75mm Lens on Tachihara 4x5?

[Sam]

I use a 4x5 Tachihara with a 90/150/210 lens set. I was thinking of adding 75 or wider. Can the 75 work on a Tachihara, and still allow some movements (mostly front rise)?

[Juergen Sattler]

Sam, I don't know the answer to your question, but I thought I'd give you my observation with the combination of lenses you have and adding a 75mm lens. I did EXACTLY the same thing (90 Rodenstock, 150 Schneider, 210 Sinar) and added a 75mm Komura and realized (too late) that there is not much gain in going from 90 to 75 - I ended up selling my 75 and went for a 65 instead. Before you buy a 75mm you might want to rent, or borrow one froma fellow LF photographer. Just a thought!

[Leonard Evens]

I presume someone will give you a more complte answer, but let me point out some things to look at.

I don't have a Tachhara field camera, but supposedly the bellows compresses to 65 mm. So you ought to be able to use it with a 75 mm lens. But when you consider different 75 mm lenses, you should look at the data on the rear flange distance. That is the actual distance from the rear of the shutter to the film when the lens is focused on infinity. Many 75 mm lenses will have a rear flange distance of about 80 mm, giving you an additional 5 mm of leeway.

Secondly, usually the limitation on movement with the lens that close to the film plane is bellows stiffness. But on the other hand, a typical 75 mm lens may not have all that large an image circle, so you may not need a whole lot of movement. So although you may not get more than about 10 mm of movement up or down, that may be enough for all practical purposes with such a short focal length lens.

[Cesar Barreto]

Sam, I've been using this set with sucess although, as pointed by Leonard, the coverage of my Super-Angulon 75/5.6 really doesn't allow much room for movements. But I like it and always take it along with the 90mm lens.

[Oren Grad]

You can get a decent idea of this for yourself. Look up the flange-to-film specification for any 75mm lens you're considering. (In the literature I have, Rodenstock calls it "optical register at 1 : infinity", Calumet and Schneider call it "flange focal distance".) Then, with the help of a ruler, rack the focus in on your camera until the plane of the lensboard is exactly that distance from the ground glass. (It can be helpful to do this using a drilled lensboard on the front standard, without a lens on it - you can position the ruler against the ground glass inside the camera and, taking note of the zero calibration of the ruler, read off the setting exactly at the lensboard surface.) Then lock the focus in place, and see how hard it is to exercise the front standard movements.

There are other things that can cause you trouble - for example, there are some lenses that are so big relative to the camera that there will be a physical obstruction somewhere from the body of the lens. But if the front standard doesn't allow enough movement under the simple test above, you'll know that it's not going to work with a lens mounted.

[Paul Kent]

I own a Tachihara 4x5 and use a Nikon 75mm f4.5 on a flat board. I just checked: you can easily get 20mm of front rise with the lens focused at infinity and the bellows only a little compressed. If you are willing to fight with the bellows, you can get all of the front rise that is available (~35mm or so). This exceeds the official coverage of the lens, and you will be experiencing serious light fall off if you use these extreme movements without a centre filter.

I find this lens very usable in this configuration for nature/landscape photography. It is moderately usable for occasional urban/architectural work. If I were using substantial front rise all of the time I would want to use a different camera, but I might also wish to use a lens with more coverage in this case. Personally, I find the difference between 75mm and 90mm quite noticeable.

[Graeme Hird]

Sam,

I use a set of lenses just like yours, with the addition of a 305/ƒ9 Nikkor and a Schneider SA 75/ƒ8.

The 75mm works fine on my Tachihara, but I run out of coverage of the lens before I run out of camera movement. The 75mm is mounted on a flat lens board. There is a significant difference in view between the 75mm and the 90mm.

BTW, the Nikkor has a closest focusing distance of about 15 feet at ƒ9.

Cheers,Graeme