Which lens 75 or 90mm for Norwegian Fjords?

[Andre_1200]

I'm new in LF and I'm planning to visit beautiful Norwegian Fjords soon. Current ly I have 150 Apo-Symmar. Which lens should I add: 75 or 90mm? Thank you.

[Paul Schilliger]

Andre, I would second Dan's advice and say that a 80 XL should be a good choice for landscape if you can wait on it's availability. You may later want also a more tight lens such as a 210, a nd finally a medium wide angle such as a 110mm. I have not been in Norway but think a short telephoto such as a 210 could do wonders there to get some field compression and for details. It makes a different kind of images than those you will get from the 150 A-S (superb!) and from a wider angle. All these lenses are also very useful with a rollfilm back. But do not assume you need the whole set of lenses right at start. In fact, you may gain in photographying with a limited pair of lenses and learn more in image composition than if you had a bag full of lenses. Good trip!

[Chris Partti]

Just one additional thought: If you get the 75mm, you can always crop to the angle of view of the 90mm when printing. Since you're using 4x5, even with cropping to the 90mm equivalent view, you'll still be working from a large piece of film (about 3 1/3" by 4 1/6"), so quality should remain high. (You also can get a little bit of additional shift, rise, and fall, since you don't have to crop out of the exact center of the film.) On the other hand, there is no way to get a wider angle of view with a 90mm.

[Andre_1200]

Thank you for inputs. I used 35mm Nikon (50/1.4, 80-200/2.8) for one year and now switched to Hassy (80mm, 150mm) and Sinar F2 (150mm). My favorite scenes are seascapes at sunset. They are godlike on 4x5 chromes. 150mm is good compromise for LF: the clouds at horizon not too "small". So I try always use the longest lens possible. But fjords are different. They are "tight corners". High mountains and narrow water surface and you just can't 'step back' to capture all beauty. I think 80mm should be good wide angle 'compromise', not too wide, not too long, say 'medium' wide angle.

[David Grandy]

How about a 300 mm lens? A wide angle lens is really designed to take advantage of the foreground/background relationship. When you use a wide angle, you put something important in the foreground and it'll look bigger than it really is. The the background surrounds it, and is the lesser compositional tool since it will look smaller.

A longer lens will take out the foreground and leave only the "background".

Having said that, lens choice is a lot like golf clubs. If you need a seven iron (or 90 mm lens) then that's what you need. It's nice to have all the clubs in your bag but that's rarely the case. I just wanted to suggest that the "trip to the mountains" or fjords in this case, isn't automaticly wide angle land.