Looking for Mojo --

[Jack Flesher]

Looking for Mojo -- What are your favorite lenses and why?

Background: A few shooting buddies and I were discussing our preferred lenses and realized that our tastes have migrated from always wanting to use lenses that deliver ultra-crisp resolution to finding some that render the image in a bit more singular fashion. The problem is how to describe a specific lens' signature look -- or its "Mojo" -- without seeing it first-hand.

What I mean by Mojo is some distinct look that belongs to a lens or series of lenses -- in other words, a lens that can deliver a sharp image but also maintains a unique look or signature. Maybe it has great Bokeh or smoother color or delivers better shadow detail than others in its class. One example would be the Cooke 945 "portrait" or soft-focus lens. It is definitely soft-focus wide open, but becomes quite sharp stopped down -- and yet maintains a smoothness throughout that range that is unique. Obviously there are other lenses with their own unique qualities out there too, so hopefully you get the idea.

By contrast, Kerry Thalmann has his excellent list of "classics" and most of these lenses will deliver stunningly detailed images but don't necessarily have any unique character trait. A prime example of one of these ultra-crisp lenses is my Rodenstock 150 APO Sironar S -- it delivers images so sharp you feel like your eyeballs are getting cuts on them when you view a transparency made with it, yet IMO it lacks any specific character trait other than that extreme resolution. Not that ultra-sharp and accurate color is a bad thing, just that it isn't necessarily distinctive...

So whether it is old, new, classic or not, if you have a favorite lens or lenses you feel are distinctive, can you please share what they are and include a brief description of what each unique look is? Also, please be sure to state whether you primarily use it with color, B&W or both.

Thanks in advance!

[Oren Grad]

my Rodenstock 150 APO Sironar S -- it delivers images so sharp you feel like your eyeballs are getting cuts on them when you view a transparency made with it, yet IMO it lacks any specific character trait other than that extreme resolution

The current plasmats do have distinctive characters compared not just to so-called classic lenses but also to each other. The distinction is most readily seen in the OOF rendering, which is quite different among the different brands. Photograph a stand of trees from nearby with the lens set for a middling aperture with each of the current plasmats; the way the trees fuzz out with distance will provide a distinctive "signature" for each one.

[Joseph O'Neil]

Fujinon 105mm CMW. Razor sharp, fairly lieghtwieght, not bad on movements, but I think because there are so few 105mm lenses out there, and because 90mm is a defacto standard in 4x5 use, the 105 fives you a slightly different "look" than the norm.

Byt that I mean, it "feels" like a 90mm when shooting with it, or when doing prints - the print has the "feel" of a 90mm, but not quite, and it's something you cannot exactly put your finger on if you don't know it was a 105mm it was shot with.

Also, i have a very good, used 90mm Angulon, and another bigger 90mm that covers 5x7, but the 105 gives me a much better range of movements than my 90mm Angulon, and is easier to work with, and a lto lighter than my big 90mm I still carry my 90mm Angulon when backpacking, but my 105 gets used the majority of the time when I want something wide angle now.

There's something else i cannot quite put my finger on, but there's a subtle difference between Japanese and German lenses/glass I think. I only shoot B&W, so maybe it shows up more in colour, I dunno. My 105mm I bought used, but frankly it was pretty much brand new when I bought it from Badger. It even "smelled new", so i don't think it was very old, looked like somebody opened the box once, and said "nope".

By comparison, my 135mm Sironar-N I bought new too - i think the last year the made them as a matter of fact (they only sell the 135mm Sironar - S ), is the closest thing I can comapre it too in brand new lenses.

As a very general, broad, and ill-defined statement, comparing these two lenses, all I can say is that the German lenses seem to be "sharper" while the Japanese lenses seem to be "deeper". Does that make any sense, or do I just sound like a guy who been snifffing too much fix in the darkroom lately?

so there you go, my "future mojo classic"

Oh yeah, as new lenses go, the 105mm is fairly inexpensive. Never hurts, eh?

joe

[Ralph Barker]

FWIW, Jack, I'm still mostly a "crispy critter" - preferring relatively modern lens designs that provide as much sharpness and coverage as my budget will take. When I'm in a soft mood, I'll use diffusion filters or other things to give the type of softness I want for the specific image. That might be a Zeiss Softar, white net, black net, or even 1/4" bubble wrap rubber-banded over the (otherwise sharp) lens. The results are certainly different than those produced by the old classic soft-focus lenses, but my mojo is on the thrifty side. ;-)

[William Mortensen]

I've actually found myself wishing for uncoated modern lenses; for b/w work, the contrast of a multicoated lense can be a bit harsh compared to the "yumminess" of an uncoated lens where the flare takes a bit of the hard edge off. I recently bought a Caltar II-N 300mm, and found that while it was ultra-mega-turbo-sharp, the tones just don't seem to flow as smoothly. Mind you, I'm used to older optics, and perhaps just haven't adjusted my processing yet...

Personally, I've really enjoyed the old Wollensak Velostigmats, and think they're one of the sleepers in terms of price and, if not raw sharpness, at least having a nice look and feel to them.

[Ben Calwell]

My old Schneider 180mm convertible Symmar has a softness that I like for some images. I call it my N-1 lens. It seems to automatically cut the contrast on some scenes, which is good sometimes.

[Capocheny]

Jack,

You must be talking about "bokeh..."

It's a term that gets used a LOT over on the P.net Leica forum (and generates a LOT of hot and heavy discussions/arguments there! ] For example, people go on and on about a 35 Summicron version 4 giving the most beautiful bokeh in the world! And, others talk about older Leica lenses giving better bokeh than the newer models. LOL... they really get into a feeding frenzie over there!

So, I'm surmising that you're talking about a lens which gives you sharpness where you want sharpness but gives pleasing softness in those OOF areas? For example, shooting a portrait with a longer lens gives you a nice sharp image of the subject but the background area is out of focus... people on that particular forum argue over whether the OOF areas are a nice, soft rounded shape or that it gives an octagonal, harder shaped OOF area (from the shutter blades of their lenses.) This is what they refer to as the "bokeh" characteristic of a particular lens. Is this what you're talking about?

I can't say that I've noticed any specific "soft and pleasing OOF areas" in the lenses I've used... mostly just nice sharp, crispy images from shooting at f16, 22, or smaller. However, it might be interesting to try some shots at f5.6 to see what happens with those OOF areas.

Cheers

[Christopher Perez]

I too have been looking for a bit of "mojo" in various lenses. It's led me to consider ancient vs merely old vs brand new. I feel as if I have uncovered a few potentially "heretical" facts.

This past weekend I took a small stack of 150mm lenses, including a modern multi-coatedplasmat APO wonderoptic, a 30 year old plasmat, and a 70 year old tessar formula lens out of a wee-walk through my neighborhood.

<ul>
<li>For resolution, with the sun over my shoulder, I have to say there is absolutely no difference between the lenses.
<li>For contrast, there's not a whole lot of difference. In fact, the uncoated 70 year old lens is simply awesome in terms of contrast. But then, the Arca Swiss I have has 171mm standards and a very nice "roomy" bellows for light to not bounce around in. And I feel that if there was a broader contrast range, the single and multi-coated lenses would be demonstrably different than the uncoated lens.
<li>For out of focus area rendering there is a difference. The 70 year old and 30 year old lenses are wonderful in the way they treat the out of focus areas. There's a lack of "harshness" that the APOwonderoptic exhibited.
<li>As an experiment, I remounted the APOwonderoptic into an old shutter and Voila!, the out of focus rendering matched the older lenses. The difference? The old shutters have 10 or more aperture blades and the new shutter has only 5.
</ul>

I also hauled out my incredibly contrasty, extremely sharp Schneider 210mm Xenar f/6.1 and a really nice old 21cm Voightlander Heliar f/4.5. Both lenses are single coated.

<ul>
<li>At f/8 and f/11, the Schneider is a visibly better lens when the negatives are viewed at 160x magnification. At 10x, the Schneider looks sharper and contrastier. But the Heliar has this really "sweet" overlay of uncorrected aberrations (at least that's how it appears to me).
<li>For contrast, the Schneider is visibly better than the Heliar at f/8 and f/11. And I know from previous comparisons that my single coated Xenar matches the contrast performance of my multi-coated Nikkor 200 M f/8.
<li>For out of focus area rendering, both lenses are equal at f/8 and f/11. There is a smoothness to both lenses that is just thrilling to look at. However, by f/16 and f/22, the Schneider becomes "harsh". The reason? The aperture shape of the Copal 1 that the Xenar is mounted to is quite round at wider apertures, and becomes rather sharp sided as it stops down.
<li>I remounted the Xenar into a round aperture shutter and, again, Voila!, the Xenar and Heliar match in terms of out of focus renderings all the way down to f/22. Yes, the Heliar comes mounted in a multi-blade apertured shutter that looks nearly perfectly round all the way down through the range of apertures.
</ul>

My heretical conclusions are:

<ul>
<li>The sharpest lens you will ever own is a tripod.
<li>Having a lens is better than not having a lens. That is, lenses are largely equal within their specified image circle.

<li>I have empiric evidence that shows modern lenses mounted in round aperture shutters change the characterists of the out of focus areas to match earlier lenses (both single and uncoated) that typically came mounted in round aperture shutters. There is no "magic" in lens design that changes this fact.
<li>Contrast differences between single and multi-coated optics are not as great as some marketing literature would lead us to believe. In fact, under typical 6 to 1 contrast ratio scenes, I can't tell the difference between them.
<li>With the sun over the shoulder, uncoated lenses can match coated optics contrast. What appears to be more important than lens age and coating (or the lack thereof) is that lens surfaces are clean.
<li>Uncoated lens resolution performance can match coated optics. [see the following exception]
<li>Of all the gear I have ever owned, tested, and used, only the Heliar, Fuji SF, and Rodenstock Imagon or poorly assembled lenses give visibly different images.
</ul>

So where is the "mojo"? I think it's in the shape of the aperture. It can also be in how a lens behaves beyond it's specified field of coverage (see Kerik's wonderful samples of this effect).

[Bill_1856]

Goerz Dagors, 120mm, 150mm, and 210mm, all coated and in post-WW2 shutters.

[darter]

Mr. Perez, I know about the effects of the Fuji and Imagon products, but am very curious what sort of an effect you have gotten with the Heliar design? Thanks.