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Thread: Lenses for circular pictures on 8x10

  1. #1

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    Smile Lenses for circular pictures on 8x10

    Hi !

    I've always suffered from the "good guy syndrome" and I've observed physical laws respectfully
    I mean, when I was shooting 4x5 I used lenses given as perfect for this format.
    The same way I used to shoot 8x10 with SA 165mm or Sironar 300mm. No surprise !
    Now this time is over.

    Using a 8x10 Sinar P, I've got the project to use lenses with small coverage in order to obtain circular pictures.
    Ok, I'm not the first with this idea in mind...
    http://tribblemancenido.blogspot.fr/...h-for-eye.html
    or obviously Emmet Gowin
    http://www.geh.org/ne/str085/htmlsrc...00002_ful.html

    If I've created this post, that's mainly because I'd love to have some ideas about the lens that I need. I'm looking for post ww2 lenses as I need reliable shutters and perfect sharpness.
    My main goal is to make portraits. It will be a kind of 1:4 to 1:5 reduction.
    The image circle given by lensmakers are calculated for a focus on infinite. With a 1:4 reduction, this circle will be way larger and I'm a bit lost for my choice... Goal is not to have dark corners but a perfect circle on 8x10, so diameter of illuminated area must be under 19cm.
    Furthermore I don't want wide angles. A super-angulon 38 XL will give me a perfect circular picture, for sure, but it will be a bit weird for portrait.

    Thanks a lot for reading and, if you have suggestions I'd be really happy to read your posts !

  2. #2

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    Re: Lenses for circular pictures on 8x10

    If you don't want wide angles then use tele designs for 4x5 like a Tele Arton or Tele Xenar or process lenses with 48° coverage like an Apo Ronar.

  3. #3

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    Re: Lenses for circular pictures on 8x10

    Thanks for your answer !

    Yes, a Tele-Arton or a Tele-Xenar (they both exist in 180mm and 240mm (and longer but it's useless for me)) seem to be a good solution.
    For sure their illumination circle will be under 8in in portrait conditions ?

  4. #4
    Jim Jones's Avatar
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    Re: Lenses for circular pictures on 8x10

    A mask with a circular aperture either in front or behind a lens may also work. The distance between the mask and lens will affect the sharpness of the transition between image and darkness.

  5. #5
    jp's Avatar
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    Re: Lenses for circular pictures on 8x10

    I would just mask it in the camera with a piece of dark matt board or something.

  6. #6

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    Re: Lenses for circular pictures on 8x10

    Well, thanks for your interest and for all those answers!

    Yes, a piece of cardboard will do the trick. Lenses I already have would even be perfectly usable if I chose this solution.
    But it will be hard to justify the choice of a circular picture if it's only an aesthetic one.
    To have a mechanical constraint given by the design of the lens was an interesting challenge for me. I would be able to print the whole field the lens could capture.

  7. #7
    Jac@stafford.net's Avatar
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    Re: Lenses for circular pictures on 8x10

    The images you point to are 'printed' round. The lenses used were normal.

  8. #8
    DannL's Avatar
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    Re: Lenses for circular pictures on 8x10

    Even the article states . . . " are printed in circular forms that echo what the lens of Luster’s 8 x 10 Deardorff field camera sees". Early Kodak cameras had a mask at the film plane.
    "Photography is a marvelous discovery, a science that has attracted the greatest intellects, an art that excites the most astute minds — and one that can be practiced by any imbecile." – Nadar, 1856

  9. #9

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    Re: Lenses for circular pictures on 8x10

    Quote Originally Posted by Jac@stafford.net View Post
    The images you point to are 'printed' round. The lenses used were normal.
    That's not obvious!
    For Gowin, many sources (including the one under) point that he used lenses with smaller-than-requested-coverage on his 8x10 camera.

    You can find a beautiful post about circular pictures and how photographers have achieved this form in a blog post by Alec Soth (great artist btw) :
    http://alecsothblog.wordpress.com/20...helmet-shield/

  10. #10
    C. D. Keth's Avatar
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    Re: Lenses for circular pictures on 8x10

    Quote Originally Posted by Camillou View Post
    But it will be hard to justify the choice of a circular picture if it's only an aesthetic one.
    You're making a purely aesthetic choice by picking a lens with inadequate coverage. It's not like you're constrained by optical science or finances like Atget was when he made all those pictures that ran out of coverage for the rise he needed. The mechanism by which you achieve a circular image is the only thing that changes.
    -Chris

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