How would you mount this monster enlarger lens

[Mainecoonmaniac]

I just bought on Ebay for $72, a Schneider kreuznach componon 5.6 / 360 enlarger lens. I saw the photos and I thought it was small than it really is. I'd like to mount it on my 45MX with a stage conversion for a lens turret. The board it came with is larger than the standard Beseler 45mx lens board. My plan is to convert my 45MX to be able to print 5x7 negs.

[Ian C]

A 360mm lens is impractical for 5” x 7” enlarging.

To make a 9” wide projection of the roughly 4.75” wide image rectangle of the negative requires about 1593mm from the negative to the print and the center of the lens needs to be 549mm from the negative.

You'd need 2109mm from negative to print to make a 17" wide image for a 16" x 20" print.

These approximations give us a reasonable idea of the distances needed.

You might get the needed negative-to-print distance by obtaining the horizontal projection brace for the 45MX and project onto a wall.

A greatly extended lens mount (a long lens cone) could be fabricated to fit the 45MX, but it’s not practical with such a long lens. A much better choice is to obtain a 180mm or 210mm lens. These are designed to fully cover the 5” x 7” negative at any practical magnification.

[Mike Wilde]

This may make a very nice taking lens ( I know, flat field and all...) for shooting slow film, and hand coated film/alt process stuff with low ISO's. In these applications, a hat over the lens while the darkslide is pulled or reinserted works just fine, or an internal shutter behind the lens, as old cameras had.

[ic-racer]

"how" or "why" would one mount that on a mx45...

[Mainecoonmaniac]

I think I bought the wrong lens because it was a bargain to make a 5x7 enlarger, but Mr. Wilde has given an idea to make it large format picture taking lens. I would have to say that it's the biggest chunk of glass I own.

[ic-racer]

large format picture taking lens.

Perhaps it may work, though, it is quite a bit too big to just screw into a Copal #3.

[rjmeyer314]

I have one of these lenses that I use with a Packard shutter on my 11x14 view camera.

[Mainecoonmaniac]

Wow you sure shoot large. Is it a sharp lens?