Best lens for ultra closeup…portraits!

[Motdarnoc]

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about shooting some ultra closeup portraits with an 8x10. By closeup I mean full frame- cropped ears on the sides, at the chin on the bottom and somewhere along the forehead on top. Sooo, to not get the big nose little ears look, what lens would I have to get? I’m feeling like a “normal” lens (300-350mm) won’t give me the compression of features I’m looking for. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated! Bellows extension is another factor…
Thanks,
Tom

[arri]

I have an old pre war Emil Busch Bistelar 550mm f/7
That´s a perfect lens for this job.
Tele photo lenses are a good choice because of its short bellows extension.
Maybe the Nikon tele lenses are the one you can use.
Fuji made a 600mm f/12 tele photo lens as well, extension at oo ~390mm. It has an image circle of 260mm at oo. For your project you are in a ratio of around 1:2 and this enlarge the image circle to 400mm. Much enough for 8x10"

I offen use a Schneider Tele Xenar 360mm in 18x24/10x8". It were made for 5x7" only but it is an excellent portrait lens. For your project a 500mm Tele Xenar will be perfect but this lenses are rare an too expensive.

I love my Emil Busch lens, made in the 1920th. It ha s a perfect rendering for portraits. The problem is it is not easy to find one but when this lenses are not so expensive because someone in the past wrote something about its bad optical quality, don´t believe it. The lenses, even the f/7 versions are good usable tele photo lenses with a very short extension at oo.

[arri]

A friend of mine made a photo of me with the 550mm Bistelar @f/7
Wet plate in 8x10".
Not in the kind you want to realise but we want to see how it works and how the bokeh is.

[Tin Can]

I prefer 11X14 film with NIKON 610mm f9

Full Face

I will find some today

i hope

[peter brooks]

Wouldn't you have a really shallow depth of field shooting at that magnification? Maybe that's what you want...

You could shoot on larger film and crop... or if you're scanning shoot from further away and crop down.

[LabRat]

You probably want to use entire 8X10 film area, but this becomes much harder for a c/u + 8X10 format + shooting a living (maybe moving) subject, with a "black-out" time from last focus/framing time to exposure moment... And a lot of light or a long time exposing due to light lost due to bellows factors etc...

What works well in this situation is to use a reducing back on the 8X10, down to 5X7/4X5/6X9 which crops down to your desired area with 300mm lens, or another camera system that allows you to view/focus until time of exposure...

But try it to see how it functions with subject/camera/you...

Steve K

[Motdarnoc]

Thanks for all the replies!
Arri that Emil Busch Bistelar sounds awesome- I'll search for it.
The depth of field will be a little shallow I suspect, but you gotta give up something
Telephoto is probably the way to go due to bellows issues- thanks for that reminder!

Does anyone have any thoughts about the Nikkor ED 600/800/1200? Pricey, but the option of adding on later…
Any other vintage thoughts? I don’t need razor sharp- I’m thinking more along the lines of a Mortensen thing, with paper negs.
Thanks!

[jp]

It's basically a macro shot.. I bet even a 360mm-450mm lens will be so drawn out it will behave like a longer portrait lens.

If you've got vintage lenses, a soft focus will get you slightly more depth of field for a given aperture... Focus on the closest thing and other stuff behind it will be of blended in/out of focus.

[cowanw]

I would use a 19 inch plus lens for this. A 508mm Ilex-Calumet Caltar would be a good choice. Or a triple convertible such as a Wollensak. Depth of field depends on magnification so a 8x10 print of the image you describe would have the same depth of field no matter the focal length of the lens used or the cropping that has been recommended -I think.

[arri]

Thanks for all the replies!
Arri that Emil Busch Bistelar sounds awesome- I'll search for it.
The depth of field will be a little shallow I suspect, but you gotta give up something
Telephoto is probably the way to go due to bellows issues- thanks for that reminder!

Does anyone have any thoughts about the Nikkor ED 600/800/1200? Pricey, but the option of adding on later…
Any other vintage thoughts? I don’t need razor sharp- I’m thinking more along the lines of a Mortensen thing, with paper negs.
Thanks!

Dallmeyer made longer tele photo lenses, some named "Adon"
Some US American lensmakers produce tele lenses as well, like Wollensak.

This lenses are moderate in price because the most photographers don´t know the advantages of this lenses, even for portraits.
Schneider promoted the Tele Xenar as an excellent portrait lens.
The early lenses of this type, made of only four elements, are not exorbitant sharp at full open but who needs it?
A small spherical aberation is typical for this lenses at the fastest aperture and this is exactly what you need for portraits.