biggest lens for crown graphic?

[folsombob]

Hello all,

What would be considered the biggest possible lens for a Crown Graphic -- without adding extended bellows?

I have a 210mm, but am looking for possibly a 300mm for portrait work, but don't know if it will focus.

Thanks,
folsombob

[Dan Fromm]

The longest standard issue lens for a 4x5 Graphic -- worked on Crown and Pacemaker Speed -- was the 15"/5.6 Wollensak Telephoto. There are shorter teles that will cover 4x5, these should also work on a 4x5 Graphic.

[DolphinDan]

Hi,

I use a Nikon Nikkor-M 300mm f9 lens on my CG; I really have to rack out the bellows all the way until the front standard almost falls off of the rails. However, it does work. I would recommend getting an extension tube to use with it, which is what I am doing.

I have not tried telephoto lenses with my CG; so, no opinion on them.

So 300mm lenses can be tricky on a CG, anything <300mm should be fine.

Namaste
Daniel


Hello all,

What would be considered the biggest possible lens for a Crown Graphic -- without adding extended bellows?

I have a 210mm, but am looking for possibly a 300mm for portrait work, but don't know if it will focus.

Thanks,
folsombob

[Michael Graves]

If you can find one, there was a 360mm Tele-Xenar made just for graphics. I have the 270 and it's quite nice. I think you can use a Fuji 400 on it, but it will be a big chunk of glass and shutter on the front of the camera, and eat up most of the lensboard. It might be to bulky to work with.

[Glenn Thoreson]

Go for a telephoto design. A regular 300mm lens on that camera won't focus very much less than infinity. A 240mm Sironar would make a nice portrait lens, but a Copal 3 is a pretty big thing for that lens board. There are lots of choices out there in Copal 1 shutters that would work nicely.

[Bill_1856]

The longest lens for 4x5 Speed/Crown Graphic which will focus close enough for portraits is probably the 10" Tele-Raptar (an excellent optic).

[folsombob]

Hey everyone, thanks for the speedy replies.

I will be looking into this, but the telephoto design would appear to be the way to go.

As mentioned above with the 300mm, my 210 comes close to the end of the rails, so I assumed the 300-400mm would come close, if not, topple off.

I hadn't considered a telephoto version -- still new to things beyond the basics. Thus far, I have the Rodenstock 210mm, a Xenar 135, Ektar 127, and Graphlex 90. Obviously, my glass assortment speaks to my experience.

What is considered a good portrait focal length in the 4x5 world?

I like 85mm to 105mm in the 35mm world, which (I think) equates roughly to 240 and 300mm... ???

folsombob

[Paul Fitzgerald]

folsombob,

you're already there, 210mm is a nice focal length for portratis on 4x5. Your Crown Graphic could mount a 241mm or 254mm Wollensak Raptar but they will need to pull the bellows tight to focus that close, beating-up the equipment with no real gain. Tele-photo lens are available for 4x5, the 15"/5.6 Tele-Raptar is a bit overkill for portraits with 4x5, works well with 5x7.

[folsombob]

Thanks Paul,

I like using the 210, and find it is rather versatile for distant landscapes, as well.

Do you happen to know the 35mm equivalence? I've seen a range from 50 to 70mm from various sources.

Same question for other lenses: what is the 35mm equivalence for a 90, 127, and 135?
Is there a consistent conversion factor?

folsombob

[Lachlan 717]

Do you happen to know the 35mm equivalence? I've seen a range from 50 to 70mm from various sources.

Same question for other lenses: what is the 35mm equivalence for a 90, 127, and 135?
Is there a consistent conversion factor?

folsombob


Have a quick look here (http://www.largeformatphotography.info/lenses/LF4x5in.html). It has a column for what you're after...

Lachlan.

[benrains]

I base my lens conversions on the diagonal lengths of the formats (43.3mm for 35mm, 162.6mm for 4x5, 218.5mm for 5x7, etc.) From those I figure the conversion factor between 35mm to 4x5 at 3.75, to 5x7 at 5.05 (or just 5), and to 8x10 at 7.5.

A 210mm lens on 4x5 is a bit wide for anything but full length portraits. With tighter work, like headshots, you'll get noticeable foreshortening. A 240/250mm would serve you well but a 300mm telephoto design would be a better choice for tighter shots (equivalent to an 80mm lens for the 35mm format.)

[Joseph O'Neil]

I found my 270mm g-claron pulled the bellows to the end on my Crown graphic.

However in "tele" lenses, what the previous post above said about the Wollensak tele-raptor is quite correct. It's a huge lens in it's own right, but my Crown carries it just fine.

Out of sheer insanity, when I first got my 600mm apo-ronar, I pulled out my crown graphic and my apo-ronar, and set them together on a table. Took me about 1.5 seconds to figure out there ain't no I'm ever gonna make that happen.
:)

[Frank Petronio]

The conventional wisdom that you want a long lens for portraiture is just that, conventional... I shoot most of my stuff with a 135 and while you can get distortion, that is not always a bad thing. If you keep the camera perpendicular to the subject and avoid placing important things like asses and noses on the far corners of the frame, it can work quite nicely, even for head and shoulders close stuff.

Note that some of the greatest portrait photographers, like Penn and Avedon, used normal lenses on their Rolleiflexes for some of their best "close" work. The slightly wide field of view with the dreaded distortion actually helps make the pictures more interesting. IMHO far more interesting than the currently popular short-focus, low depth of field stuff that so many are doing these days....

That said, your 210 is probably great for more traditional stuff, I've used 210-300 for a lot of 4x5 portraiture and honestly I think it is hard to distinguish shots from the 210 versus the 300.

Comparing 4x5 focal lengths to 35mm lengths is futile, not just because of the different proportions but because they just "feel" different. If you calculate it out, that 210mm equals a 58mm on 35mm (give or take 10mm based on who you listen to). But in practice a 210mm lens "feels" much longer to me, more like a 75-85mm; while a 300mm feels like quite a long 100-135mm.

[BrianShaw]

That said, your 210 is probably great for more traditional stuff, I've used 210-300 for a lot of 4x5 portraiture and honestly I think it is hard to distinguish shots from the 210 versus the 300.

I can attest to this statement, when it comes to focal length comparisons (there may be other benefits, favoring either FL, based on lens design, etc). The ONLY advantage of a 300 versus 210 for portraiture that I've noticed is the ability to keep the camera further separated from the subject. It seems a bit less intimidating to some that way, but it is probably nothing that two minutes of relaxing music wouldn't overcome.

[Robert Hughes]

If you keep the camera perpendicular to the subject and avoid placing important things like asses and noses on the far corners of the frame, it can work quite nicely, even for head and shoulders close stuff.

What happens when you put those important things in far corners? Can you link to an example?

[BetterSense]

What happens when you put those important things in far corners?

Total protonic reversal. Imagine every molecule of your body exploding at the speed of light.


If you calculate it out, that 210mm equals a 58mm on 35mm (give or take 10mm based on who you listen to). But in practice a 210mm lens "feels" much longer to me
Could this be because on a 4x5 camera, you have to rack the front standard out so far to focus close that the "actual" focal length of the lens is longer in practice, at portrait distances? It makes sense to me anyway. I like my 210, the longest lens I have, for torso shots.

[venchka]

I don't know how Speeds & Crowns translate, but I have 200mm Collinear II that gets real close to 1:1 ALL the way out on my Anniversary Speed Graphic. At normal extensions, it's very manageable. I suppose that correlates with your 210mm experience?

[domaz]

What about physically big? I was thinking about getting a Graphic and putting a Petzval on it, but the Petzval needs about a 75mm lensboard opening. I know this is basically at the limit for a Graphic lensboard- is there another hole in the back of the lensboard or other issues to worry about?

[BetterSense]

There's only one hole in the lensboard, and if the lens can fit in the lensboard it should be able to fit through the front standard. The camera might not fold of course, if the lens is very big.

[Robert Hughes]

Total protonic reversal. Imagine every molecule of your body exploding at the speed of light.
I can really see that happening with some of Frank's models :D

[Dan Fromm]

There's only one hole in the lensboard, and if the lens can fit in the lensboard it should be able to fit through the front standard. The camera might not fold of course, if the lens is very big.BS, have you tried it? I ask without having anything handy to measure, but I do remember very well that my little 2x3 Graphics have ~62 mm boards and a lens throat 48 mm in diameter.

About using lenses that won't pass through the front standard or are larger than the board on a Speed Graphic. It can be done, I have a number of ex-aerial camera lenses mounted entirely in front of Graphic boards. The relatively fat ones include a 100/2.5 Uran-27 (ex-RA 39) and a 12"/4 TTH telephoto (ex-F139) and a 100/5.6 S.F.O.M. (ex-Omera 31?).

Cheers,

Dan

[BetterSense]

I'm sorry I forgot about the 2x3 graphics. I only have a 4x5 pacemaker graphic.