Surface photometry of radio loud elliptical galaxies from the B2 sample

V-band CCD imaging is presented for 72 galaxies from the B2 radio sample (Colla et al. \cite{colla}; Fanti et al. \cite{fanti78}), with redshifts up to 0.2 and radio powers P₄₀₈=10²³-10^26.5 W Hz^-1. According to the morphology on the optical images 57 galaxies are classified as ellipticals, 6 as spirals and 7 as irregular. Surface photometry of the sample of ellipticals was obtained fitting ellipses to the light distribution. The light profile of these galaxies generally follows a de Vaucouleurs law, although in three cases the profiles show large excesses relative to the r^1/4 law at large radii. The fitted mu_e and r_e parameters for the de Vaucouleurs galaxies are given in the paper. Three of the ellipticals show a bright nucleus. One of them is a known broad line radio galaxy (B2 1833+32) and the remaining two are Markarian galaxies, classified in the literature as BL Lac objects (B2 1101+38 and B2 1652+39). The radial profiles for ellipticity, position angle, and B_4 term of the Fourier analysis are presented in the paper, and the morphological peculiarities of the ellipticals are described, including the presence of shells, tails, nuclear dust, isophote twisting, off-centering, and boxiness or diskness of the isophotes. Only one of the galaxies in this work is included in the subsample of B2 radio galaxies with well-defined jets (Parma et al. \cite{parma87}). In this sense the present sample complements the sample of 24 radio galaxies with well-defined radio jets in Parma et al. for which a similar study was presented in González-Serrano et al. (\cite{gserrano93}). The irregular galaxy B2 0916+33 appears to be misclassified, and we suggest that the right identification of the radio source is a nearby point like object with V=18.45 mag. The spiral galaxy associated with B2 1441+26 is also misclassified. A point-like optical object with V=18.88 mag, located at ~ 36 arcsec from the original identification and coincident with the radio core is the most probable counterpart. Table 4 is only available in electronic form at the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/Abstract.html Complete Figure 1 and Figure 2 are only available at http://www.edpsciences.org