Rodenstock Splendar 85/2.8

Reviews

1. 

   16:9 – May 9, 2022

   Superficially similar to the Rodenstock Stellars, these were the bread-and-butter triplets for a number of mass-market 35mm slide projectors in the pre-plastic era. Their reassuring solid metal barrels and the presence of the Rodenstock name nonetheless raise expectations.

   The 85mm f2.8 is likeable rather than admirable. Sharpness scores hover around 60% – a little better close-up than at distance – not even reaching Bronze levels – but this is a lens you buy for the look rather than framewide excellence. Typically, it has very poor corners (a score of 5.5 here makes it hard to tell whether there’s even field curvature) and even Zone 1 struggles to top 6.5, making it a bad choice for those needing high levels of per-pixel sharpness.

   The vibe is certainly vintage – in the sense of low contrast and muted colour – but chromatic aberration is low, and vignetting is barely palpable. The bokeh is quite refined: smooth, with modest halation and only subtle soap-bubble outlining. Bokeh geometry appears more centrifugal than centripetal: deformation of specular highlights is strongest in the corners as shapes appear to flee the centre equally in all directions rather than orbit it, which gives the more common ‘cat-eye’ swirl. Although defocused areas can sometimes look ‘liquefied’, we rarely see weird edginess or doubling and on balance, I find the Splendar’s bokeh to be above-averagely pleasing in terms of consistency. If you’re looking for freaky bokeh, look elsewhere: the Splendar has a distinctive, but not overstated, dreamy character.