With an extra tripod at the front
With an extra tripod at the front
This is the answer for my weight concerns….=> it is an issue, but there is a solution if you choose to go that route.
That is part of the question. I like the look that you can get with a cooke anastigmat, a heliar or a protar, but am not sold on the petzvals.
It seems that 16” is the right size, but i assume these are heavy and don’t come with a shutter.
These extra complications are best to avoid for beginners like me?
The Fujinon L 420 ticks a lot of boxes: single coated Tessar design, agreeable 8x10 focal length, modern shutter, reasonable weight burden on a Chamonix.
Focusing should be fine at f9 unless you’re taking portraits in very dim light. The only other difficulty would be if you’re using strobes and need a dark environment not to “overpower them” when taking the shot.
The advantage of a brighter lens though would be to decrease the depth of focus… so it depends what are you looking for….
I'd vote for the 14" Commercial Ektar. It's a big chunk of a shutter, but the overall weight is reasonable. And hey, if it was good enough for Yusuf Karsh, it's good enough for me. I use mine on my Canham 8x10 regularly and have no problems with it on the somewhat spindly front standard. Ditto my 250 Wide-Field Ektar, which is a bigger, heavier piece of glass.
I haven't weighed them directly to compare but in my mind, the 355 G-Claron isn't a dramatic weight savings over the 14" Commercial Ektar. I'd rather have the tessar design and the faster maximum aperture for doing portraits. The G-Claron would win if you needed to do a LOT of movements as it has the image circle big enough to cover my 14x17 with movement. The Commercial Ektar is going to top out at 11x14 with very limited movement.
Last edited by Greg; 21-Nov-2023 at 15:03. Reason: added info
No happy users of the Kowa 360f9?
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