Light and Cameras

Rodenstock Grandagon-N 90 f/6.8 MC

All photographs © 2009 Jose Meneses – All rights reserved

The Grandagon-N is available in two versions, and it was always widely used by many photographers for architectural, panoramic and landscape photography. The eight element lenses offer not only a large maximum aperture, but also an image angle of 105°, an even more uniform illumination and distortion values of less than 1 %. The six element lens (90 mm f/6.8) is the cost-effective alternative that also impresses by its compactness which even allows the insertion into the Focus-Mount helical focuser for the use with bellowsless panoramic or shift cameras.

The use of the almost neutral gray Rodenstock center filters is recommended for critical motifs to make best use of the image circle without irritating light fall-off to the image corners. Rodenstock center filters are concentric graduated neutral gray filters whose density decreases from the center up to the transparent rim. The fall in density compensates for practically all the light fall-off to the image edge from a working f-stop of 16. The exposure must be corrected by 1.5 or 2.5 stops. This corresponds to a correction of the exposure time by a factor of 3 or 5 respectively (either aperture or exposure time have to be corrected, not both at the same time).

Rodenstock Grandagon-N 65mm f/4.5, 75mm f/4.5, 90mm f/4.5 and 90mm f/6.8 specifications