8x10 beginnings

[Chriso]

I aquired an Eastman 2D 8x10. Terrific shape, supple bellows, and good wood finish. It has an ILEX GENERAL F:16 7.5" (190.5mm) focus. It says it is a medium wide angle. As film is kinda pricy for me I started with paper. That worked OK, and let me fix any of the major problems. (Like a pinhole in the lensboard. I was actually getting an in focus, smaller image on the lower quarter of the neg!) I am using Bregger 200 film now, and it is terrific. Now, I know nothing about this stuff, so I don't know to go about finding another lens. The one I have works, and that is what is important. (but there is about 1 inch missing on the bottom of the image, I think I have to adjust the angle of the back.) I want a wider angle lens, but I can't afford much. I love old lenses, so that brings me some luck in the price dept. I want to shoot landscapes and larger shots like that. so getting to the point: What should I look for in terms of focal length and such? Where can I go to find these lenses? I like Ebay, but there has to be more out there. Cheers, chriso

[Brian Ellis]

I don't know how wide you can go with your camera but FWIW the Wollensak 159mm F9.5 is a very nice older wide angle lens for 8x10 that can be bought for around $250 - $300. They show up on e bay fairly often. There is also an F12.5 version that some here like and it should be less expensive than the F9.5 version because of the smaller maximum aperture. 159mm isn't a great step down from your 190mm but you may not be able to compress your bellows enough to accept something smaller, I don't know, I've never used the camera.

Just curious - does your camera have the rear extension? There have been several 2Ds for sale lately that looked nice but they didn't come with the rear extension and without it I think the bellows only extends to something like 18 inches, which is too short for me. It's amazing to me that people just seemed to lose these extensions.

[Chriso]

No, I don't have the extention, dang it. I was planning on building one though. So, yeah I only have 18" to work with for now... How can I tell how wide my camera can go? It would seem that many would be lost if the original owner didn't take it with every time the camera was taken out, so it was left in the store room and forgotten when the camera was sold, etc. What was the asking price for the other cameras? I'm always interested to know if I overpaid. cheers, chriso

[John D Gerndt]

I too am pretty new to 8x10 and I would love for my mistakes to benefit someone beyond myself so I offer the following advice.

Really old lenses have big problems with astigmatism, which translates to blurry corners. You'll want something less than 100 years old and probably less than 50 if you want to be asured of a decent coating and optics.

Shutters are as much a problem as anything else in photography. You’ll want to limit the number of shutters you own. They are expensive and each has its own set of quirks. The smart move is to get one good large shutter and front or back mount barrel lenses to it. This can be done with a custom ring available from SK Grimes (you’ll find numerous threads on this, nice guys who may be willing to advise you on your choice). Lens boards can be made out of Masonite and painted black which saves a lot of money for film. Film is your friend. You will learn only by burning your friend.

For landscape work you’ll like a bit wider field of view (I think) so something 8-10 inches is nice.

Lenses, in the end, are not very important, this is more true for 8x10 than other smaller formats where your mistakes or lack of pin sharp image is magnified untill it is easy to see. 8x10 contact prints are easy and beautiful in the extreme, you're gonna love this stuff. Most lenses and nearly all modern lenses are quite good enough for a contact print and too, all lenses tend to converge on a very similar level of quality at around f22. You’ll shoot that f-stop a lot.

Oh, and DO spend some time figuring out what kind of dark cloth works best for you. When it is really dark and with a decent lupe even f22 is easy enough to focus.

When buying a lens know that fungus is the enemy of any lens. The rest of the insults are easy enough to recover from. Just make sure the lens has a big enough image circle. You need 13 inches for 8x10. If your seller won’t guarantee the size and quality of the image don’t buy. It is a buyers market right now.

Bargain brands I have experience with: Kodak, Ilex, Wollensak, Konica. All of these make very nice pictures and go for very little money as barrel lenses. Your shutter (singular) will set you back $200 - $300 with a CLA. I use a #5 universal Ilex. The rings are about $70 each (I think).

I am one cheap SOB ULF guy, so feel free to contact me for any advice about saving money for burning your friend.

Cheers! Welcome to the land of really good negatives.

[John D Gerndt]

Chriso, don't worry about what you paid, unless its in the thousands. You own it now. There is a search mechanism for looking up past sales on ebay. It is a box you check under advanced search. I offer this advice for future purchases.

How wide you can go is not about the bellows as much as the lens. WIth 18 inches of draw you can use an 18 inch lens at infinity and shorter lenses at closer distances. You should be fine for some time to come.

Cheers,

[RichSBV]

Congrats on the 2D. A great camera! And I hope you have a lot of fun with it.

I could still be considered "new to 8x10" and am contact printing on Centennial POP paper. Love this stuff!

How wide you can go is fairly easy to find out. Simply move the lens board as close to the ground glass as you can and still be able to operate the camera. Then measure from the front, the distance from the lens board to the ground glass. That's the shortest lens you can use. you already know the longest.

On my B&J 8x10, I can just barely use a 120mm, or just under 5 inches. My Century Universal could easily use a 2 1/2 inch lens, but there's nothing that short available for 8x10.

Speaking of which, 120mm is about as short as you can go and still cover 8x10. The Nikon and Schneider Super Angulon 120's will cover, but they aren't cheap. The Wollensak 159 is a nice lens and will look quite a bit wider than your 190. But that 190, if it covers 8x10, is a nice focal length. You might want to consider a longer lens such as a 10 or 12 inch for a more 'normal' look?

[John Kasaian]

Chriso, Welcome to 8x10! For affordable film Freestyle, Photo Wharehouse, and J and C are good places to look.

IMHO a loupe is a good investment, and you don't need anything fancy---$10 will 'get you there.' For example, consider an Agfa loupe or a linen tester.

For a lens you might want to consider offerings from wollensak(raptars, yellow dots, and velostigmats) & ilex. Both establishments made some excellent lenses and don't usually command the prices the dagors and kodaks go for. A search in the archives will turn up the 'sleepers' (and those would be the ones to look for) as well as the 'dogs'(to avoid!) I don't think you can go wrong with a 12" or 14"Commercial Ektar, 10"WF Ektar, 9-1/2"to 14"Dagor, or 14"Artar since you've got only 18" of bellows to play with. The articles and links on classic lenses on the large format home page are the place to start

In older shutters, I'd avoid the Ilex Generals. OTOH Ilex Universals and Acmes are usually pretty good as are Wollensak Alphax, Betax and Rapax as well as Compurs and Compounds. These usually respond nicely to a CLA if they start being less than good citizens (of course Copals are the current standard, but I've had experience with all the ones I've recommended and IMHO, they are entirely workable alternatives to the Copal) SK Grimes' website is the place to go for an education on classic shutters.

Unless you know what you're looking for, which questions to ask, and who to buy from, buying a lens on e-bay can be more of a gamble than you might want to take---especially if you're on a budget. That said, many of my very best lenses were bought on Ebay! I'd suggest checking out reputable dealers like Mid West Photographic, Equinox, and Igor's who you can rely on to offer an excellent selection of conservatively rated used lenses at fair prices.

8x10---ain't it grand?

Cheers!

[Brian Ellis]

"How wide you can go is not about the bellows as much as the lens"

Actually it's about the bellows. The minimum distance between the front and rear standards when they are brought as close together as possible will determine the shortest focal length lens you can use. That distance is a function of the bellows, its total length (the longer the bellows the more the material and, all other things being equal, the greater the distance there will be between the front and rear when the bellows is "scrunched up" to its maximum), the material used, its flexibility, its condition, etc.

The lens is relevant only to the extent that you don't want the rear element of the lens to be so large that it strikes the back of the camera when you're bringing the front and rear standards close together. But with most cameras that's only a problem with very large lenses, there are plenty of short focal length lenses around that won't present that problem, it's your bellows and how much it can be "scrunched up" that will usually be the limiting factor in determining the shortest focal length lens you can use.

This is all a slight oversimilification (e.g. it ignores the use of recessed lens boards) but is sufficiently accurate I think for purposes of this discussion.

[Øyvind Dahle]

The 95-135mm lens comes to mind, it's a pinhole, and you could find some extraordinary macro pictures out there on the web, and also some description on how to build one, but you can use aperture 256 for a start, ca needle #12.

At 2 1/2 inch, you will have a circle of 9 inches with a good pinhole, or a bit less, and it could fit your needs.

Also consider the 1.5 or 3mm pinhole for composing: Aperture 64 or 32

Øyvind

[jantman]

Well, Ebay is probably your best bet, but you could also try glennview camera (glennview.com). He has LOTS of older lenses. In NYC, Lens and Repro is a great place to look around, but they don't have much in the way of inexpensive lenses.

Pinhole is probably the ultimate inexpensive "lens" for any format.

I shoot 8x10 and have 2 lenses. The first, my first lens, is a 21 1/4" Wollensak Apo-Raptar. Nice lens, covers pretty much any format. I used it on a home-built 20x24 with 8' of "bellows".

My second lens is a Kodak Commercial Ektar in an Ilex Universal. Great lens.

Comments on them? If you like barrel lenses, try to get a shutter. It's a real pain stacking all that ND in front of (and behind) a barrel lens on a sunny day. As to the Universal shutter, it's nice. The nicest thing about it is that it's made "like a cheap alarm clock." When it stops firing, it takes me about 20 minutes to open up, fix, and put back together.