150 Rodenstock APO Sironar S and Horseman HF

[Tom Davis]

Hi all,

I realize the Horseman HF is a rare bird, but for those of you who've had it, do you think that a mounted current 150mm Rodenstock APO Sironar S would fold up into an HF? I'm close to deciding to go with the HF but I'd like to match it up with this lens.

Thanks in advance.

Tom

[Greg Miller]

I can't speak to the HF but I used to have a 45FA (I think they are fairly similar) and you could not fold the camera with a 150mm Rodenstock APO Sironar S mounted.

[Tom Davis]

Thanks, Greg, I've now done a more thorough search in the archives and it looks like you're right.

Tom

[Sam Crater]

The 135mm APO Sironar N is probably the closest thing that will fit. It fits in a VHR so it should be fine in a HF.

[Kerry L. Thalmann]

If you really want a 150mm that will fold up inside your cameras, the 150mm f9 G Claron, 150mm f6.3 Fujinon W and 150mm f9 Germinar-W would be your best bets.

Otherwise you'll need to go down (135mm f5.6 APO-Sir0nar-N or Caltar II-N), or up in focal length (possibly 180mm f9 Fujinon A or 203mm f7.7 Kodak Ektar - if you can find one of the European version in a Prontor SVS or Epsilon shutter).

Other than Horseman's own lenses (made by Topcon), these are the smallest lenses I know of between 135mm and 210mm.

Greg, I'm curoius what prevented the 150mm APO-Sironar-S from folding inside your FA. Was it the diameter of the front cell (49mm filters), the depth of the front cell/shutter, or the depth of the rear cell?

Kerry

[Ted Harris]

I can tell you from experience that a 135 Apo Sironar S will NOT fit on either the Horseman FA or Horseman HF folded. It will almost fit ... that is you can close the camera almost all the way but you cannot lock it and I wouldn't recommend carrying it this way. If the 135 doesn;t work then the 150 won't either.

[Greg Miller]

Kerry - I don't recall the specifics because time has killed those brain cells. But I seem to remember having problems with the rear cell being blocked by the bellows when moving the front standard back towards the rear standard.

[Kerry L. Thalmann]

Greg,

The reason I asked is, depending on what caused the interference, there may be some other options.

In any case, all the 150s I mentioned are considerably smaller than the 135mm APO-Sironar-N, which I know works. The three 150s listed above take either 35.5mm or 40.5mm front filters and have much smaller rear elements than the 150mm APO-Sironar-S the OP asked about.

I did forget one other possibility. Late 150mm f5.6 Xenars come on Copal 0 shutters and take 34mm filters. Older 150mm f4.5 Xenars came in Copal 1 shutters and, therefore, likely won't work. The 150mm f5.6 Xenar does have limited coverage (173mm image circle), compared to the others, but it does offer another possibility.

Here's a photo that shows the relative size of some of these tiny 150s compared to a 150mm APO-Sironar-S:

http://www.thalmann.com/largeformat/images/150.jpg

More info can be found at:

Lightweight Lenses 135mm - 240mm (http://www.thalmann.com/largeformat/mid-rang.htm)

Unfortunately, I did not have my 150mm f9 Germinar-W (my current favorite lightweight 150mm) when I wrote that article. So, no photo of the Germinar-W next to the others (same size front cell as the 150mm G Claron, but with a slightly large rear cell).

Kerry