Lens rationalisation - forum as a sounding board please

**Carsten Wolff** · 2-Jun-2013, 20:49

I'd perhaps get rid of the 58, 80, 180, 203, 210, 300; the 360 A-R and the 480 A-N. This leaves you 110, 150, 240 and 360/500...(I, too, am surprised about that 203 covering 8x10 by the way) If you're thinking of going 2x3 in future, why own these lenses now?

[I've gone another way: I've reduced the number of formats I'm using; this probably wouldn't appeal to you though. I almost exclusively do 5x7 (b/w and color) these days on a small old arca-swiss (with extra 6x17 and 4x5 backs). I run a modern, or a vintage kit on that: Either: 104, 159, 254 vintage or: 90, 135, 210 modern. I also keep a 380T when I need longer. If money was no object, I'd have a 110xl, a 150Sironar-W and a 240Docter, or Fujinon-A to replace all of these, bar the long lens, but that wasn't your question

.]

**evan clarke** · 3-Jun-2013, 04:57

Lenses are tools..At the rightntime in the rightnplace any one ofmthem could be exactly the thing you need.I'd keep them all.

**Dave Tolcher** · 11-Jun-2013, 06:36

Thanks for your input, interestingly I have decided to keep a narrower set. 80/110/150/203/300 in shuttered lenses and a 350/460 barrels with the luc shutter. This is a nice small kit with coverage of 10x8 at the long end and a balanced spacing at the wider end. It was a toss up between the 203 and the 240 but I have a particular fondness for the 203 and have just had the shutter serviced. The 80/110/150 took me years to put together and is something of a holy trinity in terms of quality etc. The 203 becomes my emergency wideangle for 10x8. For now the 58 is on hold while I think about whether to drop 6x9 as I havent used it in anger for 6mths now. If it wasnt so light, portable and share so many of the components from the other Arcas then it would be a no brainer to go. I have 6x9 and 6x12 backs for 5x4 so but for size it could be made redundant.

Your right Evan but I cant carry them all anymore ! I lugged a good subset around for the weekend up cliffs and over moors and I did wonder at the madness of it...

Best regards

**CTwist** · 13-Jun-2013, 11:33

A good question which I have pondered more than once. I shoot 5x4 for the vast majority. I have two sets of lenses: colour and b&w. My colour set is made of modern lenses at different focal lengths (75, 90, 125, 210, 420 - their usage follows a nice bell curve with 125 being the favourite). My b&w set is made of vintage lenses but are all more all less the same focal length - 210mm. The texture of the picture matters more to me in b&w and the different, old lenses each have their character. For colour, the "transparency" of the lens is paramount. Good luck!