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Thread: Vintage Large format lens resolution & contrast

  1. #11

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    Re: Vintage Large format lens resolution & contrast

    There are two ways to go about it. One is to find common lens designs that offer a significantly different pattern of sharpness than the best modern lenses. The other way is to employ soft-focus lenses that deliberately induce aberrations in order to achieve a layering of focus and that sometimes induce a soft glowing halo. It sounds like you would like the former. That's good, because soft-focus lenses are about five times more expensive than ordinary lens designs. Consider three lens designs that each have a unique property to offer. First is the Petzval. This was a real breakthrough in 1839. It offered the first fast wide-open lens with a workable zone of sharpness for portraits. with the petzval, only the center 20 degrees of the lens is sharp and it has a curved field. It is tricky to use because most people are accustomed to focusing along a plane that is parallel with the lens. Outside of the zone of sharpness, the Petzval offers a charming soft cottony blur with no distracting lines or artifacts. The Rapid Rectilinear or Aplanat (Wollensak Versar or Voltas). This lens, developed in 1860 was a big improvement over the petzval for landscapes. It offered a mid-range speed f6-f8 while having a much wider 40 degree zone of sharpness and a fairly flat field of focus. The rectilinear lens offers sharp focus when constructed by good lensmakers (Wollensak, Suter, Voigtlander etc..) and a kind of brown-sugar rendering of out-of-focus areas, a soft pleasing granularity. They are under appreciated as portrait lenses. The third lens design is the Tessar. It was invented around 1900 and it offered both fast speed and a wide field of sharpness. If you look at good landscape photographs from the first three-four decades of the twentieth century they were probably made with a tessar. The big advantage of a Tessar over a modern lens is a pleasingly uncomplicated out-of-focus look, a fairly soft granularity. They are also quite easy to obtain.

  2. #12

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    Re: Vintage Large format lens resolution & contrast

    BTW, this thread is over 10 years old, and the OP is long gone with this as his only post.

  3. #13
    Jim Graves Jim Graves's Avatar
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    Re: Vintage Large format lens resolution & contrast

    Good reading, though.

  4. #14

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    Re: Vintage Large format lens resolution & contrast

    Jock Sturges (mentioned earlier) used a Fuji 250mm f/6.7 lens for much of his work. It's a nice, inexpensive, mild wide angle for 8x10 with a 398 image circle. I have never used the Pentax lens so I don't know if the Fuji is too sharp for you. Check out some of Jock Sturges' work.

  5. #15
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: Vintage Large format lens resolution & contrast

    The Fuji 250/6.7 is a very hard-sharp, contrasty modern lens with little resemblance to the "look" of any "vintage" lens. It would be hard to tell the results apart from the most recent 250 plastmats. It's been out of production awhile probably due to the special glass type itself. The advantage would be a lightwt modern no.1 Copal shutter with an image circle large enough for 8x10. I sure haven't seen any of these being sold inexpensively, however, unless they were pretty beat up.

  6. #16

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    Re: Vintage Large format lens resolution & contrast

    Quote Originally Posted by Drew Wiley View Post
    The Fuji 250/6.7 is a very hard-sharp, contrasty modern lens with little resemblance to the "look" of any "vintage" lens. It would be hard to tell the results apart from the most recent 250 plastmats. It's been out of production awhile probably due to the special glass type itself. The advantage would be a lightwt modern no.1 Copal shutter with an image circle large enough for 8x10. I sure haven't seen any of these being sold inexpensively, however, unless they were pretty beat up.
    Yes, it's sharp but so is the Pentax 165mm f/2.8 that the OP likes. He also wants to use the lens for a wide angle for 8x10. He's looking for something sharp but not clinically sharp like a Zeiss on a Hasselblad. You may be right and the Fuji may be too sharp for him. That''s why I suggested looking at Jock Sturges' images.

    I paid $300.00 for my Fuji 250 6.7 including shipping. It's a nice clean example with accurate shutter. I think $300.00 is inexpensive for a mild wide on 8x10 with plenty of coverage.

  7. #17

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    Re: Vintage Large format lens resolution & contrast

    Quote Originally Posted by Jerry Bodine View Post
    BTW, this thread is over 10 years old, and the OP is long gone with this as his only post.
    These resurrected threads always seem to get me!

  8. #18

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    Re: Vintage Large format lens resolution & contrast

    A zombie thread but it was cool to see Ernest Purdum's name again! I sure miss his contributions here.
    "I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White

  9. #19

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    Re: Vintage Large format lens resolution & contrast

    Odd coincidence. For the past two weeks I've been looking into buying a 8-9 inch vintage 1900-1925 portrait lens for 4x5. I'm leaning towards a 210mm or 240mm Heliar. MMMmmm, Heliar. The Dagor is an interesting choice, as is the Verito. I'm into that era.

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