What are the advantages and disadvantages of these 3 lenses?
1. 150 f5.6 APO-Sironar N Copal 0
2. 150 f5.6 Symmar-s mc copal 0
3. 150 f5.6 Fujinon w copal
I would love to get one of these, but right now have 210 and 90 for my Tachihara.
By the way, this board got me hooked and now I can't put the darn camera down.
Look them up here.
Consider size, weight, coverage, and filter size. You'd be hard-put to tell the difference in image quality.
All pretty good. You might add the Caltar II-N to your list, since it is identical to the Apo-Sironar N and usually less expensive.
You might add the Caltar II-N to your list, since it is identical to the Apo-Sironar N and usually less expensive.
How is it that my Caltar II-N 150mm is in a #1 shutter while the Sironar N uses a #0?
Other than slight color rendition variances, you will see no difference between the aforementioned optics.
Your list also includes the Calumet-S II Multicoated lens, since it's the same as the Symmar-S lens that you mentioned.
I have and like the Symmar-S multicoated lens and like it. But, I've never done any side-by-side testing with this lens against others in the same focal length.
Hard to tell the advantages and disadvantages without knowing what your priorities are - cost, size, weight, image circle, etc. I've never used these lenses but from the brands and model designations I believe they're pretty much equal optically so a buying decsion would normally be made on other factors but you don't say which ones are important to you.
Brian Ellis
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you do criticize them you'll be
a mile away and you'll have their shoes.
My preference among the three is exactly as you've listed them - the Rodenstock first, then the Schneider, then the Fujinon. I really like the Apo-Sironar-N, could probably live with a Symmar-S if I had to, but wouldn't use a Fujinon if you paid me.
They're all excellent lenses by bench test, and each is capable of producing a crisp, contrasty picture under a wide range of circumstances. But there are differences in the characteristic "look" of the different brands, including the balance between resolution and contrast and the way out-of-focus areas are rendered. Most users either never notice these differences or consider them so subtle as to be irrelevant for all practical purposes. A few of us have mutant brains miswired so badly that we groove on subtleties like that.
A while back, I did some testing of 10 modern 150mm lenses to satisfy my own curiousity about all the "noise" that goes on about various lenses from different manufacturers. The sharpest lens I tested was a Schneider Symmar-S MC (yes, resolved just a little more than a Sironar-S). Of the 10, only one was substantially below the others in optical quality and I suspect that it may have been just a bad sample. For the rest, you had to really go beyond 20X to pick up minor differences and for the top 5, around 40X. . Buy the cheapest modern lens with the coverage you think you need (almost all modern 150's are just fine in coverage for general landscape shooting) and spend your money you save on a spare meter.
Just wondering why you left out the Rodenstock Apo Sironar - S 5.6. I use this and it is a FINE lens, small, lightweight and VERY sharp. By far my favorite lens. Just one more to consider.
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