Wide aperture performance of 110mm to 120mm lenses

[Ari]

Here's the thing about the 110. The first glass element comes out to about where the threads are. That is, if you screw in a filter tight, you can touch the lead element with the filter. People scratch the lens that way. Design flaw IMHO.

There are a couple of easy ways out of this -- find a junker 67mm filter and remove the filter from the ring. Now you have a 67-67 extension ring that you can use as a spacer between filter and lens.

Second, you can use a 67-72mm step up ring and use 72mm filters (72mm is just an example, use whatever filter size you want).

Third, if you are scanning your film, just forget about using filters and do your adjustments in photoshop.

What I did was to standardize on 67mm filters, used option one above for my 110, option two above for lenses that were less than 67mm, and then for all my photography I used option three, which rendered my filters and step up rings a waste of time and money.

I mostly agree with you about using Photoshop in place of most filters, but some still have to account for how to use ND or Polarizing filters, whose effects can't be added after the shot.

[Bruce Watson]

Heliopan filters place the glass closer to the front of their ring thus eliminating this problem.

For me the Heliopan "slim" version is still a problem. But it's a Schneider problem and not a Heliopan problem IMHO.

[Arne]

Thank you to everyone for all the information about the 110 and filters. It sounds like it would be wise to use a step up ring with wider filter. Certainly a minor expense to protect an expensive lens.

We are all so lucky to have access to such amazing gear.

[Bernice Loui]

52mm filter does fit and work on the rear element of the 110mm XL. there is just enough clearance as along as the filter's glass is not at the very edge of the metal filter ring


This is what the threaded area of rear element looks like. If a filter is used on the rear element, focusing need to be done with the filter in place due to the slight shift in focus with -vs- without rear filter. Using the filter on the rear element helps reduce the flare. Rear filter location is common in high performance telephoto lenses like the Canon 300mm f2.8L and many others. Rear filter is also found in the Kinoptik Tegea both 5.7mm and 9.8mm and others.


Edge view of the front element, there is very little clearance between the front element and beginning of the threaded area. If a filter is to be used on the front element, apply a 67mm to 72mm step ring.


According to the folks at Schneider, the 110mm XL was optimized at f16, by f11 the performance is very good. Even f5.6 is very reasonable.

Symmar 110mm XL were not created equal. The initial few (I'm guessing about 12 maybe? This example is from the original six that was hand carried from Germany to the US by the Schneider rep) had a hand ground aspherical element, later production versions had aspherical element made by ultra high precision moulding. Schneider had a serious problem producing this lens initially. The back order wait was about one year.

The 110mm XL is considered a wide angle lens coverage of 105 degrees, if this large angle of view is not required, there can be a host of wide aperture lenses that could be more suitable for your project. More about the imaging needs and format size can help solicit lens suggestions.


Bernice

[Arne]

Thank you Bernice.

I've found a 110mm XL to buy in nice condition, so will see how it fits my needs. The wide coverage might come in handy at times.

I used Leica M cameras for many years (many years ago before they became so expensive). Leica lenses were often optimized for wider apertures, as that fit the way you worked with the camera, and because it was possible with shorter focal length lenses.

Lenses for larger formats, and for view cameras tend to have lenses optimized for other properties such as coverage and depth of field, given the longer focal lengths needed to cover the larger film area.

I do know of a few vintage lenses, such as the Planar and Xenotar 135mm, that were optimized for wider apertures. These types were made for 4x5/9x12 format and smaller, and for press style cameras. Very cool lenses, but way too expensive these days. I believe I have seen reference to other vintage lenses in the short normal to normal range that were similar. I haven't heard of any wider lenses that were optimized for wider apertures.

I'm sure the 110mm XL will be a fantastic lens. The only way to know how it will work for me is to try it out.

As far as my imaging needs, I'm using 4x5, B&W or color negative. Analog printing for smaller size prints, perhaps scanning and digital printing if I print larger. I've used 6x6 and 6x7 for similar work, scanned Portra 400, and printed digitally on inkjet to larger sizes. Using 4x5 will change the way I interact with my subjects, and give me slightly better quality.

I'm going to be working on a project exploring the people and places of central and northern Maine. So working inside, outside, various conditions. I'll be supplementing the 110/120 focal length with around a 180mm, a long-normal length. Lots of options there too. Easy enough to get a common f/5.6 lens like a Symmar, Sironar, or Fujinon, or other make.

But if you know of a lens in this 180mm range beyond these that I should look at please let me know. The wider the viewing aperture the better.

[Bernice Loui]

As with most lenses, there will be some variation. Even modern ones have a very small degree of this. Any used lens could have hidden problem or equal to new. Only way to really know is to test and see if any specific lens works for you.

Leica, Zeiss and many other small film format optics with large apertures often share the Gauss formulation for it's ability to achieve reasonable corrections at these apertures. The trade off is very shallow depth of focus. Film makers and video folks have used this to great advantage for a very long time. In the sheet film world, control of focus can be excellent allowing surprising ways of achieving selective focus as one of many creative image making tools. Sheet film optics easily achieves that shallow focus look with what appears to be small aperture in small imager format optics.

For moderate image circle optics (180mm ish), I'm a Kodak Ektar, Schneider Xenar fan. These are essentially Tessar designs and work surprisingly well. There are a limited number of Gauss designs in the LF optics world for a host of real world reasons.

There are also a long history and list of wide aperture soft focus lenses that IMO, only work and perform as designed and intended on 5x7 or larger sheet film contact printed.

Using and experimenting with a wide world of LF optics will reveal tuff like out of focus rendition, contrast differences, color rendition and a LOT more.


There is a very, very long history of discussion about all this optics stuff archived in LFF, do a search on what might interest you, read, post questions, try and figure what works best for you. In time and many, many sheets of film later, a fave set of lenses, camera, film and all related will happen, That is when the shift from hardware to creative image making can honestly begin.

Learning curve for a view camera can be steep. It is a different method of working. Only by doing can one discover if this is the means to an end for any given creative image making personality-artist.



Bernice

Thank you Bernice.

I've found a 110mm XL to buy in nice condition, so will see how it fits my needs. The wide coverage might come in handy at times.

I used Leica M cameras for many years (many years ago before they became so expensive). Leica lenses were often optimized for wider apertures, as that fit the way you worked with the camera, and because it was possible with shorter focal length lenses.

Lenses for larger formats, and for view cameras tend to have lenses optimized for other properties such as coverage and depth of field, given the longer focal lengths needed to cover the larger film area.

I do know of a few vintage lenses, such as the Planar and Xenotar 135mm, that were optimized for wider apertures. These types were made for 4x5/9x12 format and smaller, and for press style cameras. Very cool lenses, but way too expensive these days. I believe I have seen reference to other vintage lenses in the short normal to normal range that were similar. I haven't heard of any wider lenses that were optimized for wider apertures.

I'm sure the 110mm XL will be a fantastic lens. The only way to know how it will work for me is to try it out.

As far as my imaging needs, I'm using 4x5, B&W or color negative. Analog printing for smaller size prints, perhaps scanning and digital printing if I print larger. I've used 6x6 and 6x7 for similar work, scanned Portra 400, and printed digitally on inkjet to larger sizes. Using 4x5 will change the way I interact with my subjects, and give me slightly better quality.

I'm going to be working on a project exploring the people and places of central and northern Maine. So working inside, outside, various conditions. I'll be supplementing the 110/120 focal length with around a 180mm, a long-normal length. Lots of options there too. Easy enough to get a common f/5.6 lens like a Symmar, Sironar, or Fujinon, or other make.

But if you know of a lens in this 180mm range beyond these that I should look at please let me know. The wider the viewing aperture the better.

[IanG]

There's a big difference between Tessar and type lenses and the quite modern lenses in the initial post, they are like chalk and cheese. It's worth looking at Ken Lee's pages on Tessar lenses. Many of his images are with uncoated Tessars and coating does significantly improve the contrast.

However a 180mm or even 210mm Tessar design has excellent coverage with 5x4 and you'd only be using the centre of the image circle, the 210mm f6.3 Congo Osaka is a nice modern coated Tessar, small and light it's also a nice focal length with 5x4. However the 210mm f5.6 Symmar S is plentiful and inexpensive second hand and a excellent lens.

You may want to think about the overall weight etc of your kit, and portability.

Ian

[Bernice Loui]

Know any visual comparisons of images results via web driven electronic display is not going to be anywhere near the same as viewing the same results in real life. This is a very fixed and real limitation.

Another example of Tessar and others in the 200mm_ish focal length range. Overall optics performance is EXTREMELY complex is way far beyond the metric of "sharpness & contrast" so commonly applied to what some consider the "best" lens... not that simple.

http://www.hevanet.com/cperez/test/BigMash210.html


Not directly related to view camera optics, but does give examples of imaging optics behavior for the film and video folks can be found here. Those serious film folks tend to pick a set of matched optics to deliver a specific look that matches well with how the story needs to be presented. In the world of serious film making, both state of the art optics and best of the vintage is used to their best offerings with great effect. This has resulted in many vintage cinema optics being completely rebuilt and rehoused to function properly in current film and digital cinema cameras. Interestingly, film remains one of the preferred choices for major cinema releases.. even when the film production must be digitized for view distribution to viewers.

http://join.sharegrid.com/ultimate-v...lens-test.html



Bernice

[IanG]

Bernice, the only problem with Christopher Perez's 210mm lens tests you linked to is he appears to be testing them with a 5x4 camera/enlarger and these are lenses designed for normal use on 7x5 cameras. It's also a pity a more modern plasmat like a 210mm Symmar S wasn't included.

In the context of this thread where the OP is shooting 5x4 what's relevant is Perez shows 210mm Tessar & type lenses are excellent performers for the format, he states the 210mm f6.1 Xenar is the sharpest of the lenses he tested. But of course he's only tested the central parts of the image circle where we'd expect better sharpness.

Ian

[dave_whatever]

No, the lens is not designed for rear filters. If it was it would have come with some type of filter in place on it.

How do you think the rear filter threads got there, by accident?