| Author: | | | | | Review Date: May 7, 2017 | Recommended | Price: None indicated
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | sharp | | Cons: | | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 10
Handling: 10
Value: 10
Camera Used: Voigtlaender VSL-1
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My experience with this lens:
In the 1970ties oder 1980ties, I sent a Schacht Travenar, standard lens for my Edixa SLR, for repair to Schacht, but they regretted they could do nothing for me. To help me anyway they offered me, however, to receive a 50mm f2 "Edixagon", probably a used lens, for 30 Deutschmark, which I gladly accepted.
I used it on my Edixa and was quite happy with it. I had the impression they had leftover, maybe from some other camera, this "Edixagon". At that time, f2 lenses were state of the art and there were lots of them with a phantasy name similar to the camera brand they came with. I thought it must have been produced by some manufacturer, maybe in singapure, Japan or China, and sold under a lot of brand names.
Then I purchased a used Voigtlaender VSL 1 SLR because it came with the legendary Rollei Planar 50mm lens. I already knew the Planar from my Hasselblad 500c, there of course with 80mm. The Rollei Planar could not be the original lens the Voigtlaender was sold with, because that one should have had a lens named Ultron. The same camera, and certainly the same lens, was sold under the name of Rollei and of Voigtlaender. I assumed - and in fact, I still believe - that all those lenses with well-known name like Planar, Ultron etc. weren't produced in the Zeiss, Voigtlaender etc. facilities in Germany, but that the german camera industry, struggling for survival, had their cameras and lenses produced in singapure or the like, all in the same places and all makes had the same construction, and put well-known names on them. (Hell, my first digicam was a fixed-focus, one-aperture-size model with a lens which had the name "Biotar" on it, the same name as one of the best, and most expensive, lenses of it's time).
The surprise came when I, eager to experiment, compared the Planar with this obscure, 30-Deutschmark (= today 15 Euro) Edixagon - the Edixagon definitively was the better lens. (I had some places where I tested all my lenses on the same scenery). The difference was not big (as far, as I could see it at all), but at F2, 2.8 and to a lesser degree up to 5.6, certainly to the rim and into the edges, sharpness and contrast were better on the Edixagon!
So, I sold the Planar for good money and took the Edixagon from my Edixa SLR to the Voigtlaender VSL1. Contrary what has been written in a lot of tests and reviews, the VSL1 worked very reliable for a lot of years, until I sold it together with the Edixagon, to continue with a Pentax *ist-DL.
I saw the Edixagon recently offered for 850 US-Dollars, which I believe is ridiculous. Else, I would wish I had kept it as a financial reserve for old age  . I do not believe that it has been produced by Rodenstock. Wrong time, wrong name, wrong appearance. The makers of the Edixa 42mm SLR would have been glad to sell it with "made in Germany" on it. Maybe, this rumour is a scam from some dubious vendor?
| | | | | | | New Member Registered: April, 2017 Posts: 20 | | Review Date: April 5, 2017 | Recommended | Price: None indicated
| Rating: N/A |
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These keep popping up on eBay as "Rodenstock Edixagon"s or "mystery Edixagon"s or sometimes even "mystery Heligons", probably to fleece the unknowing of their hard earned dollars. I have been collecting German 50mm M42 mount primes of the 1950s and early to mid 1960s (when things turned plasticky), and I will be darned if this is a lens made in Germany. Admittedly, if this were a Rodenstock lens, the serial numbers of these "mystery Rodenstocks" would place them in the period between 1969 and 1971.
So what's the circumstantial evidence that this is not a German lens?
1. The lens does not bear a marking that it was made in Germany. Every German lens I own bears this marking in one way or another.
2. The lens does not bear the name of the producer. This is the strongest indicator that this is a generic store brand kind of lens. Like Japanese, German high-quality lenses bear the producer's name, the location of its headquarter, and a serial number. Some producers, like Rodenstock and the West German branch of Zeiss, are exceptions and do not bear the location, but they always bear the producer's name.
2. The lens has a minimum F-stop of 2.0. This would be an uncommon widest aperture for a German 50mm SLR prime, who tended to have 1.8 or 1.9 minimum apertures since the mid or late 1950s, including the truly rare Rodenstock Heligon.
3. The lens coating seems to develop yellow tinging like the radioactive Takumars do. I have never seen this color of tinging or coating on a German lens, whose coatings tend to have a blue, purple, or a purple and orange hue.
4. The barrel design simply does not look like anything German. My first reaction just looking at it was that the lens looks like a Mamiya Sekor. In fact, the numerals for the focus and f-stop markings, and their layout, resemble a Mamiya-Sekor 50/2 to the mu. The serial number on the other hand is more reminiscent of either a Yashinon or, in fact, a Rodenstock. So either it is a generic "Edixa store brand" lens made in Japan, or it is an early case of outsourcing (Picture Edixa calling Rodenstock: "Eh, Rodenstock, you got some cheap semi-fast primes for our low end model?" Rodenstock: "Are you @#$%ing kidding me? Do you not know who we are? - but wait, I got an idea.")
5. This is where it gets subjective, but the color rendering is not typically German. Across a variety of photographers the photos taken with this lens are too intense in color, in ascending order in the blues, skin tones, and reds. In particular the skin tones and reds strike me as being too warm, perhaps because of the yellow tinging of the lens, but this intensity is also common to my new Sony lenses which don't have any tinging. Hence, it might be a "cultural difference" in how Japanese and German lens makers typically like their colors rendered. The only older German lenses that I have seen that produce colors of similar intensity are the CZJ Flektogon and the Leica Elmarit (both 35 mm lenses).
All that said, I find this lens produces very pleasing color rendering and contrast except in skin tones. But why pay hundreds of dollars for something you don't know what it is instead of paying $30 or 40 for a Mamiya Sekor and have a ton of fun with it?
| | | | | Pentaxian Registered: May, 2008 Location: London, UK Posts: 1,697 | | Review Date: May 1, 2016 | Recommended | Price: None indicated
| Rating: N/A |
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Shabaaz
I don't have the lens but I do have an older Prismat non-TTL body - and it's a lovely example of 1950/1960's engineering , (after I fixed the broken wind-on mechanism!).
So I think the Rodenstock lens is probably just as good  .
| | | | | New Member Registered: April, 2016 Posts: 4
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: May 1, 2016 | Recommended | Price: None indicated
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | sharpness, color rendition, contrast, bokeh, handling, price i paid for... | | Cons: | I never had such good thing so... CA maybe | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 9
Handling: 10
Value: 10
Camera Used: K-r
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Just came back from a secondhand trade in my town, lucky enough to find a somewhat Grââl'ish fast fifty: Edixagon 50mm f2
Rodenstock or not, Mamiya, Isco or not, this thing rocks .
The sharper lens i ever touched, i don't have enough english words to describe it so i'm gonna tell this in french: "bordel de merde j'ai fait la meilleure affaire de toute ma vie, c'est une tuerie"
Enough using words, let the pictures do the talking. Everything wide open, out of the box, no tweak
Edit: some more
some color rendition
and contrast
 | | | | | | | Pentaxian Registered: April, 2011 Location: Lost in translation ... Posts: 18,076
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: July 25, 2014 | Recommended | Price: None indicated
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Build, sharp stopped down a bit, long focus throw ... | | Cons: | None really, but the bohek is not to my tastes ... yet | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 7
Bokeh: 9
Handling: 9
Value: 9
Camera Used: K-5
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Bonjour,
Another quick entry of a lens that I acquired ... according to the Web, it is quite rare. I have only made some initial test shots and will post some nicer ones later.
Salut, Jean le Green Frog
Here area few quick backyard snaps ... wide open or near wide open.
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;)
;)
;)
