how sharp are 8x10 wides

[IanG]

Peter, can you get someone else near you to give the lens a try, perhaps on a different camera, or you borrow (or hire) a different camera

I'm not familiar with the 200mm Grandagon but my 165mm Super Angulon is very heavy, and I'd guess your lens is no lighter.

You need to eliminate any potential camera errors, register as Ole mentions, lack of rigidity causing almost unnoticeable camera shake etc. It takes very little to lose critical sharpness, with my Mamiya 645's on a tripod it's was aas simple as not using mirror lock even with quite short exposures 1/60th, 1/30th and slower.

Ian

[Richard K.]

Peter, I managed to have been offered one of these (Grandagon 200) for a decent price so I went ahead and bought it despite the size and weight I really wanted it to be bad so that I could get the lighter and smaller 210 SSXL at significantly more money but darn if it isn't sharp corner to corner (on 10x12), even with moderate movements. It also seems to have less light fall -off than my memory of the 210 SSXL (I had a great one whenI had a 11x14 but sold both) but I may be wrong here. So, yeah it can be a very sharp lens with great coverage and good illumination. It doesn't exactly snap into focus on the GG, so careful focusing is needed.

[peter ramm]

Good points. It is possible I have a stability issue. I have the P2 mounted on a Sinar plate with two rail clamps, but that mounts on a Sinar head on top of a five series Gitzo. That's quite a bit of weight and kind of .... springy. I did notice that on one plate some of the material at the lower part showed obvious doubling. I attributed it to an aggressive tilt because it was limited to one part of the image. Maybe the tilt was exagerrating something happening all over.

Let me put the whole thing on the Foba stand and try it. Only reason I haven't done that is I have been shooting outside. Not the Foba's forte.

Richard, let's have a grandagon party and compare our optics. Im just down the road in Niagara. PM me if you're interested.

[Darryl Baird]

your current equipment mirrors mine and I have few (if any) stability issues. Focus seems more likely. my two cents...

[peter ramm]

Shot the same subject on the Foba stand. Image is definitley sharper, more what I would expect. Not as sharp as a Sironar S but fine considering the IC and field of view. I think I must have had some wind on the camera the other day. Overpowered the stabilizing effect of the Gitzo.

Lots to love in this optic, pun intended.

[Richard K.]

Richard, let's have a grandagon party and compare our optics. Im just down the road in Niagara. PM me if you're interested.

I should be able to head out that way in the next couple of weeks....I'll PM you to arrange a time, closer to then.

[John NYC]

I had a 150mm SS XL for a while, and it was certainly sharp. While, as Ole said, the central sharpness was ridiculously good, the edge sharpness especially blew away any 35mm equivalent in focal length. There is something to be said for the brute force approach of 8x10 film.

[peter ramm]

I have been thinking more about this. Made a few shots with the 200mm on an IFF studio stand and results are a bit better, but still not super sharp. Perhaps it comes down to the large reduction ratio of the 200mm lens. There is just a lot of stuff in there to be resolved.

I am shooting pictures of mechanisms, with lots of sharp transitions across screw heads, seams and the like. Point is to get the sense of detail that 8 x 10 can provide. However, it is exactly this type of detail that will suffer as scanner MTF interacts with everything else. Let's propose a couple of hypothetical examples. In each case, the the film/lens are giving me 70% MTF at my spatial frequencies.

a) .7 F/L MTF x .6 scanner MTF = 0.42 system MTF (hypothetical Epson)
b) .7 F/L MTF x .8 scanner MTF = 0.56 system MTF (hypothetical drum)

Just examples. Not sure what the Epson is really doing to modulation across a bunch of slotted screws, but it doesn't take much degradation to really soften the image. The test, of course, is a drum scan. Not sure any of my efforts are worth that.

[TheDeardorffGuy]

I have been thinking more about this. Made a few shots with the 200mm on an IFF studio stand and results are a bit better, but still not super sharp. Perhaps it comes down to the large reduction ratio of the 200mm lens. There is just a lot of stuff in there to be resolved.

I am shooting pictures of mechanisms, with lots of sharp transitions across screw heads, seams and the like. Point is to get the sense of detail that 8 x 10 can provide. However, it is exactly this type of detail that will suffer as scanner MTF interacts with everything else. Let's propose a couple of hypothetical examples. In each case, the the film/lens are giving me 70% MTF at my spatial frequencies.

a) .7 F/L MTF x .6 scanner MTF = 0.42 system MTF (hypothetical Epson)
b) .7 F/L MTF x .8 scanner MTF = 0.56 system MTF (hypothetical drum)

Just examples. Not sure what the Epson is really doing to modulation across a bunch of slotted screws, but it doesn't take much degradation to really soften the image. The test, of course, is a drum scan. Not sure any of my efforts are worth that.

I've done several CLA on these. They are very sharp. The "f stop sweet spot" seems to be between 16 and 22 closer to 16 in a open to close movement, I thought maybe there was some difraction at 32. That would degrade sharp edges..i

[Robert H]

As much as I have admired the 200 from a distance, I must confess I've heard the 155 is in fact a better performer regarding sharpness. The MTF curves also suggest this but had always assumed the real life differences were marginal.