Best 'starter' lens?

[m1tch]

Thanls for your comments Jim, im going to be taking my time over this, the tripod will indeed be a fair investment but will be useful for all the cameras I have so I will be spending a bit of cash on that and will probably end up with something with carbon fibre legs or something so its easy to carry around. It will be an interesting blend of traditional wood and metal camera and modern carbon fibre legs shooting modern films and then contact printing on Cyanotype lol

I would be looking for the older lenses as they have more 'feeling' so to speak with their slightly soft focus and imperfections vs the high tech optics today which I feel are a bit too clinical and too perfect, its good that with large format lenses you simply just mount the lens on another lens board and swap it out rather than being limited to a certain range of lenses to fit a certain mount. I will check out some of the press cameras as well then, although I don't really want to buy a lens I like but then find that as soon as I try a front movement the image circle isn't big enough to allow me to get the shot I wanted.

[C. D. Keth]

Well, just looking in the classifieds right now, the 180mm Fujinon W that timserrano is selling or the 150mm convertible symmar I am selling would both be good first lenses.

[wallrat]

There is a nice 150 / 256 convertible for sale in the "for sale" forum right now. If you haven't been a member long enough to see that forum somebody can put you in touch with the seller. That would be a great starter as you can remove the front elements to make a 256mm lens out of it.

[wallrat]

Well, I guess I left the thread open long enough for Christopher to post before I did. Yeah, it's his lens

[m1tch]

Lol, im in the UK so might have an issue with shipping it over etc, im going to hold off buying the more expensive items (like lenses and tripods) for a bit, im not in a position to buy at the moment, the next item im buying will be an Epson V500 photo scanner and some chemicals for Cyanotype first. I'm just absorbing information on whats out there and what I should look for first rather than rushing out and buying the first bit of glass I find lol (tempting as it may be!). I'm still getting into photography in general so would need to build up my experience a bit first before buying large format gear and I need to work out my workflow with regards to development and digital aspects (such as scanners etc).

The idea of a convertable lens like that its pretty cool, I guess its an 'old school' method of zooming lol the 256 focal length would be good for a portrait lens I am guessing as its a long normal?

[wallrat]

Exactly right on the convertible. Some will argue that when converted (to 256) it's not as sharp as other non-convertibles in that range but in my experience that is splitting hairs, especially when starting out. Good luck, it's a fun, addictive ride!

[m1tch]

Exactly right on the convertible. Some will argue that when converted (to 256) it's not as sharp as other non-convertibles in that range but in my experience that is splitting hairs, especially when starting out. Good luck, it's a fun, addictive ride!

Thanks for your comment, I will defiantly look out for convertible lenses when I do start buying kit, I thought that all LF lenses were primes which is why some LF bags are large to allow for a wide range of lens on lens boards i'm actually not too worried about how sharp the image is, a few of them will be contact printed onto Cyanotype. I also find that the older lenses that aren't quite as sharp have more feel to them so to speak, if I wanted a perfect clinical image of what I am photographing then I would just use a digital camera with a high end lens - that's not my goal.

[Kevin Crisp]

Don't buy an older lens with damaged filter threads, or with the inside threads on the front element painted black. The painting often happens on the Symmar convertibles. You won't be able to disassemble it to clean off haze in either case; sometimes they need that. If you think a convertible Symmar will look softer you may be disappointed, at least when used at the shorter focal length. A late Symmar convertible in a Copal shutter is an excellent first lens. (Serial number around 11,000,000)

Depends on what you shoot, but I'd start with a 150. If it is likely to be your only lens for some time, then a 135mm, unless you are primarily shooting portraits.

[Jim Jones]

. . . the next item im buying will be an Epson V500 photo scanner . . .

Consider the Epson V700. It's much more expensive, but capable of scanning up to 8x10 negatives. This may be valuable in your future.

[m1tch]

Consider the Epson V700. It's much more expensive, but capable of scanning up to 8x10 negatives. This may be valuable in your future.

Hmmm tempting! I did have a look at the V700, it would have been my first choice if it wasn't so expensive, although I might just stay with 5x4s and 8x10 is massive lol