A recent review of my favorite images surprised me when I realized the majority of them had been shot using a humble Minolta Autocord TLR and NOT my medium-form at view camera. Laugh if you must but the Autocords that I own have the ability to capture a bitingly sharp image yet also impart a rounded, almost 3D-like qua lity that I am unable to duplicate when shooting with my view camera.

Obviously, it must be the lens that's responsible for this quality and to that e nd, I've tried a variety of older uncoated, single-coated and multi-coated lense s, all without success. Recently, I have bought and rented a handful of modern lenses and while they've been able to yield an impressive degree of sharpness, t he "3D" quality that I want simply isn't there.

What's the secret? I enjoy the process of shooting with a view camera and would hate to give mine up but unless I can find at least one lens that can capture a n image with Autocord-like qualities, it'll have to go. Ideally, I'd like to fi nd a few lenses to cover the 55mm to 150mm range, but if I'm limited to just one , it would need to be in the 75mm to 100mm range since this is what I use most o f the time.

Any suggestions or pointers will be greatly appreciated!