Thoughts on the Nikkor T 360/500/720 set?

[Pere Casals]

while some are successfully using the 720 version for 8x10 images.

Who is succesfully shooting 8x10 with the 720?

At one point I was going to acquire a 720, but as I wanted it also for 810 I made an extensive web search about that. What I found is comments like this one: "the 720 will cover 8x10, although I haven't tested to see how sharp the corners are".

But I found no reliable source about that, and of course no well scanned crop of the 810 corners.

One thing is using the 720mm succesfully in 810, for example in a shot with OOF corners, and another thing is that the T 720mm is a 810 lens. Those are different things.

[myrick]

Bryan, if catalog isn't wrong, the T ED 720 covers only 5x7 with no movements.

http://www.kennethleegallery.com/pdf...rmatLenses.pdf

Does anyone know if these lenses would work with a Linhof technika 3. I know that say it's a lens made for a short amount of bellows. Does anyone have an idea of how much extension in the bellows is need on the 720mm?

[Huub]

The Nikon brochure on largeformat lenses states the focal flange distance is 469.2 mm. When your bellows is not long enough to carry this lens, you can use a tophat or even two. It complicates swings on the front standard, but these are a pita with tele-lenses anyway.

[B.S.Kumar]

Does anyone know if these lenses would work with a Linhof technika 3. I know that say it's a lens made for a short amount of bellows. Does anyone have an idea of how much extension in the bellows is need on the 720mm?

In general, bellows draw for telephoto lenses is about 2/3 the nominal focal length, give or take a few mm.

Kumar

[aphcl84]

I was reading though the thread and having recently bought a 360-500-720mm lens set I thought that I would test the image quality at the edge of the 8x10 image circle.

My test setup was as follows, Toyo 45GII with a 750mm rail, two tripod blocks at either end mounted to tripods to prevent movement, a Sony a7rIII mounted to the rear standard, and 70mm of shift plus 135mm of rise to achieve the needed 152mm off center movement to match the 8x10 image circle. Previewing with the ground glass shows around 380mm illuminated by the lens when focused at infinity. The lens was set to f22 with the 720mm rear lens.

I was originally going to use the moon as my distance target but it kept moving out of frame too quickly so I settled for trees at some 150' distance. I'll post the image and let you all decide for yourselves if you consider it to be sharp enough to use on 8x10, remember this is a 35mm frame, also there is some mechanical vignetting from the e-mount adapter I was using, not from the lens itself.

Nikkor 720mm @ 152mm by Jim Heath, on Flickr

[Alan Klein]

Jim, It looks like you have CA chromatic aberration. Notice it along the edges of the leaves.

[aphcl84]

Jim, It looks like you have CA chromatic aberration. Notice it along the edges of the leaves.

Yes, that seems to be the main issue this far off axis.

[MAubrey]

Yes, that seems to be the main issue this far off axis.

Digital sensors tend to show more CA with lenses designed for film than you would find on film itself, especially purple fringing in the highlights. This is great performance. I'm super impressed by how well resolution holds to the end of the frame.

[Bernice Loui]

Purple fringe in digital images are not always due to CA alone.. there are a long list if lens to image sensor issues that does not occur with film (which as a differnt set of problems). Purple fringe could be due to lens light bouncing around internally between lens <-> sensor filter stack (IR, Bayer array, micro lenses and..).

Modern lenses specific to digital cameras tend to optimize to minize this much as the design and market value allows.


Bernice

Digital sensors tend to show more CA with lenses designed for film than you would find on film itself, especially purple fringing in the highlights. This is great performance. I'm super impressed by how well resolution holds to the end of the frame.

[MAubrey]

Purple fringe in digital images are not always due to CA alone.. there are a long list if lens to image sensor issues that does not occur with film (which as a differnt set of problems). Purple fringe could be due to lens light bouncing around internally between lens <-> sensor filter stack (IR, Bayer array, micro lenses and..).

Modern lenses specific to digital cameras tend to optimize to minize this much as the design and market value allows.


Bernice

Correct.