Bronica S Series Lenses #1: Intro and the Nikon Nikkor 40mm f/4
The Zenzanon, Nikkor, Komura and Zeiss Lenses for the Bronica System
Hey Everyone! It is time for a rabbit hole, the Bronica S Series Lenses! There is plenty of information online about the cameras in this series, but not many comparisons of the different lenses and their focal lengths.
I would like to take some time to shed a little bit of light on some of the lenses, and my recommendations. The Bronica S system has a wide range of lenses, with some very useful focal lengths for anything under the sun that can be done on 6x6.
There were 3 official manufacturers of lenses for the Bronica System, Zenza Bronica Zenzanon, Nippon Nikkor, and Zeiss Jena. There was a third party manufacturer of lenses for the Bronica system as well: Komura. I happen to have the following lenses for the system, and their condition listed as well:
40mm f/4 Nikkor– Received with bad fungus on rear elements, fungus cleaned up nicely, minor leftover dust/spots on front element but otherwise a pretty clean lens
40mm f/4 Zenzanon – Super clean and in really nice mechanical and optical shape
45mm f/4.5 Komura – Optics are clean, I opened up the front element to remove some loose flaking paint, has some Shcneideritis which seems common with these lenses but optics themselves are clean
50mm f/2.8 Nikkor – Optics are nice and clean
50mm f/2.8 Zenzanon – Optics are nice and clean
75mm f/2.8 HC Nikkor (6 element version) – Optics are nice and clean
80mm f/2.4 Zenzanon – Received with a little bit of haze between a couple elements which seems common with these, opened up and cleaned up haze mostly and optics are nice and clean otherwise
80mm f/2.8 Zeiss Jena - I received this lens with a bit a fungus in the central elements, killed it and tried cleaning it up but some very minor permanent coating damage from the fungus still exists
100mm f/2.8 Zenzanon – Had to open and clean up optics as well as repair really stiff aperture ring, optics have a few specs of fairly small weird white paint/dust that appeared after I reassembled the lens so could but probably wont really effect image quality
105mm f/3.5 Leaf Shutter Nikkor – Optics are nice and clean all shots with this lens were shot using the focal plan shutter with a long shutter speed on the LS to bypass it since there could be some possible sync issues with this lens when shooting it on a Bronica EC-TL which is the camera I was using for this test
150mm f/3.5 Zenzanon - Has a few small spots of fungus but clean otherwise
200mm f/3.5 Zenzanon – Has a few small spots of fungus but clean otherwise
There were many more lenses in the series, the old Medium Format forum has so much useful info about the Bronica system! You can find it archived here: (Need to add a link)
Nippon Kogaku Nikkor 40mm f/4
Nikon 20mm f/4, 10 elements in 8 groups (F Mount) Nikkor 40mm f/4, 10 elements in 8 groups
Lens optical layout images are from lens-db.com and are not owned by me
The Nikkor 40mm f/4 for Bronica is one of the cheapest ways to get yourself a 40mm lens for 6x6. Low price does not mean low performance, and this lens is very nice to handle and use. It is relatively light weight and compact, especially compared to the much larger and not as wide Komura 45mm f4.5 (430 vs 850 grams) and many other 40mm lenses. The aperture ring is nicely sized and has evenly spaced single click stops from f/4 to f/22 with (in classic Nikon fashion) a 7 bladed aperture.
Nikon made 5,031 single coated lenses and 1,384 multi coated ones for the Bronica system. (From here)
Specs:
Released 1969
10 elements in 8 groups
Seems to be based on the Nikon Nikkor 20mm f/4 design, or possibly the 20mm is based on the 40mm as the 40mm came out in 1970 and the 20mm came out in 1974 (dates are according to LENS-DB)
430 grams
90mm filters, hard to find original filters for this lens
Large lens hood is available for this lens
7 bladed diaphragm
Single coated which is the version that I use in this review
Available in a multicoated version as well denoted by the NIKKOR-D·C on the front of the lens instead of NIKKOR-D
Average price online late 2024: 250-350$, expect to pay about 100-200$ more for the Multicoated version
Test images were all shot on a Bronica EC-TL and scanned on an Epson V850, sharpened in Lightroom to 45 and had their exposures adjusted to be close to each other
Notes from testing:
Lens is sharp corner to corner stopped down on 6x6
Some minor vignette wide open but still useable, cleans up nicely stopped down
Would like to retest close and at infinity as well, as well as at f/22
Will need to retest with color to check color related aberrations
The lens hood is probably recommended with this lens are the front element is quite large, but I have yet to test its flare resistance
I also have images I have taken with a converted version of this lens on 6x7, there is a bit of pretty harsh vignette it the very far corners on 6x7 but the lens was made for 6x6 so its extra coverage is already impressive. The copy for the Pentax 6x7 has no optical flaws of note, it is a different copy of the lens than the one used in the review. It is perfect for shooting panoramas on 35mm film to get a pseudo X-Pan look and has full coverage in that area of the lens!
Nikkor 40mm, Pentax 6x7, 35mm film panoramic adapter
My copy of the lens had a good amount of fungus in the rear but it cleaned up pretty nicely.
WARNING: If fungus grosses you out, do not scroll down!
