RD Artar 14" [360 mm]

[Shen45]

I have a barrel version of this lens and would be interested if anyone has observed a "favourite" aperture the lenses seems to work best at. Accounting for a nice balance between resolution and everything else.

And yes I have done my own tests, I'm interested in how others have perceived this lens.

If you have any image examples please post them.


Supposedly this lens is not corrected for infinity but the results don't suffer.

[Jason Greenberg Motamedi]

I used to love using my 14" Artar at f16, relatively shallow depth of field but very sharp and nice out of focus areas. I know these were designed for use at f22 and beyond, but I never felt obliged.

[Shen45]

Thanks for the reply Jason. I will certainly look at using mine at a wider aperture to explore the features you indicated.

Steve

[JohnGC]

...

[JohnGC]

I have several length Ronars and Artars including a 14". I often use them on my 8x10 at f:45. Beautiful, tack sharp transparencies. I drum scan, and print up to 32x40 with no noticeable loss of image quality, definitely could go larger. On a few shots, I've used f:64 and f:90 and was very happy.

I confess that I haven't used them for shallow focus work. I'm just starting to get into old projector lenses for shallow dof.:D

[mike rosenlof]

I have a 14 inch RD. The aperture ring is marked in red at f/22. I think somebody from the past is trying to tell me to use that.

Nice lens. I used it a few times in the barrel with a black card shutter. Then mounted a 360mm apo nikkor into a shutter and have used it a lot more. Time to try the older stuff again.

I use both of these critters on 4x5. Plenty of coverage, it just pushes the bellows a bit.