G-Glaron 150mm cheap and good macro-lens?

Armin,

Like the Apo-Ronars that you mention the G-Clarons are optimised to work at 1:1. The 150mm at 1:1 has an image circle of 385mm making it suitable for 10x8 whilst at Infinity the image circle is 189mm and only suitable for 4x5. Schneider's description is as follows:

"For a tabletop or macro shot, the G-Claron offers apochromatic correction, is flat field in design, and features a 64? field angle.

"6-Element, 4-Group

"Design optimised for close working distance.

"Apochromatic Flat Field Lens."

I hope that this is of some help ... WG

I don't use it at 1:1 often but have used at lower magnifications from 1:3 on to infinity. It is a very good performer at that range, I have no reason to expect it would not be good at 1:1, it was designed for that range. It is a very good lens for field use since it is so compact. I also have the 305mm G-Claron and have been very pleased with these lenses, especially when viewed from the price/performance ratio.

We've got two of those (the 150's) and use them all the time on the copystand, shooting small tabletop items, etc. The 150 is great for a copystand type application. At 1:1 the image circle doubles, at infinty , it's pretty small-- like 180mm or so, but still usable. I have a 240mm G-Claron that's tack sharp as well. At one time we had a stat camera that had 3 Schneider lenses on it, a 150, 210 & a 300mm. They were G-Glarons. BTW, I'm fairly sure that Schnieder has recently discontiued these.

FWIW the 180ish image circle size is AWFULLY conservative. The 150 G-Claron is my "normal" lens on my 5X7 and I've never gotten a vignette so far, neither have I noticed sharpness fall-off out in the extremities. I use at f16+, and admittedly my tiny 3 1/2 pound 5x7 doesn't have the moves that the pricier models have.

I use this lens on 8x10 for close ups. The lens almost covers 8x10 at infinity. About 1/4 inch of the corners are dark.

I agree that the image circle size is adequate for 4x5 work. For a long time it was the only "normal" lens we had & we used it for all sorts of things. We used it quite a bit to shoot large quilts and flags on slant boards and would run into falloff quite a bit when doing rises & falls. These were quilts that were around 7 ft. square shooting down from a tall tripod or a hydraulic lift. On the other hand, they're superb lenses for copystand type work, shooting coins etc. We used one to shoot a flag that was so large (about 25-30 feet long) we placed it on the floor of our lobby and clamped the camera to a railing on the second floor....the image was tack sharp.