Geronar 300mm f9 - Weight? Performance?

[benjamin broad imported]

Anyone have any ideas about the weight of this lens? Is it more in the weight l eague of the Nikkor M 300mm and Fuji C 300mm than the other heavy 300mm lenses? If anyone has any comments on the performance I'd be happy to hear that too....

thanks for the help as always. benjamin

[benjamin broad imported]

One more question here -- Are the geronar's basically the same as the caltar II E's? I notice the 210 f6.8 prices seem to be really similar and low for these two mc lenses.

thanks benjamin

[sheldon hambrick]

I was considering this les last year. It's relatively samll and fits in a Copal #1. # element with an image circle of areon 340mm.

[TAN K H]

I have the old Rodenstock catalog but it doesn't have a description of the weight of the lens.

There are theoretical MTF curves for the lens though and other tech specs - if you want it, email me and I'll send over a jpeg scan of the catalog page for the lens.

BTW, I own the 210mm Geronar. It's a good lens. Not super outstanding in terms of sharpness but very contrasty. It's got a nice

You do know that the 150, 210 and 300mm Geronars are Cooke Triplet designs don't you?

[TAN K H]

I mean to say that it has a nice 'feel' to the pictures.

[neil poulsen]

I went to one Photo West back in the 80's and walked away with a information that seems to have use today. Here are some specs with respect to this lens:

IMAGE CIRCLE: 300 at f11 (53 deg); 340 at f22 (59 deg). SMALLEST APERTURE: 64. FILTER: M 58x0.75. FLANGE FOCAL LENGTH: 282. LENGTH: 61.2. SHUTTER: Copal 1. REAR MOUNT DIAMETER: 61. WEIGHT: Not included! (Wierd.)

[neil poulsen]

P.S. . . . Recommended working apertures are f16 and f22. Probably diffraction limited at f22.

[Jan erala]

I used this lens with 8x10 for some time a few years ago. I liked it because it was small and light. I carried my camera backpacked on skiing trips, and it was ideally for this purpose. The drawbacks was the limited image circle, and when I compared the brightness on the groundglass with a F5,6 lens, I sold the Geronar for the bigger lens. When I'm looking at the slides taken with it, they looks just fine. If your priority is weight, the little Geronar is no bad choice.

[Bob Salomon]

"WEIGHT: Not included! (Wierd.) "

That was the factory.

It took us 3 years as the distributor to convince them to list weights in their specs.

Since back packing was never a major market share of large format and traditionally studio use was the dominant market they always felt that the weight was not an important consideration.

Now they do and list the weights. But not on discontinued lenses like the 300 Geronar and 90 Geronar WA (the 150 and 210mm Geronars are back in production and are now available again).

[TAN K H]

Bob,

This is a little off topic, but could you convince Rodenstock to bring back the cheapie 90mm Geronar WA?

It would be a backpacker's delight - since you're on the topic. Most people who need a light 90mm tend to buy old Angulons and Congos. A lightweight high quality double gauss 90mm from Rodenstock would be excellent.