to the requirements of modern colour techniques in a unique way; the marked stops f/2.8 to f/16 engage in full stop-value click-stops, but by pulling the aperture adjusting ring it can be switch over to continuous adjustment. This provision for continuous adjustment is necessary in special cases with electronic measuring instruments, such as colour analyzers. As with all Leitz enlarging lenses, the 40mm f/2.8 WA-FOCOTAR has the standard Leica screw thread for it’s connection the the helical mount. Intermediate rings can thus be used to extend it’s field of application.”
Specifications:
Focal Length: 40mm
Optical Construction: 5 elements, 4 groups
Aperture Range: f/2.8 to f/16
Diameter: 1.8in/45.78mm
Length: 1.09in/27.74mm front to flange;1.47in/37.39mm overall
Weight: 2.1oz/60g
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