Lens advice needed for 8x10 fully open in a tight space

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Originally Posted by aopie

Thanks for this advice. Turns up one point I want to touch on. Size doesn't matter. I'm shooting in-studio on a Horseman 8x10 so I can deal with a huge lens and be fine.

Bob, does fall-off remain consistent from closed to open? You think I'd really get even coverage with the 210mm 5.6 Apo-Sironar W? Before buying my fujinon w 250 I thought it would do this, it doesn't.

I understand why the specs are all given for f22 or similarly closed-down lens but I wish they would give them for wide open as well. I guess that's what leads me to think that going with an 11x14 lens would be the safest bet but I have no experience with that format and so don't know what to look for.

I'll look at the lenses mentioned so far in addition to the 210mm 5.6 Apo-Sironar W.

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The fall off will be pretty consistent. If you went with a wide angle and a center filter you need to stop down 2 stops from wide open for the filter to work.

Though, admittedly, I haven't used it wide open on 8x10- not yet, at any rate...

JB7,
How will I know if it is an older single-coated one? And are you recommending single-coating because of cost or other reason? There are quite a few on ebay and they are certainly affordable.

They've always been inexpensive, they must have made a lot of them-
Don't confuse cheapness with poor quality in this case, however. They might not be up there with the more expensive lenses, for absolute resolution, but for wet plate in camera, they could prove to be more than adequate.

Falloff can also be dealt with by lighting, if that is an option- it might be that wet plate is emphasizing the falloff due to the limitation of the dynamic range presented by the process.

The older ones are distinguished by the positioning of the engraving inside the bezel- and by having a much larger image circle than the multi coated newer ones.

You're right, there are a few available- Fujinon W, not W S ...

Well, running a quick test of something with wet plate always gets more complicated. I got pretty even light with but had the view closer in than I need, then did something wrong with the next exposure. So, I'll have to continue that tomorrow.

Thanks for the advice all. I'll keep looking into the lenses you've mentioned.

A link to Fujinons with details on coatings:

http://www.thalmann.com/largeformat/fujinon.htm

Len

It's not much of an issue, but with wetplate and artificial light, a coated lens may act slower than it's listed. Usually UV (what wetplate is sensitive to) gets through coatings fine when I shoot outdoors, but I've noticed artificial lighting has to be VERY powerful for wetplate. I had one experience where a coated Aero lens didn't end up as fast as we thought. I'd want to do everything to limit the exposure time, both to help the sitter, and to get less motion blur.

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Originally Posted by Mark Sawyer

250mm Wide Field Ektar, f/6.3 and a listed image circle of 422mm.

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I'll second that recommendation. Coverage is huge, and since you're only 8 feet from the subject, you can even apply movements and you'll be miles from the edge of the image circle.

How about 14" Kodak Commercial Ektar, image circle is 444mm.

Schneider made a Xenar 300mm f4.5. It is a tessar design, was single coated and came mounted in a huge Compound 5 shutter. According to Schneider it has an image circle of 364mm @ f16. No idea how much fall off there is wide open but at 8 to 10 feet it may not be too bad. The Schneider vintage lens catalog also lists a 360, 420 and a 480 all at f4.5. Here is the link. https://www.schneideroptics.com/info..._lenses/xenar/