Thank you all for the help with this. It seems like there is very little to go on other than people's subjective experiences. Living in Iceland, I really have no opportunity to test any lenses, as there are not even any stores that sell used large format lenses that I could try something at. I will do my best to find a reasonably priced lens or maybe two, and test it/them.
Of course, I know it.Originally Posted by Bob Salomon
The graph shows modulation_transfer vs radius, the 45 corner is at 77mm radius, as 45 diagonal is 153.7 mm, and at 77mm radius Rodenstock says the N 150 does it better than the S.
Bob, I'm confident that the S is a superior glass. S vs N comes from a market segmentation, and S was the top notch. No doubt.
I know very well what is ED glass and why it was used in the S. I'm an amateur, and I have to use what I have, if I had been a Pro sure I would have been using the S range, Anyway my N 300 is crazy sharp, to me it is difficult to understand how a lens can be as good as this one is.
You're right about much of this being very subjective, but if it's clean, sharp contrast you're after, the experiences of others here is more helpful than mine.
I use the Cooke for portrait work at 311mm, and for occasional long shots. I have a 150XL for everything else.
I like the clinical sharpness of the XL, it really delivers images like a typical modern lens, in all aspects. It's unique because of its weight and size combined with a healthy image circle for 8x10, but not unique in the way it renders.
The Cooke definitely isn't a soft-focus lens by any means, it's got a very sharp rendering.
What's interesting is that great pains were taken to control flare and tame contrast, using their highly-touted coatings.
Whatever it is, there's a creamy richness to the Cooke images that is absent from any other modern lens I've used.
This may not suit the work you're doing, as the Cooke is often used wide open, or at f8; I don't think I've ever stopped it down past f11. I may have to try something at f32 or f45 one of these days.
Anyway, it sounds like a top-tier Sironar-S is what you'll need and use most; like your film holders and tripod, it's gear that once it's there, you rarely think about, because it performs as it should every time.
I do not shot 8x10, only 5x7 while my stock of frozen Velvia lasts and 4x5. My Sironar N 5,6/300 is a superb lens and I would use it with confidence if I shot 8x10.
I use regularly Apo Sironar S 150/5,6 and 210/5,6. They replaced my Sironar N lenses of the same focal lenghts simply because my transparencies were a bit better with these lenses. I didn´t changed my Sironar N 5,6/300 because of the price of the Apo Sironar S 5,6/300. If I could afford it, I woud buy it.
The actual huge prices of Apo sironar S lenses of 300 and 360 mm are not worth the increase in quality from N to S.
+1!! We all know that IC, but they are going to worry that they are not getting the ultimate sharpness from that over-priced lens with the marketing hype. And they buy into it. Me, I plug along with my Dagors and Artars and am very happy!
Yup, but some would much rather quote charts, numbers and senseless graphs and other nonsense than go out and take photos. I wonder if Edward Weston agonized this much about the differences between the N and the S? And he actually made images! No, he used a $5 lens that his friends thought he paid too much for it. So go ahead and spring for that Apo-Sironar Super S, so you don't have to keep worrying about it!
Since you're in Reykavik, why don't you look up Gudmundur Ingolfson, who is a professional photographer and actually knows a lot! He probably has several 12" lenses as he has several 8x10 Dursts. I'm sure can explain to you the sillyness of this thread!
Graphs and charts are extremely important, if you know what they mean and how they can impact your choices.
But if you can’t go and actually test lenses to make a decision or if budget is the single most important criteria for your choice then anything will work.
We once had a super studio as a customer that did hundreds of color catalog pages a month. They were so critical of their results that absolutely everything they used to shoot and evaluate their work was matched so each photographer’s station and each art director’s work area was meticulously laid out.
For their Rodenstock lenses we had to ask the factory to match all of the lenses for color, distortion, fall off, MTF, etc.
When I visited them with their dealer we found that all of their light boxes had been measured with a color temp. Meter and the actual color balances were marked out in sharpies over the surface of each box to show the dealer how inconsistent the boxes were in color temp. Across the surface of each box!
The vast majority of members of this group are no where near as critical as that type of studio, but there are many that are and who need and make use of those graphs in their buying decision.
If you are satisfied with your $5.00 lens, fine, you aren’t doing work that requires more. But if you aren’t then yo7 might learn how to use those graphs!
Silly maybe but there is a difference in the way modern plasmats render images
Any will get you an acceptable image but each will look slightly different
Whether that difference is important or not is up to the photographer
Dagors are lovely but I wouldn't shoot one for some images while for other shots nothing could be better
For modern plasmats I have preferences, in general I prefer Apo Sironar S for images without people, Symmar S for images with people
I'd take any Apo Symmar over any version of a Sironar-N, but I don't like the Apo Symmar L
I'd take any Nikkor over any Sironar-N
I don't like any Fujinon lens but I can see why others do
I don't like the way certain modern plasmats look, I like the way others do
If I had a Sironar N or a similar Fujinon and had to shoot with it (no other lens available) I would and wouldn't worry that much about it
it's a fine lens
I owned an Apo Sironar N 300 at one point, I shot with it, shot jobs with it, it was ok, nothing to complain about at all
I didn't use the 300 length often enough to shell out for Apo S
I own several modern plasmats all Rodenstock and a 300 Sironar N which I never use. I always use the Dagors.
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