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wetplates
19-Feb-2007, 11:45
Hello,
Looking for a fast lens for my 8x10?
f/4 or faster? I've been using kodak commercial ektars f/6.3.
THANKS!

Armin Seeholzer
19-Feb-2007, 12:25
Hi
I have a Zeiss Jena Tessar red T f 3,5 with 250mm look out for them very seldom they are on german ebay!
Good luck Armin Seeholzer

Jason Greenberg Motamedi
19-Feb-2007, 12:35
Not a lot out there; a 16" Petzval might be your best bet. Alternatively look for a slightly slower f4.5 Xenar, Tessar, Heliar, etc. You might be lucky to find a 10-12" f3.5 Tessar-type as Armin mentions.

One common recommendation is the 12" f2.5 AeroEktars, but these have a fair amout of internal UV filtering so for colorblind and ortho processes they lose about two stops of light, figure f4.5 with the depth of field of f2.5. These were remarketed by B&J as the Carl Meyer Speed Anastigmat.

An uncommon variant without so much UV filtering is the 13.5" f3.5 Eastman Anastigmat. I use one of these and have been pretty happy with it, but it isn't very portable and needs an 8x8 lensboard and a very solid camera.

Jim Galli
19-Feb-2007, 12:38
There are a few out there but here are the tradeoff's. The designs that work well with huge apertures are also very narrow coverage angle. So to cover 8X10 you're passing up the 14" mark pretty quickly. Add the f4 and larger entrance and the math tells you the only thing available to you are gigantic lenses that really are only at home on the big Studio Camera's with 9X9 lensboards. The Heliar and Cooke Portrait lenses at f4.5 begin to cover at 36cm and can still just squeeze onto a 6X6 lensboard. Faster than those and you've a lot of other problems to solve.

Christopher Perez
19-Feb-2007, 13:22
I use a 300mm Schneider Xenar f/4.5. Even wide open it's an amazingly awesome optic. Not quite f/4 or wider, but certainly bright on the groundglass with next to zero depth of field.

Oh, and the OOF rendition is incredible.