Meyer 260mm f4.5

[[Maarten]]

Which area will it cover?
I was hoping to get something bigger than 8*10 out if it, but I can't find any good sources for that.
Anyone who has experience with this?

kind regards
maarten

[jcoldslabs]

Which Meyer are you talking about? I have a 210mm f/5.5 Hugo Meyer Doppel-Anastigmat that covers 8x10 easily, but Meyer made many lenses of varying coverage and not all cover 8x10.

Jonathan

[Carsten Wolff]

If its a Hugo Meyer Trioplan: I know that the 12" version has about 10" coverage....so you'd be looking at about 9" of useable circle for yours, perhaps a bit more if you're lucky, or if fuzzy corners are of little concern. I.e. unless my blue-sky, extrapolated, internet-jockey guess is completely out of the ballpark, you got yourself a lens that would best be used on 5x7" or smaller.....?!

[Carsten Wolff]

Just dug up a possible reference for you: http://www.cameraeccentric.com/html/info/meyer_3.html See page 21: Stopped down it would cover 9 1/2"x7" (300mm) wide open 8 1/2" x 6 1/2" (~272mm)....so in real life and stopped down you may, juuuust, reach 8x10" with minimal blurring/vignetting and no movements.

[[Maarten]]

it's a trioplan indeed. I haven't bought the lens yet. Actually its included in a Narita camera I could buy.
Point is, the camera is big enough for 11*14 plates. But I doubt a lot the lens can cope this. I got explanation by the seller that by extending the bellows, you would magnify the image such that it fits plates bigger than 5*7.
I'm however in doubt this will work this easily, I'm concerned about facing focussing issues. Is there someone who has some theory in this matter? Or at least some explanation how I should see this. Object distance vs focus length vs diafragma vs image circle ...

thanks
Maarten

[Carsten Wolff]

Maarten, Maarten.....(sigh) :)
As you move the bellows out, you focus closer. If the lens covers just over 5x7 at infinity, then it will cover 11x14 at about 1:1 (!) i.e. really close-up. You would have about twice the focal length’s bellows extension, i.e. a bit over 500mm at that distance. I am just reiterating the real basics here.
My advice is to get yourself a 4x5 monorail or field camera and see whether you like LF. Buy a nice book (such as Simmons: “Using the View Camera”, or Adams: “The Camera” or such), to help you get your head around technique before you commit yourself to something like this. The guy who's selling you the camera is pulling the wool over your eyes.

[Peter Yeti]

As far as I recall, a Trioplan is a simple Cooke triplet design with very limited coverage. The usable image angle is something like 40-50°. At best this would give you an image circle of about 220mm at infinity. That's just enough for 5x7'' without any movements. The Trioplan was a very popular lens for 35mm cameras because it was cheap and bright. The one you find most often is the 2.8/100mm for eastern German cameras like Practika or Exakta.

The seller is pulling your leg if he claims this lens covers 11x14''.

[[Maarten]]

Hey thanks for the replies so far. But where can i find some good theory on this (like in decent explanations, formulas, physics, ...). I haven't had any education on photography whatsoever. but I'm very keen to learn!!

I only discovered wet plate collodion very recently and I have to start somewhere. The camera I can buy is not that expensive, so at least I can start experimenting with collodion. It's merely the lens that does not fit my plan.
4*5 is thus not an option, as I would like to have nice prints comming out of the camera iso small ones.
I asked experienced photographers about this, and none of them could answer my question for sure.

If I understand correctly, you need to extend the bellows 500mm (which is possible as the bellows are 600mm fully extended) to get a 11*14 covered. At that moment you have 1:1 magnification, which is for portraits at this plate size not a big issue. It does not give me much freedom though (with this lens).

Any idea how much a Meyer trioplan 260mm f4.5 could go on ebay?

kind regards
Maarten

[IanG]

My Meyer adverts state the 260mm Trioplan covers 7"x5" which matches Peters comments.

Meyer lenses often don't fetch as high a price as you 'd expect, they get over looked by many despite being quite good lenses.

Ian

[jp]

The Meyer Trioplan is *really* nice for portraits. I haven't tried it for 8x10 or wet plate. Cheaper than cooke's, but not given away because there is a small following of fans.

A cheap fast lens choice might also be an old projection lens. Like the worm-gear and knob focusing lenses with no aperture; if it's not brass, people are less apt to bid crazy on it.. B&L made a bunch.

[Peter Yeti]

Maarten,

Carsten gave you some good book recommendations. If you look for a nice intro you can get read in a weekend, have a look at Urs Tillmans "Creative Large Format", vol. 1, Sinar Edition. For a more extensive, general book, I still like Andreas Feininger "On Photography". The theory you were asking about is fairly simple linear optics, for a first approximation you won't need more than simple geometry. A good start is also this wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lens_equation

Regarding your lens, 260mm would be a wide angle for 11x14'' and I'm not sure if you want to shoot close-up portraits with a wide angle. The standard lens would be something like 18'' (450mm). That's just the lengths of the diagonal of your 11x14'' sheet. But this would leave you only 150mm bellows draw, which may not be that much for such a long lens.