Super Symmar 150mm XL ?

[Chris Bitmead]

Does anyone have any comments on the Schneider Super-Symmar 150mm XL ? The Schneider literature says that it has a high tolerance for different magnifi cation ratios. Combine that with the big image circle and it sounds like a neat close up / studio lens and being reasonably light and small, perhaps a good gene ral purpose lens too. Although it's a bit expensive.

[Ellis Vener]

Chris, Almost any lens when used for closeup work has a bigger image circle than the ch arts show. It is simple geometry: the farther away the film is from the nodal po int of the lens the bigger the diameter of the cone of light projected by that i s at that focal point. The image circles you see in the lens charts or informati on packets are calculated (generally) for infinity focus. Since you either move the lens or the film plane or both away from each other for focusing on distance s closer than infinity then it stands to reason that the image circle will be bi gger when you focus on near objects. I don't doubt that the 150XL is a wonderful lens, but I think you may be better served by spending the difference in price between a standard design 150 (from Schneider, Rodenstock, Nikon or Fuji) and th e 150XL (plus CWF!) on film and Polaroid as you start your LF adventure. Cheers!

[QT Luong]

This is really a very wide angle lens for 8x10, comparable in purpose to the huge super-angulon of approximatively same focal length. For 4x5 the modern normal lenses such as the apo-symmar, apo-sironar, nikkor w, etc... work sufficiently well as general purpose lenses.