Leica Lupe

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Do Leica make a magnifying lupe? Can anyone recommend a good one? I had an old Nikon one,but my 13 month old daughter smashed it.

I need a big one to look at medium format negs too.

-- Phill Kneen (philkneen@manx.net), February 13, 2002

Answers

You don't need a big lupe to look at big negs,it just means you get more magnification,so big isn't always necessary.

-- Virgil (leicavirgin@hotmail.com), February 13, 2002.

No,I mean big as in surface area,not magnification.I think my Nikon was about x5.

Who makes those nice big zoom lupes?

-- Phill Kneen (philkneen@manx.net), February 13, 2002.


Phill,

I recently bought a Pentax x5 loupe. Works well for 24*36 and MF. I can easily recommend it.

-- William Westergren (westergren@skynet.be), February 13, 2002.


Both Pentax and Rodenstock make good 'big' loupes. Pentax makes two versions, a 5.5X and a 5X - 11X zoom. Rodenstock makes a great loupe that is apochromatic but is only 3X (fine for MF - not so hot for 35mm). I've settled on the Rodenstock, to get an overall view of composition on the contact, plus a 12X jewellers loupe to check neg sharpness works g

-- Bob Todrick (bobtodrick@yahoo.com), February 13, 2002.

Don't forget to consider the Schneider 6x6, although it's not a zoom. Peak also makes a large loupe, but it's round and less convenient.

-- Ralph Barker (rbarker@pacbell.net), February 13, 2002.


Schneider make some nice ones: I have a 4X 6x6, a 4X 35mm and a 10X. The 4x times are the most useful, but the 10X is useful for checking critical sharpness. They are all expensive. You might like to look at Mamiya. I hate buying loupes: you never know whether you are going to like them until you own them. All the Schneiders have been recently redesigned - more plastic in them, but actually in this case I think this is better as it does not then scratch glasses. The other classic MF loupe is the 3 x Rodenstock Asph which is very nice. It was a toss up between the Schneider and the Rodenstock for me for 6 x 6. In some ways the Rodenstock is a nicer loupe, but it is a matter of personal preference. Calumet have the Rodenstock loupe much cheaper sold under their brand name I now see...

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), February 13, 2002.

I have an EMO Macromax which I bought new about 4 years back. It says "Wetzlar" on it and looks very, very much like the new Leica loupe.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), February 13, 2002.

Phil,

I use the Calumet Magnifier 6x6. It's 3x power with aspherical optics. Works great.

-Nick

-- Nicholas Wybolt (nwybolt@earthlink.net), February 13, 2002.


Leica has a 5x loupe. It is the reincarnation of EMO Macromax 5x loupe designed by Authur Seibert of EMO- Wetzlar.

EMO also has Octoscope, a combo consists of 4 lupes and 8 combination of magnifications, from 2x up to 28x, suitable for viewing all sort of negatives, slides, from Minox to LF.

-- martin tai (martin.tai@capcanada.com), February 13, 2002.


Thanks Martin! I'm glad I wasn't hallucinating.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), February 13, 2002.


Here is a good thread from previous discussions about the Leica Loupe: http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch- msg.tcl?msg_id=001Bhz

-- Anam Alpenia (aalpenia@dasar.com), February 13, 2002.

I like my Pentax Lupe a lot. Quite large and handy.

-- Rob Schopke (schopke@attbi.com), February 13, 2002.

A big loupe gernally will have less magnification, not more. This is because the larger loupe has a greater stand-off from the negative, and a correspondingly greater focal length. Magnification is inversely related to focal length.

Magnifying power = 10/focal length in inches.

-- Bob Fleischman (RFXMAIL@prodigy.net), February 13, 2002.


My all time favorite lupe is an old 50 summicron. Cheers!

-- Don (wgpinc@yahoo.com), February 13, 2002.

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