Portrait lens for 4x5

Hi,

I am sorry for testing your patience with another newbie question. I just got my first 4x5 camera a few weeks back and I bought a 150mm lens with it, which is great and makes me really happy most of the time. One of my favorite things to photograph though are portraits and for a tight headshot I feel my Nikkor lens might be a little on the short side. Is there a lens that you can recommend that does not break the bank and makes for a decent portrait lens and which focal length might be a good starting point?

Thanks for your opinions
Dennis

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Originally Posted by rince

One of my favorite things to photograph though are portraits and for a tight headshot I feel my Nikkor lens might be a little on the short side. Is there a lens that you can recommend that does not break the bank and makes for a decent portrait lens and which focal length might be a good starting point?

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I'm sure that you'll get a lot of advise, and maybe lots of differing opinion. For all but environmental portraiture I find the 135 or 150 mm lens to be too short. Something more like 210 works better for me. My favorite is a 250mm soft focus lens. For real tight head shots I like a 300. I suppose "break the bank" is a very individual criteria, but there are many viable options htat won't run more than $200 or so.

I'm looking forward to seeing what people recommend too, although I suspect every answer will be different. That is part of the fun with photography I think - experimentation!

It was my impression that 210mm would be about right for head and shoulders portraits on 4x5, considering that 150mm is considered a normal lens. This roughly equates to 35mm, where 50mm is normal and 85mm - 110mm are considered optimal for portraits.

One thing I'm interested in learning more about is Petzval lenses. There are several branded and unbranded ones on ebay but I need to know more about them before considering a purchase.

Happy hunting Rince :)

Simon

How much is a little? There are substantial groupings of lenses of all types at around 210mm (which is "normal" on 5x7), 240-250, and 300 (which is "normal" on 8x10). There are tessar designs that are nice for portraits (8-1/2" Ilex Paragon, 240mm Rodenstock Ysarex labeled as a Caltar Type Y, and Ilex-Caltar 12", to name three examples in my collection), and plasmat designs that are uniformly sharp by the modern Big Four (Rodenstock, Schneider, Fujinon, and Nikkor) at all these focal lengths. If you like the rendering of the Nikkor, stick with a plasmat. If you want something with a little more vintage look, go with a tessar design. There are so many options at these focal lengths that it's hard to be specific without just spouting One Man's Opinion.

Rick "IMHO" Denney

If you are not looking for a soft focus lens, how about a 12" Kodak Commercial Ektar? It would be about a 305mm. Yousuf Karsh used a 14" Commercial Ektar on his 8x10.

I'll use anything for a "portrait lens", as short as 90mm or 115mm, but I usually go to a 210.
I like the 150 also, don't sell it short; it requires less bellows when shooting close-in, and it gives an excellent perspective from farther back as well.

10" Tele Raptar (same as Tele Optar). Don't be put off by it being a mild telephoto design, it's great for portraits. It's small, fast (f:5.6), sharp, coated, in
Wollensak shutter, and takes 55mm screw-in filters. Between $100-$200.

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Originally Posted by Alan Gales

If you are not looking for a soft focus lens, how about a 12" Kodak Commercial Ektar? It would be about a 305mm. Yousuf Karsh used a 14" Commercial Ektar on his 8x10.

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That's a great suggestion. My recent portraiture efforts have been done with 12" Commercial Ektar on 4x5.

I've used lenses from 58mm to 280mm for portraits. The 58mm creates an environmental type of shot, and the 150mm is very good for head and shoulders, with cropping. I have a portrait of my wife enlarged to 11x14, taken with a 150mm lens and cropped. The 280mm is my soft focus "portrait" lens and I compose a head and shoulders image on the ground glass.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rince

Hi,

I am sorry for testing your patience with another newbie question. I just got my first 4x5 camera a few weeks back and I bought a 150mm lens with it, which is great and makes me really happy most of the time. One of my favorite things to photograph though are portraits and for a tight headshot I feel my Nikkor lens might be a little on the short side. Is there a lens that you can recommend that does not break the bank and makes for a decent portrait lens and which focal length might be a good starting point?

Thanks for your opinions
Dennis

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Also depends on how much bellows you have to work with on your 4x5. If you are working with a filed camera you may want to consider a tele-arton 240 f/5.5 There is one for sale in the classifeds right now for a reasonable price.

hi dennis

if you want a nice inexpensive lens that is great for portraits bill's suggestion is a good one !

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Originally Posted by Bill_1856

10" Tele Raptar (same as Tele Optar). Don't be put off by it being a mild telephoto design, it's great for portraits. It's small, fast (f:5.6), sharp, coated, in
Wollensak shutter, and takes 55mm screw-in filters. Between $100-$200.

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have fun !
john

Don't overlook a meniscus lens.
The very first lens designed for for photography was the Wollaston Meniscus (1812).
Read about them here:
http://re-inventedphotoequip.com/Site/Lenses.html

If you have enough bellows draw, here's how a 285mm Wollaston works with portraiture:
Attachment 68734 Attachment 68735

Reinhold

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Simon Liddiard

One thing I'm interested in learning more about is Petzval lenses. There are several branded and unbranded ones on ebay but I need to know more about them before considering a purchase.



Simon

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Keep in mind these lenses don't have shutters. You use ND filters to eat up exposure, then use either a black hat or black glove as your "shutter." I usually try for a 1 second exposure to make it easier.


Kent in SD

240 - live it, love it

I like the 203 optar or kodak 203 ektar for a small shuttered lens. I also have a 210/4.5 tessar (fujinar actually) in a copal-3s shutter which is excellent. The tessar is really overlooked by most newcomers.

If your camera has a shutter (such as a speed graphic), you have many more choices. My favorite right now is a 210/4.5 trioplan (triplet) barrel lens.

I've got the 190mm wollaston Reinhold builds, but have only done a couple people photos with it, not enough to have figured out that aspect enough to write about. After a large volume of film, I'm getting good with it's use outdoors though. Any traditional soft focus, you are going to need to use a lot of film learning to be good with it; results are not straightforward, but can be rewarding.

You will find a nice variety of results browsing the monthly portrait threads on here.

Thank you very much for all your suggestions. I am still very new to LF and learning about all the different lenses and lens designs is somewhat overwhelming in the beginning. I think I got a good understanding of what to look for now. Thanks again for all your help and patience with my somewhat stupid questions.

From the standpoint of perspective using 1 or 2 persons in the photograph, 250mm (10") to 300mm (12") is excellent. If you just happen to have a 12" or 14" Commercial Ektar you will like them heaps (as my friends in TN used to say).

If you like portrait soft focus, one of my all time favorites was the Kodak Portrait lens or my second choice was the 250 Fujinon SFS.

Lynn

210mm would be fine. There are lots of excellent used ones around at fair prices. Maybe 240 mm' the G Clarons are relatively inexpensive and in a small shutter, or maybe go with the old 240 Schneider convertible in the Copal "2" shutter which is very affordable and not nearly as huge on a 4X5 as the Copal "3" shuttered ones.

What size is your lens board and how much bellows do you have? Without that, only general recommendations can be made. I'd look for 240mm to 300mm. You won't get a 300mm f:4.5 lens on a small board. 240mm f:4.5 probably.

I think your options can be divided into two kinds of portrait lenses, soft focus and everything else.

If you have a small lens board and want something in shutter, the soft focus lens options are not overly plentiful. The most plentiful and usable will be the Rodenstock Imagon and the Fujinon SF lenses. There are some shorter vintage soft focus lenses that rarely appear in a shutter like the Verito.

For "regular" lenses, you have a lot more selection. Here's an off the top of my head list.

Kodak f:6.3 Commercial Ektar - used by Karsh and a lot of others. Look for a 10"-12" for 4x5.

Tessars and their namesakes, B&L Ic (or the f:6.3 IIb), Kodak f:4.5 Ektars, Zeiss Tessar, Schneider Xenars, Nikkor-M, Fujinon-L, etc

Voigtlaender Heliars, up to 24cm/240mm are commonly available in shutter and make good portrait lenses

The Apo Sironar-S, 240mm version currently used by Jock Sturges on 8x10 I believe, but a nice modern lens for people

Goerz Dagor, Paolo Roversi uses a 12" Dagor, as did a local photographer who did fine work with it. Probably undervalued as a people lens, like the Apo Sironar-S

Tele lenses seem to be underrated, I've also seen some nice local work done with a 270mm Rotelar

Any of the triplets would be a potential candidates, but nice ones in shutter don't seem common.

Cheers, Steve

Hi Steve,

thank you so very much for your very comprehensive and educational reply. I think I learned more about lenses out of your one post than I did trying to google it for the last few weeks. I own a Shen Hao HZX 45A II which I believe has a Wista/Linhoff type of lens board. Currently it has a Nikkor 150mm mounted. As of the bellows they have a draw extension from 50-360mm, so it is to overly much and the lens board is not as big either.
I will try and follow your recommendations and shop around. My budget for this lens would be around $500 so I hope I find something adequate.


Kindest regards
Dennis

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Originally Posted by Steve Hamley

What size is your lens board and how much bellows do you have? Without that, only general recommendations can be made. I'd look for 240mm to 300mm. You won't get a 300mm f:4.5 lens on a small board. 240mm f:4.5 probably.

I think your options can be divided into two kinds of portrait lenses, soft focus and everything else.

If you have a small lens board and want something in shutter, the soft focus lens options are not overly plentiful. The most plentiful and usable will be the Rodenstock Imagon and the Fujinon SF lenses. There are some shorter vintage soft focus lenses that rarely appear in a shutter like the Verito.

For "regular" lenses, you have a lot more selection. Here's an off the top of my head list.

Kodak f:6.3 Commercial Ektar - used by Karsh and a lot of others. Look for a 10"-12" for 4x5.

Tessars and their namesakes, B&L Ic (or the f:6.3 IIb), Kodak f:4.5 Ektars, Zeiss Tessar, Schneider Xenars, Nikkor-M, Fujinon-L, etc

Voigtlaender Heliars, up to 24cm/240mm are commonly available in shutter and make good portrait lenses

The Apo Sironar-S, 240mm version currently used by Jock Sturges on 8x10 I believe, but a nice modern lens for people

Goerz Dagor, Paolo Roversi uses a 12" Dagor, as did a local photographer who did fine work with it. Probably undervalued as a people lens, like the Apo Sironar-S

Tele lenses seem to be underrated, I've also seen some nice local work done with a 270mm Rotelar

Any of the triplets would be a potential candidates, but nice ones in shutter don't seem common.

Cheers, Steve

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Well, after looking for the mentioned lenses, I guess I will up my budget a little. Still looks all very reasonable to me.

So after reading up a little more about lenses and bellow extensions, I have one more question. I sad that you would need about 1.2 times the focal length for normal subjects and about 2x bellow extensions for closeups. As I wrote before I only have 360mm bellows, so does that mean that I would be really using it with a 300mm lens, unless I choose a telephoto design, which would then go to 0.9x focal length for normal subjects and 1.7 for closeups?
I guess no matter how I look at it I should find something between 210 and 250 for the camera I own.

M = (b-f)/f

where M = magnification ratio, b = bellows extension, f = focal length

How about a 210mm lens where the magnification is around 1:3. We can calculate the required bellows draw using the above formula:

Here M = 1/3, f = 210mm, and b is unknown

1/3 = (b-210)/210
1/3 * 210 = b - 210
70 = b - 210
b = 280mm


Given a 300mm lens and 360mm of bellows draw, what magnification can we get ?

M = (360-300)/300
M = 60/300
M = 1/5 or 0.20

Thank you Ken!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ken Lee

M = (b-f)/f

where M = magnification ratio, b = bellows extension, f = focal length

How about a 210mm lens where the magnification is around 1:3. We can calculate the required bellows draw using the above formula:

Here M = 1/3, f = 210mm, and b is unknown

1/3 = (b-210)/210
1/3 * 210 = b - 210
70 = b - 210
b = 280mm


Given a 300mm lens and 360mm of bellows draw, what magnification can we get ?

M = (360-300)/300
M = 60/300
M = 1/5 or 0.20

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brilliant! Thanks for the formula Ken

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Originally Posted by rince

Well, after looking for the mentioned lenses, I guess I will up my budget a little. Still looks all very reasonable to me.

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Didn't you say your budget was $500? You should be able to work within that budget and have change left over!

One other thing to consider is depth of field. If you're used to shooting shorter lenses on smaller formats, then you'll be interested to know that in order to get the same depth of field with a lens that is twice as long, you need to stop it down by 2 stops.

By this reckoning, a 75mm lens at f/8 has the same depth of field as a 150mm lens at f/16, and a 300mm lens at f/32.

Some large format shooters like portraits with shallow depth of field, and have no problem with a portrait where only the tip of the nose is in focus (or the eyes), but others might consider that "look" to be distracting or contrived.

So if you want to make tight heads shot where most of the head is in focus, you may need a lot of light - or a slow shutter speed - in order to stop down sufficiently, and the longer the lens, the more it becomes an issue.

Here is an online Depth of Field Calculator

My rule of thumb for portraits is 1x normal FL for full-length, 1.5x normal FL for waist up, and 2x normal FL for close bust shots. Perceived distortions aren't really about FL but distance from subject-to-lens and this is dependent on the subject size, the intended feel of the final image, and one's personal opinion on what FL (subject distance from the lens) best meets the final outcome. For example: A person who's seven feet tall will require a wider lens than one who's three feet tall all other factors being identical. Heck, I might opt for a 3x normal FL for a really tight shot and depending on how I want the image to feel... that's a 465mm lens if we consider that "normal" is 155mm.

With a bellows draw of 360mm I'd definitely opt for a telephoto lens to better suit "my" needs. To make it affordable, I'd look for an older 270mm Tele Arton or similar. The 360mm Tele Arton would be nice too but I'm guessing it may be a bit too heavy. Also, the latter is pricier.