fastest lens for 8x10?

[cosmicexplosion]

some times searching this forum for 'fastest lens' gives you results for 'fastest' and 'lens' separately. not much help.

so i would like to know your fast lens for 8x10.

application; I am about to buy an arial 8x10 camera, for arial work.

thanks

andrew

[Jason Greenberg Motamedi]

There are quite a few fast 8x10 lenses, some are even affordable. None are lightweight.

A 300mm or 360mm f4.5 Tessar type might be your best bet. A few 300mm f3.5 Tessar types were also made, but are harder to find. Of the aerial lenses, the most affordable and easiest to find is a 12" f2.5 Kodak aero-ektar, Kodak also made a 13.5" f3.5 version which is smaller, but hard to find. Metrogons or Topogons are also available and sometimes affordable, but not easily mounted in a shutter and quality is questionable.

Of course, if you can pay you can get all manner exotic aerial specific lenses, a 150mm Wild Super Aviogon comes to mind, or you can buy a standard 300mm f5.6 Plasmat and get great results.

[Armin Seeholzer]

You don't need a fast lens for arial work, you need at least a 400 ISO Film and at least have to close the lens down to f 11 most of the time down to f16 to get your DOF!

Cheers Armin

P.S. I worked 3 years as arial photog!

[Lachlan 717]

Arial? Isn't that a font?

[cosmicexplosion]

no its an angel, thats why i need to catch a plane...

[Lachlan 717]

no its an angel, thats why i need to catch a plane...

Nup, that's Ariel.

Arial's still a font.

[SMBooth]

I thought Ariel was a mermaid....now I'm confused.

[Greg Y]

That would be Aerial.....:)

[Lachlan 717]

That would be Aerial.....:)

Aerial wasn't a Mermaid. Aerial has to do with flying, where some believe that you need fast lenses for photography.

But let's not get sidetracked...

[Ben Syverson]

Those 300mm ƒ/4.5 Tessars can be quite nice. The Tessar design is not the sharpest in small formats, but it's more than enough for LF. And ƒ/4.5 is a megabokeh stop in 8x10!

[Mark Sawyer]

Aerial wasn't a Mermaid. Aerial has to do with flying, where some believe that you need fast lenses for photography.

As long as pixies have wings, all my lenses will be aerial lenses. :)

[cosmicexplosion]

You don't need a fast lens for arial work, you need at least a 400 ISO Film and at least have to close the lens down to f 11 most of the time down to f16 to get your DOF!

Cheers Armin

P.S. I worked 3 years as arial photog!

Thanks Armin,

does that mean, that your normal land camera lens, will do the trick.

i am not planning on going too high, so i suppose its just a matter of perspective, but

what separates an ariel lens from a normal lens.?

what sort of a set up/s did you use in film?

and every body else

i hope your having a nice day.

[Oren Grad]

Some inspiration, perhaps:

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1051958

http://www.bennychanart.com/?cat=3

I don't know what lens he used - maybe if you write and ask he can tell you.

[Ramiro Elena]

I recently got this:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7034/6558709405_eb3bc1aa68_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/rabato/6558709405/)
Kinoptic Aquilar (http://www.flickr.com/photos/rabato/6558709405/) por rabato (http://www.flickr.com/people/rabato/), en Flickr

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7004/6558709093_8d69f61973_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/rabato/6558709093/)
Kinoptic Aquilar (http://www.flickr.com/photos/rabato/6558709093/) por rabato (http://www.flickr.com/people/rabato/), en Flickr

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7149/6558708905_997c716bfe_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/rabato/6558708905/)
Kinoptic Aquilar (http://www.flickr.com/photos/rabato/6558708905/) por rabato (http://www.flickr.com/people/rabato/), en Flickr

[Ben Syverson]

Military aerial lenses were probably made to be fast because a) they were imaging onto slow film (for huge enlargement and analysis), b) had to be able to photograph targets in all kinds of weather, and c) were bolted to the plane, which requires a fast shutter to avoid motion blur.

So I wouldn't sweat the lens choice. Using 400 ISO film opens up any lens to you. Aerial 8x10 sounds fun—let us know how it goes!

[Armin Seeholzer]

I used an Linhof Aerotronica 6x9cm with a Astro lens most of the time a 450mm f4,5 at f 16 and for city's and huge things like big companys ether a 120 Symmar or the 75mm Super Angulon!
http://www.exaklaus.de/astro.htm

[genotypewriter]

so i would like to know your fast lens for 8x10.

application; I am about to buy an arial 8x10 camera, for arial work.
andrew

Andrew, finding a fast aerial lens is not all that difficult. But one that covers 8x10 is most likely going to give a whole series of other challenges like:

1. Finding a shutter that's fast and big enough
2. DOF (as others have said)

So, if you want to get the job done, a smaller, perhaps medium format lens aerial lens with an appropriate shutter is the way to go.

If you just want to shoot 8x10 from a jet or something... by all means, try it.

As for how aerial lenses differ from ordinary lenses... most of the time they're very similar. But as a general rule of thumb, you could say they need to perform better at far focusing distances than at close focusing distances. Some popular and relatively modern fast large format aerial lenses that I've used show longitudinal CA compared to equal-spec'ed ordinary lenses.

To summarise... there will be extra challenges to overcome if one were to use 8x10 for aerial shots. You can overcome these challenges more easily by shooting a smaller format and still most likely end up with similar levels of detail.

Here are some of mine...

Follow link to a see a much larger image and lens info
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6204/6076860350_1efcf9e0e2_d.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/genotypewriter/6076860350/)

Follow link to a see a much larger image and lens info
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6209/6076858788_6277e50fbe_d.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/genotypewriter/6076858788)

Guy

[Ben Syverson]

Wow, ƒ/2.5 on 8x10 has to be crazy!

[genotypewriter]

Wow, ƒ/2.5 on 8x10 has to be crazy!

The actual measured light transmission puts it around T3.2... but yes, the DOF is there... or more like not :)

Actually, the image circle is big enough to cover 11x14...

[cosmicexplosion]

thanks you mr typewriter,

tell me please, if a lens is in focus at infinity, which for many a lens will be after say 30 meters, then surly dof should not be an issue?

[cosmicexplosion]

am having trouble creating links

but if any one can be bothered i have a burning question re lens sizes used for this camera.

john brady is selling the camera on this site under the title 8x10 arial/point and shoot.

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=86499&highlight=8x10+point+shoot


"From the front to rear it measures about 7.5 inches.
One cone is aprox 9 inc,
one is 3 inch
and the third is recessed into the body so negative two inch. I
am not sure what lenses these are built for but you can do the math, 16.5, 10.5 and 4.5 inches. "

if any one can work out the correct lens's

you will go down in history as a champ!

bellow is another attempt at a link

http://http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7155/6803048885_cfc13718c7_b.jpg

[cosmicexplosion]

just to ad urgency to this thread, i was having trouble paying for camera, and i got the jitters, as i am not sure i can get the right lens's for camera, so i have post poned the sale pending info,

so as usual your insights are appreciated.

andrew

[genotypewriter]

tell me please, if a lens is in focus at infinity, which for many a lens will be after say 30 meters, then surly dof should not be an issue?

DOF depends on a lot of things and focus distance is just one of them. In the sort of application you're talking about, I'm guessing your main intention behind shooting 8x10 is resolution. And higher the resolution... lower the DOF.

Who knows... maybe things will be fine :)

[genotypewriter]

I am not sure what lenses these are built for but you can do the math, 16.5, 10.5 and 4.5 inches. "


Which means lenses with focal lengths that are approximately those numbers can be made to focus to infinity.

Look in the auction site for helicoid focusing mounts first. They'll help you make fine adjustments to the focus which you will need to do.

After that you can add the thickness of the focusing mount to the lengths of the cones to approximate focal lengths required to focus close to infinity. You will also need to make sure the focusing mounts are compatible with the lenses you intend to use (in terms of diameter and size).

To put it in other words... it's going to be a bit of an adventure to get everything to work together. Go for it if you're in for it.

[Mark Sampson]

It's not all that complicated. For aerial work, focus is fixed at infinity. So buy/build a box camera with the lens shimmed to achieve infinity focus; DOF is absolutely not an issue. The fastest realistic speed on a leaf-shutter lens is 1/250, that may be a problem if you're thinking low-altitude work; of course a slow airplane like a C-152 or a Super Cub will combat the camera-motion issue. And the higher you go, the less contrast your subject will have, so (in B/W at least) N+? development will be a good thing. A yellow filter will cut the haze, too.