Quote Originally Posted by jeroenbruggeman View Post
For a second edition of the portrait lenses test, I'll review a 210mm Dagor, which is now on its way from Japan, and perhaps my Littman with an Ysarex 127mm, if anyone is interested.

With Ridax I agree that Fujinon and Nikkor Plasmats' bokeh is not a pleasant sight, to the extent that I did not even take them seriously as portrait lenses (although very seriously and excellent for multiple other purposes). Therefore I refrained from reviewing them, with the exception of the 240mm Fujinon-A, which is not that bad: it's bokeh causes only mild head aches, in contrast to Fujinon-W Plasmats that cause serious brain damage. But how about his other claim that the Convertible Symmar has better bokeh than any Tessar or Dialyte? I did not test a Convertible Symmar myself, but does anyone have convincing examples in favor of, or refuting this claim? I did study thousands of photo's and tested dozens of lenses, though, and until someone proves me wrong I tend to believe that the Ysarex (a Tessar), among others, has substantially better bokeh than any type of Symmar.
I've spent the last month retesting all the TESSAR type lenses I have at hand. Most of them are too short for LF portraiture, but I got the idea. My sincere apologies for my previous claim.... and many many thanks for the correction.

Yes my 4.5/101 Wollensak Raptar and my 4.5/105 and 4.7/127 Tominons and my 4.7/127 Rodenstock Ysaron and my 4.5/135 uncoated Zeiss Tessar and my 4.5/190 Kodak Enlarging Ektanon easily beat my 100, 135, 150, 180 and 210 Convertible Symmars and Convertible Sironars - bokeh-vise. These tessars yield beautiful foreground blur and awful background blur at full aperture, and vise-versa from f/6.3 on. It is particularly interesting that the Ysaron, Tominon and Ektanon are enlarging lenses that certainly were not deliberately optimized for bokeh by their designers (go try an enlarging plasmat to see a really shocking ugly bokeh - both in the background and the foreground!). I wonder if the Ysarex and Ektar lenses are still better than the Ysaron and Ektanon.

The (hard to describe) IN-focus pictorial qualities are IMHO the best in the 101mm Raptar (but only within 24x36mm film frame!), with the 127mm Ysaron very close to it. Next I'd put the old 135mm Zeiss Tessar (within 24x36mm film frame only) and the 190mm Ektanon (within 6x7cm film frame) stopped down to f/8 (both are too soft for my taste at wider apertures). The Tominons are somewhat "dull and technical" in the sharp-focus zone.

That said, I would not use the (fantastic for a 24x36mm SLR) 101mm Raptar and the old 135mm Zeiss even on a 4.5x6cm camera as both have to be brutally stopped down to get reasonably sharp outside the central part of the field, and I like the 190mm Ektanon at f/8 and f/11 on 4.5x6cm to 6x7cm but no bigger. In fact, it was the poor field sharpness of the vast majority of the tessars that turned me away from taking them seriously, years ago....

(Sorry I would not list all the tessar-type glass I've put my hands on; hope the above examples are enough.)

Convertible Symmars and Convertible Sironars are still very good (and IMHO the best-bokeh plasmats ever made - though less beautiful then the best of the tessars) for background blur at all apertures, the Symmar IMHO having a very slight edge over the Sironar. The Apo-Sironar-S and the Apo-Symmar-L, if I remember correctly (don't have any of them at hand now), are to be stopped down to about f/11 for better background bokeh, this time the Sironar probably being better. I do not know of any other plasmats with good bokeh (I never tried the before mentioned 240mm Fujinon-A though).

And as I totally agree the back camera tilts and swings are better to be avoided in portraiture (and for a lot of other subjects, too), for me, the lens' coverage gets way more important in LF - which means at least the longer of my Convertible Symmars are not going to be retied yet....