Apo-Symmar 150

[Nioukie]

Hello everybody

I'd just want to know what do you think of the Apo-Symmar 150mm, f5,6 ?

It's, i think, a fine lens. But I'd like to be sure to make the good choice for precise work.
In comparaison with Medium Format lenses (Hasselblad or Mamiya) according to your opinion, does the apo-symmar stand up ?

All the best

From Paris...

[John NYC]

Hello everybody

I'd just want to know what do you think of the Apo-Symmar 150mm, f5,6 ?

It's, i think, a fine lens. But I'd like to be sure to make the good choice for precise work.
In comparaison with Medium Format lenses (Hasselblad or Mamiya) according to your opinion, does the apo-symmar stand up ?

All the best

From Paris...

It's a fine lens. I had a very sharp copy of this lens myself before I moved up to 8x10. I also have had a Hasselblad and the new Fuji/Bessa III with its sharp lens. Of course, I didn't do any testing, but just from appearances, the combo of the APO Symmar on 4x5 blew away anything in medium format.

You can find them used for <$500.

[Sdrubansky]

If you want to properly compare image quality on same size film (6x6 ; 6x7 etc) you'll have to
look at some test results by way of tables for MTF, Distorion, Relative Illumination and Trasmittance.

The general vibe for me has always been that Hass. Zeiss lenses are better performing
(resolution wise)
..but then again I did sell my old faithful MF kit so as to concentrate on LF :)

M

[Ken Lee]

For resolution, see http://www.hevanet.com/cperez/testing.html.

In addition to resolution, consider size, weight, filter size, and shutter size - which you can view at http://www.largeformatphotography.info/lenses/.

[Policar]

I have a very similar lens (135mm apo-sironar-s) and it seems slightly less sharp than my sharpest Mamiya lenses, but still pretty close. My guess is that most good Hasselblad lenses are comparable to or slightly better than my 65mm Mamiya--and so noticeably sharper than top shelf large format lenses. But my sharpest lenses of all are Nikkors--so I think smaller formats may correlate with sharper lenses (possibly because with so little film you really, really need the sharpness, also because you have better tolerances with roll film than sheet film imo). But the increase in surface area more than makes up for the slight lack of sharpness so I would say the apo-symmar should be plenty sharp.

I'm not sure about macro work, though. Most LF lenses aren't close focus corrected... Otherwise you should be fine is my guess. I am happy with the apo-sironar-s and it's a very similar lens I think.

[Brian Stein]

Just to add to what Policar said:

If you are a sharpness fiend I presume what you care about is the final print. This is where size of LF is your friend: your bitingly sharp small format lens enlarged 20x will be blown out of the water by your average sharp lens enlarged 2x.

Concrete example: The 60 or so lpm I can get on 5x7 film from my 150 mm G claron enlarged ~2x to 8x10 gives me 30 lpm to play with, needing 10 on the paper. Now Chris Perez can get 120 lpm on film with a Mamiya 7 80mm lens. But we are going to go up around 10x to get to about that 8x10. He is now down to 12 lpm, and his enlarger etc better be absolutely spot on to get that onto the paper, whereas I can use a cheaper lens with more slop and get similar resolution.

This discussion as always neglects the other technical aspects like tonality, microcrontrast, bokeh which may be far more important. And, as always, AA or equivalent is going to get a better photo than me using just a pinhole for a lens.

Final point: this is an excellent lens. I am more than happy with mine.

[dave_whatever]

Another point to remember; it may be possibly to get 120lppm out of mamiya/blad lenses, but that's only at middle apertures. By the time a mamiya 7 lens is stopped down to f22 to get any kind of usable depth of field (e.g. for near-far landscape compositions where you would use tilt on 4x5") the resolution will be down to the same diffraction limited values as almost any half decent LF lens, ~60lpm.