The Grandagon-N with its wide field angle of up to 105° can really display its strengths in wide photos in close conditions, e.g. in architecture or industrial photos or in panoramic views. With the Grandagon-N, all the problems which occur in connection with large field angles have been ideally taken care of:
- the distortion has been reduced to a small residual value;
- the light fall-off at the edge has been greatly reduced thanks to an optical trick (“pupil distortion” = the entrance pupil diameter increases when viewing at an angle);
- the sharpness sets standards for this class of lens.
The Grandagon-N is available in two versions: with the maximum aperture 4.5 in focal lengths 65 to 90 mm it has 8 elements in 4 groups, and with the maximum aperture 6.8 in the focal length 90 mm it has 6 elements in 4 groups. The eight element lenses offer not only a high maximum aperture, but also a field angle of 105°, an even more uniform illumination and distortion values of less than 1%. The six element lens 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 bellowless panoramic or shift cameras.
The use of the 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.