355 G-Claron or 360 Rodenstock APO Sironar N

[Scott Rosenberg]

rodger,

all i can speak from is my own experience. amoung several others, i also own a 210 and 150-Sironar-S which i love. i also have a 305-G-Claron and a 355 Schneider Gold Dot Dagor.

my impressions are thus...
of these four, which have been mentioned in this thread, i like the G-Claron least of all, which is to say that i like it a lot and consider it a fine lens, i just prefer the others to it. i really like the sironar-s glass, as it has a unique look to it. it's sharp where it's sharp and smooth where it isn't. wonderful glass. as much as i like the sironar-s, i prefer the Schneider Gold Dot Dagor most of all. in fact, of all of the lenses i have, my absolute favorite is the Schneider Dagor. tough, for me at least, to verbalize the qualities. i wouldn't call it 'schmaltzie' or overly 'creamy' like my heliar, but it is VERY smooth, subtle, and SHARP. i especially love it for black and white work and portraiture. it is one fantastic lens - it's got the smoothness of a dagor and the sharpness a sironar.

hope this helps!
scott

[John Kasaian]

Richard,

I'll second Jim Galli's thoughts on the 14" Commercial Ektar. While not a "bokeh babe" they are super for portraits.

[Jason Greenberg Motamedi]

I agree with the general gist here that a G-Claron is not an appropriate lens for portraiture; its just way too harsh. While I agree with Oren that the Rodenstock is probably the best of the batch, I don't really like any plasmats for portraiture. They are excellent for many things, but for head and shoulders portaiture, I would follow the Galli train; a 14" Commerical Ektar is a fine portrait lens. Nice and sharp but not cutting, good tonality. However, if it were me I would look for a 360mm Heliar. This lens can't be topped for skin, however it is a massive lens and can't be put into a normal shutter.

[Ken Lee]

If an out-of-focus area contains specular highlights against a dark background, it's fairly easy to tell the difference between lenses. We prefer them rendered as even disks, not with rings around the edges or bright spots in the center. I have taken the liberty of extracting some illustrations from the article cited by Oren.




Good Bokeh


Bad Bokeh




It gets harder to see the difference between lenses when we encounter less blatant conditions: complex areas that are 3-dimensional, and which contain few or no specular highlights.

[Phong]

As I progress in my appreciation of bokeh, I find that the number of iris blades actually plays a very small role in the bokeh rendition, if any. In fact, it does not play any role at all in the situation where it is most important to me: shooting with the lens wide open. It is where you can really see the bokeh characteristics of a lens, and often is the optimal condition to enjoy the bokeh, though this of course also depends on many factors such as the subject and the background, in particular distance, backlight, specular highlights, and background colors.

Secondly, bokeh is largely a matter of taste. There are situations where I prefer one kind over another, just like there are situations where I might prefer film development with more or less grain, to use a crude analogy.

To me, bokeh is not so much about hexagonal or other polygonal rendition, bothersome though that might be. There is so much more about characteristics of background rendition than that.

[John O'Connell]

When I was buying my 14" lens for 8x10, the modern plasmats were too expensive so I bought a G-Claron. I wanted to make bitingly sharp portraits. If I could have afforded a modern Sironar, I would have purchased one.

Now, the situation is reversed, and all of the 360 taking plasmats are going for a song on the used market. If I was buying today, I'd probably just buy the first one from the big 4 that came along cheap.

I will also step into the bokeh debate for a moment. I've generally moved away from lenses with good bokeh because I find them to be lacking performance in the plane of sharp focus (old Leica Summicrons, a Xenar). The Sironars, however, strike a good compromise for bokeh BEHIND the focal plane.

[Ken Lee]

Is this bokeh good or bad ? It was taken quite close, at 1:1 or closer.

See http://www.kenleegallery.com/html/gallery/daylily.htm

[Jim Galli]

This was taken with a 14 1/2" 1930's Bausch & Lomb Projector lens of triplet design that I paid a whopping $14.99 for, and I love the bokeh. Others who know more than me may hate it. It's all pretty subjective. No need to worry about aperture blades though. They ain't any.

Delicato

[Roger Richards]

Man, the knowledge you guys are throwing at me requires some time to digest :-) I really appreciate your responses, as I am such a relative newcomer to LF.

Scott, that is really interesting info on the Gold Dot Dagor. My film choice for 8x10 is color negative, so that is a factor. Also, it must be similar in rendering to my 240 APO Sironar-S and this 355-360 focal length lens I am hunting will be for head and torso portraiture, nothing close up.

I should also mention that the camera I am using is a Phillips Explorer, and it is one of Dick's latest that uses Technika-style boards. Interestingly, the monster 240 Sironar-S fits fine, the camera is incredibly rigid. The rear element is 80mm in diameter, and the large Sironar and other plasmats are all the same, so they will fit. Dick Phillips, a really fine gentleman, spent some time checking his manuals for a selection of 360mm lenses that would fit the Explorer for me.

[Oren Grad]

the monster 240 Sironar-S

Roger, you will recalibrate your understanding of "monster" once you have one of the 360 plasmats in hand. As for me, having wrestled with the 480 N, the 240 S seems downright petite now...

Ken, if you want to see an OOF effect I don't like, look at Henry's puppy snap, taken with a Fujinon, at the link above. The OOF pebbles covering the ground turn to puppy litter as you move up the frame. Situationally appropriate, I guess, but not terribly pleasing visually.

Jim's projector-lens snap is great. But a whole series taken in this style would scream "look at all this luscious OOF stuff!" The effect is so overwhelming that it calls attention to itself, and the pictures end up being about the lens and not about the subject. That's OK if it's what you want - I'd sure have a lot of fun playing with it - but it wouldn't be my choice if the point is to make portraits where the focus of attention is the person.