How much would you pay for...

[John Kasaian]

your "prime" lens?
I bought my LF equiptment on an extremely tight budget and I got pretty lucky when it came to buying lenses, but when I got my 8x10 I had come to realize that I'd probably only have one lens to cover the format for quite awhile and that a lot was riding on my selection. Still on a tight budget (hey a box of 8x10 Arista Pro was pushing $40!) I looked at what was available that I could afford. It would have to be used of course but I never had any qualms about used LF gear---if it hadn't been for pros going digital I'd never even have a LF kit.
I wanted a "normal" lens and my options came down to a 12" Dagor, 14" Commercial Ektar, 375mm Ilex, Wollensak 1A, or Schnieder double convertible.
The much respected Dagor and Schnieder were "pushing it" at the top of the price range (well "over the top" of my budget) The price for the Wolly was very attractive but the idea of a triple convertable seemed for me a bit overwhealming--I wanted something simple and while having the option of different focal lengths was very attractive the thought of swapping elements while out in the field was a wee bit intimidating. That left the Ilex and the Commmercial Ektar. Shortly after I had a talk with a local commercial photographer who raved about Commercial Ektars he'd used in the 40's and 50's and that sealed the deal.
Of course Commercial Ektars back then were all over the board when it came to pricing--anywhere from $325 to $675 and with the added cost of film, holders, heavier tripod, larger filters, more chemistry and a lens board thrown into the pot I was a little reluctant about the prospect of adding an obligatory cla to the bill. I opted for a $400(or was it $450) lens from Midwest Photo because I trusted Jim there. I figured it was worth paying a little extra to get a good lens than paying a lot of $$ on a gamble (I have to point out that no 8x10 LF gear was available locally---nearly all my 8x10 equipment came off the internet without me actually being able to physically inspected the stuff first.)
It was a good call. After over 10 years I still have and use that 14" Commercial Ektar and the old No.5 Universal it came with has yet to indicate that it needs a cla.
I've got a few more 8x10 lenses these days (including a 10" Wide Field, that much envied 12" Dagor, a beaut of a 19" Artar, 240mm G Claron and a nifty little 159mmWA Wolly (although I never did get around to using one of those convertibles)
If anything the 14" Commercial Ektar remains one of my "prime" lenses and in hindsight is worth to me far more than what I paid for it.
What are your "prime" lenses? Do you feel like you've received your money's worth? Are you happy with it or do your feel the urge to chase "magic bullets? Or if you bought it cheap, did you eventually have to replace it with a more costly lens?

[Donald Miller]

I bought my first three LF lenses over twenty years ago and they were new. These were the 210 Symmar S, 90 SA, and 120 Apo Symmar. I later added used lenses. These included a 305 Repro Claron, 375 Caltar, 2 ea. 450 Nikkor M, 210 convertible symmar, and later still the a 305 G Claron and 180 Nikkor W. I have sold the 120 Apo Symmar since I no longer use 4X5, the 375 Caltar and one of the 450 M Nikkor lenses. To be honest I don't recall what I paid for any of these lenses.

The reason for some of these focal lengths is for the time that I shot 8X10 and 12X20.

[Ash]

I'm so lucky that 180/6,8 Dagor was given to me by my grandfather... and the shutter came cheap elsewhere. Maybe my botching the two together isn't quite the S K Grimes quality, and purists will moan, but it's done the job when I've used it.

The Fuji 150/5,6 lens on the Razzle was pot luck from Dean. Again, excellent performer.


Although I never use it, the huge Ross Xpres 8 1/2" f/4.5 barrel lens was amazing to find at £30, new in its box. Just pulled it out for the first time in a couple years and it's looking a little sad... I'd attached a guillotine shutter to it, but if that lens was in a proper shutter I'd have made it my prime lens.

[rdenney]

My most-used lens on 4x5 is probably my 121/8 Super Angulon. I paid between $500 and $600 for it about 20 years ago; it would cost a bit less now. I have never regretted buying it, though I baby that old Compur 0 with the custom oversized cell-mounting threads.

One of my first purchases in large format was a Newton Nue-Vue camera that came with an Ilex Paragon 8-1/2" f/4.5. The camera was dreadful and I got rid of it fairly quickly, but I keep finding ways to keep that lens in service. Currently, it's the "portrait" lens on the Speed Graphic kit I'm putting together. I paid $200 for the camera and the lens in the middle 80's, so I guess I got a good deal.

The question of "how much would I pay" is harder to answer. I rarely consider lenses that cost over $300, and many of my lenses were $200 or less. I have a 47/5.6 (not XL, of course), 65/5.6, 90/5.6, and 121/8 SA's, 180 Symmar, 210 Sinaron, 240 Caltar Type Y, 12" Caltar, and the Paragon, and I spent over $300 for only two of these: the 90 and 121mm Super Angulons, both of which I bought about 20 years ago and both of which are ALWAYS in my bag. I guess that identifies my priorities.

Rick "who has never bought a new lens except for small format, and a few Ukrainian lenses that come used even when new" Denney

[Dan Dozer]

My first lens for my first 8 x 10 was a triple convertable Turner Reich that I got in a "box of lenses" for $100. The second was a 19" red dot artar for about $120. The third (use it quite a lot for portrait work) was 360 mm Heliar that cost me $130. Those were all about 4 years ago. After a while, I started to want more and began to pay more serious money - a 360 G Claron for about $650 and most recently a 360 mm Berthiot Eidoscope for $1200. I don't regret paying the money for the G Claron or the Eidoscope because they are great lenses. However, I do look back on the first three as great buys. My latest purchase was a stereo opticon petzval lens that cost me $30 (that was a great buy).

The only one I don't really use any more is the Turner Reich.

All of my "great buys" have been on Ebay with a lot of searching around. My two expensive lenses were through dealers.

[Brian Ellis]

I've only bought one new LF lens, which was my "prime" lens, a 210mm Schneider APO Symmar. I think it cost about $750 from Calumet about 17 years ago and I probably used it for 70% of all my LF photographs even though I've owned many different focal length lenses since then.

The most expensive LF lens I've ever bought was a new 300mm Schneider f5.6 (I think) in a Copal 3 shutter bought at the same time as the 210. That thing cost about $2,000 IIRC and being new to LF photography, I didn't realize how big and heavy an f5.6 lens in a Copal 3 shutter was going to be. When I took it out of the box I was shocked and immediately realized it was useless to me because I'd never carry it around. Since I returned it the same day I don't count it as a real purchase.

[panchro-press]

I never bought a new 8X10 or 11X14 lens in my life.
Early on, I read Weston's Daybooks. If he could do that with an old (even when he bought it) RR, I'd struggle with what I could find used.

Dave

[Photomagica]

John,
My first 8x10 lens was a Wollensak Apochromatic Raptar that came factory mounted in an Alphax shutter. I got it for $200 roughly 20 years ago. The Apochromatic Raptar's are Wollensak's equivalent of the Apo Artar and as far as I can tell they are equivalent in performance to the Artars. The only design difference is that the Apo Raptar has two cemented elements in each of two groups and the Artar's elements are air spaced. This means the Apo Raptar has a vanishingly small amount of flare.

Before I found the 14" I got a 10 1/4 in Apochromatic Raptar off of a surplus Xerox machine and mounted it in a #1 shutter for my 4x5 camera. This lens taught me that the Apo Raptars are blazingly sharp and very low flare.

A little later I bought the giant mahagony process camera that had been used for decades by the Calgary Albertan newspaper in order to get the lens. It came with an 16.5 inch Apochromatic Artar, uncoated and with a scratch on one element. I sent the elements out for multi-coating and went looking for a shutter. I was amazed when I asked Peter Jeune at the Camera Store in Calgary if he had anything and he handed me a plastic bag with an Alphax #4, completely in pieces.

In "another movie" as they say I'd been an instrument technician and machinist working on Zeiss planetaria and astronomical telescopes, so I looked at the shutter as an interesting challenge and had it running in a couple of hours. After machining the cells and mounting the lens in the shutter, its performance was terrible. It turns out that the lens came to me assembled wrong and I had to go through several combinations of turning elements around. When I got the combination right it performed brilliantly. BTW - the process camera became a 12x20 enlarger.

Interestingly the Apochromatic Raptars still don't have the cachet of Artars and can often be had for bargain prices. These are a great option if you are on a really tight budget, as I was when I put my first larger format kits together.

Right now I have a photographic project in mind that needs a fairly long lens on 8x10 and a high shutter speed - a 60th minimum, so I have a Copal #3 on my workbench awaiting cleaning and timing and a 480mm Apo Nikkor ready for me to machine barrels for it as soon as I get the cells to mount a friend's 12" Dagor out of the lathe.
Cheers,
Photomagica

[John Kasaian]

I have enjoyed reading all your responses!
Not to wobble too far OT but they reminded me of a post I read on another forum dealing with Olympic shooting sports (having just been trained as a shotgun instructor for the Boy Scouts, I was checking it out as a possible resource)
The thread was started, lamenting the discontinuation of a very expensive Italian air pistol. The OP made a remark warning not to bring up Izzys (IZH-46) which is a much lower priced Russian target pistol, which the OP referred to as an "agricultural impliment."
Of course someone had to bring it up!
A friendly-ish arguement erupted until an old time target shooter, struggling with english posted something to the effect that all this talk about models of air pistols was a silly waste of time, because it is not the gun which shoots "10s"(a perfect score) but the shooter.
It made me think back to this thread about LF lenses.
It isn't the equipment, but how we use it that makes a photograph a "10"

[Mark Sawyer]

It isn't the equipment, but how we use it that makes a photograph a "10"

I'm of two minds on this... one is in complete agreement, firm in the belief that the best photographer in the world would be the one who could live up to 1% of the potential of a so-so lens. As Dave noted, Weston worked wonders with a cheap ($5?) Rapid Rectilinear.

But my other mind thinks you need to be "in harmony" with your lens. If you do big enlargements and are critical about detail, aberrations, etc., and need an accurate shutter, yeah, you'll need to spend a bit. If you're doing something that in your heart calls for a certain vintage lens, be it a Petzval, Pinkham, or Heliar, that's gonna cost you too. But if you simply contact print black-and-white and can work without a shutter, you can buy $50 lenses that will sing beautifully.

For my first ten years with an 8x10, my only lens was a 9.5" Velostigmat in a studio shutter. I think it was $35. I did landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and architecture, and it never held me back. I have around a hundred lenses now, but I still go back to that Velostigmat. I was using it yesterday, and if it became my only lens again, I'd be okay with it.