Artar lens opinions

[John Kasaian]

To get the most use, I'd look for an Ilex Universal shutter without the aperture blades (IIRC they came with the Speed-i-o-scope gizmo---do a search on eBay) and mount that to the front of your lens. Use adapters so you can swap between your 16-1/2
and 19"er. That way your lenses will remain intact and you'll have the original aperture markings on the barrel.
My 2nd choice would be a Packard. If you mounted the Packard behind the lensboard you'll be limited to use on one camera---the one the lens board fits. Packards mounted on the front of a lens always looked odd to my eyes---but I've seen then used tht way. A distant third would be having the 19" put in a shutter---why the 19"? Because I have one and it gets a lot of use (I don't have the 16-1/2" so admittedly I'm prejudice!) having one mounted in a shutter would be terribly expensive, I'd think.

[Jim Galli]

My only Artar is a coated 12" one made for Robertson. I noticed once that its cells and those of my 8 1/2" (a coated Kenro, although the same observation applied to a Goerz in Compound) are threaded the same but the spacing is different. Never tried shooting them in the alternate barrels to see what would happen to sharpness.

Dan

Dan, you'd be mixing a dialyt half with a dagor half. No good.

[Fotoguy20d]

Jim,

My goal was to use the Dagor barrel (and its huge number of aperture blades) with the Artar, which has a Waterhouse slot. I might try it someday and see how much the spacing matters.

Dan

[JosephBurke]

Scott, I sent u a pm with a quite interesting opportunity.
--Joe Burke

[Jim Galli]

Jim,

My goal was to use the Dagor barrel (and its huge number of aperture blades) with the Artar, which has a Waterhouse slot. I might try it someday and see how much the spacing matters.

Dan

Should work fine. I had the same set-up with the 210 Dagor in a shutter and could use the 300 Robertson in the same shutter. Exactly a stop off so makes the aperture calcs easy enough.

[Dave Wooten]

My 19 inch screws directly into Ilex 4,

[Bernice Loui]

Suggest getting a shutter (copal 3, Compound or similar large shutter) and get a threaded ring made to fit the Goerz barrel. The 16 1/2" & 19" should have the same barrel thread size. This makes both lenses and other barrel lenses can be used with threaded adapters. If not threaded, a bayonet, quick release flange mount or ____ .

The 16 1/2", good focal length for head/shoulder portrait on 8x10, just coves at infinity for 8x10.

The 19" good focal length for landscapes on 8x10 and the Artar should cover 10x12.

While modern Copal shutters are reliable, accurate and etc, the non-round iris IMO is a significant problem if nice out of focus rendition is expected. If the "everything in focus" image is prime, then the non-round iris many not matter what so ever.

There was a time when mounting barrel lenses into a shutter or taking a lens mounted in an older shutter was quite attractive, over time, that whole process has fallen out of favor for me for a host of reasons including the non-round iris, cost of a known good shutter, cost of machine work and ...

Consider the cost of a good used Sinar shutter to be $200 - $300, and what it cost to install a set of lens cells into a Copal shutter.

The entire issue of barrel lenses, older lenses with large aperture and odd optics is one of the prime reasons for me to choose a Sinar or adapt a Sinar shutter to the target camera.

There is a accepted norm in the view camera photo tools books that says lenses should be in a shutter, still this is not always the ideal solution for the image maker. It depends more on the actual needs of what the image maker is trying to achieve.


Bernice

First of all, please note that I am asking for OPINONS. Not a thousand comments on what my preferences are or what I will shoot or anything else. I would really love your personal experiences or knowledge about the lens(s) in question. So with that said let me give you some info.

I shoot a lot of different things. My first love is people and portraits, but that may change with time. I don't shoot for a living but for my own creative edification and inspiration. I don't aspire to "perfect" images but I love having images with personality whether it's created with exposure variations, happy accidents or equipment "flavor".

I plan on shooting anything between 4x5 to 10x12 on traditional film, direct positive paper, wet plate or anything else I discover in between.

My dilemma is this, I have a 16 1/2" and a 19" Artar lens in barrel, both in EX condition. I want to mount one in shutter so I have more options to use it.

What lens would you mount and why?

[Doug Howk]

Forgot to mention that my 19" Artar has a wide circle of coverage - it handled a 7X17" format camera without movements. I haven't tested it again, though, since having it put in a shutter. Presume the dynamics are the same.

[Scott Davis]

I don't know that good Sinar shutters are that cheap - I've seen them more in the $400+ range. Another bit of food for thought - the Artars are f9 lenses. In that aspect they're not good candidates for wet plate work. I would strongly suggest finding something else with a much faster maximum fstop for wet plate - at least an f5.6 if not an f4. If you do want to put the Artars in shutters, as mentioned you can get them mounted in a Copal 3, but you'll lose the nice iris. You might also lose a half-stop maximum aperture turning your f9 into an f11. Look for an Ilex #4 or a Betax #4 instead - they will have very nice multi-bladed irises that produce a round aperture at any setting. The Ilex will be more sophisticated, including flash sync and a wider range of speeds, but will also be more expensive. You might be better off finding a 12" Commercial Ektar or a Turner-Reich triple convertible with trashed glass and doing a shutter-ectomy.

[ScottPhotoCo]

Thanks everyone for the information! This is super helpful and much to consider. Regardless of what I end up doing I will be keeping the barrel so that I can switch cells back and forth as needed. I haven't shot with either lens yet and I'm super interested to do so. So many options!

Scott, I sent u a pm with a quite interesting opportunity.
--Joe Burke

Joe, thanks for the message! I responded via PM.

Thanks again everyone. This community is super helpful!

Tim
www.ScottPhoto.co