I'll do another search for Neonons then. Looks like I could pick up a Ysaron for £1-3 and a Rokkor for £4-7 (the Rokkor tempts me tbh because I used to shoot Minolta and had a couple of Rokkors with my old camera).

Well I've been searching eBay looking for 75mm enlarging lenses and there are quite a few on there; I'm not prepared to pay Nikkor prices for what is - after all - an experiment, but there are a few Rodenstock Ysarons and Minolta Rokkors on there for not much money. Any thoughts on these? I know that Rokkors made for good camera lenses but I don't know much about enlarging ones...

You are, of course, completely right - the Componon is a 6 element design (in my defence I've never used it, it belonged to my Dad and when I sold off all his darkroom gear for him last year it was the one thing I kept hold of in case I could ever find a use for it).

I've had a good play with the bellows anyway and I've tried out the slide copier. The 50mm lenses come closest to fitting the whole slide in but still chop off the edges so I'm off to eBay shortly to see what catches my eye in the 70-80mm range. Probably buy myself one of those adapters while I'm at it.

It also seems that the Zeiss Pancolar (6 elements) stomps all over the Zeiss Tessar (yes, a camera lens) in terms of detail even at the smaller apertures. The Flektogon left me a little cold (I'm finding it hard to fall in love with this lens) but the Sonnar was - as ever - the star of the show. I'll post some pictures in a bit but I must go and clean my sensor first, hadn't realised quite how filthy it had got!

Quite looking forward to giving the Schneider a run-out now, glad I kept it!

I was thinking about getting one of them yesterday funnily enough; I've got a 50mm Schneider Componon enlarging lens sat here looking for a purpose in life, just not sure it'd be significantly better at macro than the Tessar (same 4 in 4 construction I think). Probably get the adapter anyway to find out...

Well at least you got some interesting photos out of your misfortune - clouds and silver linings eh?

Hope she's sorted and back on her feet soon!

Unfortunately the bellows are M42 so I've got no way of mounting any of my K mount lenses to them. I've got a choice of Flektogon 35, Tessar 50, Pancolar 50 and Sonnar 135 plus a few broken lenses in the parts box. I was going to go with the Tessar as it's ultra-sharp at small apertures but I'll see what transpires...

Did somebody mention my name and MX's?

Can't recommend them highly enough - best manual 35mm camera I've ever owned (and there have been quite a few). I have a fetish for all-mechanical cameras and the MX reminds me of a high grade Swiss watch. It's got a tiny body, a huge viewfinder and something that just makes me smile whenever I use it. Buy one!

I know that feeling - are you sure we're not related?

Once I've done my morning chores I was going to have a play with the bellows this afternoon so I'll see if I can figure it out. I've also got a broken Hanimex 135/2.8 in M42 mount so I'm going to try grafting the mount onto a 19th Century Ross Anastigmat 180mm later to see what I can do with that (never had a method of focussing it before so I'm hoping the bellows will do the trick).

Thirded

Another vote for Ilford Galerie from me - I use it exclusively with genuine Epson inks and the results never disappoint.

I prefer the "Smooth Gloss" to "Classic Gloss" but they're all good.

edit: whoops! Got my classics and smooths mixed up.