90mm lens accessories

[Travis]

Hi,

I have just purchased a Schneider 90mm /f8 lens (approx. 1983 manufacture) with a Copal #0 shutter on eBay. It is on its way from the U.S to me and I'm wondering if I need a lens wrench to fit it to the lens board? If so, is the Rodenstock model the best?

Also, I would like to use a polarizer on this lens. Is there a particular brand/sort that anyone can recommend? Do I need a special wide angle version? Can these be found online?

Would also appreciate tips on the best value center filters for this lens and where they can be found. I believe I require a 67mm thread.

Thanks,
Travis

[Louie Powell]

I purchased a Caltar 90mm f8 (a relabeled Schneider) a couple of months ago. My eperience was that I did not need a lens wrench to mount it on my lens board.

After removing the rear element and retaining ring, I reattached the shutter and front element to my lens board and then finger tightened the retaining ring and reattached the rear element. My camera uses wooden lens boards and I had fabricated a board from a piece of basswood glued to a piece of wood paneling material. Wood is fairly soft, so twisting the front element while holding the retaining nut with my fingers compressed the wood fibers so that the whole assembly is tight enough.

I have made a few exposures with the lens, and so far I haven't seen any evidence that I need a center filter. Most of the postings I have seen about 90mm lenses suggest that center filters aren't needed with this lens, and maybe not even with wider lenses if you are shooting black and white and are making traditional prints where you have the ability to even out the exposure while printing.

The front thread is 67mm.

[Jim Rice]

About the polarizer, this seems to be one of the great unanswerable questions. When I bought mine, Del Hoagland suggested a 72mm standard with a step up ring. I vignette often.

[Graeme Hird]

Travis,

If you are planning to use the lens on 5x4 or wider, you might find the uneven skies from this filter objectionable. I certainly do!

Try getting your 24mm lens out on your 35mm gear and take a few pictures with a polariser on. This will let you see if you like the effect before forking out cash for a new and expensive polariser.

Cheers,

[ISO 2]

Using the same lens (although acquired from a more reputable source), I've not found the field of view particularly wide enough for my liking. The dampener really hit home when I found out how restricted its coverage appears. Virtually all my my images with shift and tilt have some indication of assymetrical vignetting at f11. It's a crisp sharp performer and fine for straight no movement shooting nor any need for a centre-filter when used in this manner. However that often isn't the reason for using large format.

As the lens is contrasty, the value of a polariser saturating an image is hampered by the field effect mentioned above, but also by the effect of increased contrast on am image: watch those highlights!

[Brian Ellis]

With respect to your lens wrench question, no you don't absolutely have to use a lens wrench with any lens and retaining ring I've owned. As long as the lens board is the flat metal type you can first tighten the retaining ring as much as you can by hand, then stick a pointed object (I used the tine of a table fork) into one of the slots on the ring and push hard so that the ring tightens as much as possible. That's mildly scary because if the pointed object slips while you're pushing it there's a possibility that the shutter or something else on the lens could be damaged but that never happened to me and shouldn't be a realistic probelm as long as you're careful

Having said that, a spanner wrench makes life much easier and probably safer and I'd suggest buying one as soon as you feel that you're committed to large format photography. Calumet/Rodenstock make a very inexpensive flat metal wrench that will work for small shutters (#0 and #1), costs only about $15, and weighs almost nothing so that it's easy to carry around in your backpack.

It's drawback is that it can only be used with a flat lensboards and only with small shutters. It can't be used with Copal #3 shutters or older large shutters like the Ilex #4 and #5. It also can't be used with lens boards designed so that the rear lens element and shutter sit down in a hole in the lensboard (sorry for the inelegant language but I don't know how else to say it) such as the Deardorff lens boards and probably others.

For that kind of lens board design you need a wrench of the type sold by S.K.Grimes that uses two sharp points to insert in the retaining ring slot. The Grimes wrench is almost infinitely adjustable and so can be used on old lenses that predate Copal/Compurs and also can be used with shutters larger than #0 and #1. The downside is the cost (about $35) and the fact that it is larger and heavier than the Calumet/Rodenstock wrench. Still it isn't all that costly or big and its versatility outweighs these two minimal (IMHO) disadvantages. I used to carry mine around in my pack until airport security insepected my backpack on my last trip and decided the the Grimes spanner wrench was a potential weapon that had to be confiscated. I'll be ordering another one soon.

[Bob Salomon]

The Rodenstock Lens Wrench has 4 edges. One edge for for 0 size shutters, one edge for 1 size shutters, one edge for Copal 3 size shutters and one edge for Prontor Professional 3 size shutters.

The Toyo wrench is the one that does not work on any 3 size shutters.

[Brian Ellis]

Right you are Bob. Mine was given to me by Calumet when I bought a new lens from them and I had always assumed it was a Rodenstock. But on looking closely at the lettering, most of which is worn away and not very visible, I see that it is indeed a Toyo. Thanks for the correction.

[Dan Dozer]

Hi Travis,

I have the same lens (assuming it is the super angulon) and it is the exact same vintage (serial number 14,009,317). I bought mine new 20 years ago and have had excellent results with it ever since. I also use it on my old 5 x 7 field camera (can't get any shift out of it due to compression of bellows), and am very satisfied with the coverage. Most of my work is shot at around F22 or smaller and I've never had any problems with vignetting.

My lens has a flat washer with slots as the retaining ring and can be tightened by hand. However, as Brian suggests, a standard asjustable spanner wrench would be a good and cheap investment. Regarding the size of filters, since I also have a Schneider 210 mm which uses 77 mm filters, I have a 67 - 77 step up ring and all my filters are 77 mm in size. My polarizer is an old standard Tiffen and I've never felt the need to try a center filter on it before.

Even though I do mainly landscape photos, I sometimes use a lot of shifting of the lens in my work - many times as far as the camera will allow. I've never had any vignetting problems before so I think that unless you shoot at F8 or F11, even with a 67 mm filter, you probably won't see many/any problems. If you already have one that size, you should try it out before buying a larger one. If not - you probably want to go with one a little larger just to be safe.