Fastest shuttered lenses for 8x10 and 4x5

[David R Munson]

I'm trying to figure out what the fastest lenses are that cover 8x10 and 4x5. Not necessarily recent, any vintage will do, but they would have to have shutters. I'm thinking mainly in the range of 240mm-360mm for 8x10 and 135mm-210mm for 4x5. These would be for actual use and would have to be practical and not things like what this guy uses. The final application would be existing light portraiture, so absolute sharpness isn't necessarily the most important thing. If needs be, I can use something with a Packard shutter. Ideas? Thanks much!

[wfwhitaker]

Focal lengths typical for 8x10 and fast lens speed imply large glass size. That in turn usually demands a large shutter and the choices are limited. You may have better luck finding something for 4x5 rather than for 8x10.



The Wollensak Verito is an f/4. The ones for 8x10 often came in a Studio shutter which used one set of leaves for both aperture and shutter. In operation it's much like a Packard; you're limited to "bulb" setting. There is no sync which, in your case, wouldn't matter. Shorter focal length Verito's came in other shutters which have more versatility. I have an 8 3/4" Verito which has been remounted into an Ilex #4 sync shutter. The faster shutter speeds (well, faster than "bulb", anyway) are nice to have. The Verito is, of course, a soft focus lens and at f/4 it's quite soft. That may not be your style.



For 8x10 there's also the 16" Vitax which is f/3.8 (only nominally faster). It's still a soft focus lens and looks more like a piece of artillery than a lens. In fact it would go well with your reference's reflex 8x10 which, by the way, I think is pretty cool. But then I would!



There are other vintage portrait lenses which are fairly fast. But I'm sure others will have some suggestions, too. It'll be interesting to see what comes up.



And that model does have nice "eyes"!



Cheers,
Will

[Jason Greenberg Motamedi]

David,

For 4x5 the most obvious, albeit expensive, lens is the Schneider Xenotar 150/2.8 or 135/3.5, both are fine lenses and cover 4x5 open wide with little to no movement. The Zeiss Planar 135/3.5 is a more expensive alternative. If you want cheaper lenses, there are many f/3.5 Tessars and Xenars out there, some are coated and others aren't. With the tessar/xenar lenses you are best off looking for something a bit longer, at least 165mm for 4x5, although 210mm would be better. The longer f/3.5s don't often come in shutter, but could probably be mounted in a large shutter. I have a 240/3.5 Xenar which screws directly into a Compound no. 5 shutter.

Another alternative is to have a fast aerial lens mounted in shutter: The Dallmeyer Pentac 8" f/2.9 can be mounted into a no. 5 shutter, so can *I think* the 7" f/2.5 Aero-Ektar. I had a Pentac mounted into a Compound no. 5 shutter a few years ago by Mr. Grimes, and am pleased with it. Not as sharp as a Xenotar, but a fine lens none the less. There are also many odd lenses floating around; Meyer Trioplan, Stenheil Cassar (sp?), and Dallmeyer Speedic come to mind. These were not usually mounted in shutter, but probably could be by a mechanic. Note that many of the very fast lenses particularly the Speedic, tend to be very expensive, and not--in my experience--worth the cost.

Fast lenses for 8x10 are much more difficult, especially if you want something in shutter; The fastest, longest lenses that will fit in a no. 5 shutter is a 300mm f/4.5. Big 300mm Heliars can often be found in shutters. You can find 300-360mm f/3.5 lenses, but these are very heavy and very big. They do not fit in a shutter, and many not fit on your lensboard. I have a 343mm f/3.5 Eastman Anastigmat which is a very nice, sharp lens, but it also weight about 10 lbs, and will not easily fit on a regular 8x10 camera. I have to use it on a studio camera with 9x9" lensboards.

Also, as mentioned above, there are many many different sorts of portrait lenses. These were not often mounted in regular shutters, but some of the shorter ones could be. I am a great fan of Petzval lenses, like the Voigtlaender, Dallmeyer Patent Portraits, or the Vitax, very sharp in the middle, melting beautifully off in a swirly "bokeh".

Good luck, and let us know what you settle on.

[David Vickery]

Hello, For your needs, I would consider the Heliar line from Voigtlander. They come up on ebay a lot, and they almost all have a wide open aperture of 4.5 (at least for view camera lenses---the lens that Kodak used on the Medalist was a Heliar type lens, but it has a max aperture of 3.5). At 4.5 that's pretty fast for a lens on the 8x10. If you are not afraid of the less conventional route you could look for the old kodak Aero Ektars. Some of those are extremly fast, but they'll take some work to mount.

[domenico Foschi]

Hi David , i am too a fan of fast lenses , and frustrated by the fact i couldn't use them at full aperture , i adapted them at a speed graphic shutter which i adapted at my 8 x 10 . Now i use my petzvals , my heliars and so on at 1/1000 sec. : - )) Also , if 4 x 5 is enough for you you canadapt fastlenses for 4 x 5 to a speed graphic , and you willbe an happy man.

[jnantz]

hey dave -

you might want to check-out jay tepper's website.

http://www.jay-tepper.com/lenses.html

he has a bunch of fast&vintage lenses ... some in barrel - some in shutter.

i have a vitax (petzval design) & it allows you to stop down & de-focus with the knob so you will still have a soft feel ...

good luck!

- john

[David A. Goldfarb]

The 135/3.5 Planar for 4x5" is one of my favorites. I often use it handheld on my Tech V. You can often find them in the single-coated version for around $500-750 or maybe a little more if they have a Linhof Tech V cam and Tech IV/V/MT lensboard. The very rare T* version often sells for over $2000.

I have a 14-1/2"/4.0 Verito and a 360/4.5 Heliar for 8x10, both great portrait lenses. The Verito has a Studio shutter that will give you a speed of about 1/5 sec. if you open and close it quickly. The Heliar is a barrel lens, but I use it with a front-mounted "Luc" type shutter that has a single speed of around 1/15 sec. You might consider getting a Packard shutter or a Luc shutter if you really want to use these big portrait lenses, because many of them were designed to be used that way, and old Studio shutters are often beyond repair (fortunately mine works!).

[Ole Tjugen]

I'm very happy with my two selections - the Planar 135mm/f:3.5 and Xenar 300mm/f:4.5. I believe there are no larger/faster 300mm lenses in standard shutter, but the same Compound #5 shutter was used for the 360mm/f:5.6 Symmar.

The biggest drawback of the Xenar is its size. Mine sits permanently attached to the lensboard of a Technika III 5x7" camera, one of few 5x7's with a sufficiently large lensboard to handle this monster.

If I can get a lensboard made for my recently aquired 18x24cm camera, I may try it on that too.

[Bob Salomon]

0 and 1 size lenses can be used in Rollei Linear Motor shutters. These all shooting speeds up to 1/600th and down into the several second range in 1/3rd steps.

The fastest shutter for 3 size lenses would be the last version of the Compur 3 which hit 1/200.

The Rollei shutter may not fit easily on to some cameras with small boards and requires a hand controller to operate it.

[Armin Seeholzer]

Hi David

I like my Zeiss Tessar Jena 250mm f 3.5 but is only a barell version but works good in front of my Sinar behind the lens shutter and easely covers 8x10 but full open the corners are a tiny bit darker! Not a problem in B/W! At f 5.6 the corners are also okay! Good luck!