Why do you not see longer FL lens in L/F?

[stradibarrius]

In 135 format it is fairly common to see lenses that are 600mm or maybe even more. In L/F it seems that long focal length lenses are not used that often??? Is there a reason for this or am I just not aware that long lenses are used all the time?

[E. von Hoegh]

The 600mm equivalent for 4x5 is 1800mm. I'd think the answer is self evident.

[Eric Rose]

Bellows can become too long and become sails in the wind. Hard to get a sharp exposure then. Some tele designs shorten the required bellows extension but at some point there is a are diminishing returns I guess.

[Old-N-Feeble]

The 135 format really shines for sports and other genres for which long or telephoto lenses are needed in a relatively compact/agile package. Also, 135 excels for photomicrography because the smaller format is far easier to get good results. LF/ULF shines for images requiring great detail on large prints. It's a matter of necessity vs. practicality.

[Sevo]

As others have pointed out, the bellows size soon grows impractical, so that you'd need special, rigid cameras the length of a small car. And at closer range the lack of DOF gets rather out of bounds, too, limiting the practical use to subjects close to infinity.

Due to these factors, large format with very long lenses has been mostly limited to astrophotography (where the "lenses" generally are called "telescopes") and reconnaissance satellites (whose lenses tend to be classified). 5" wide film used with focal lengths in the 3-5m range was common in film age spy satellites (who dropped cartridges of exposed roll film to earth), but with the conversion to digital, spy satellite sensor sizes now have dropped to medium format dimensions.

[John Kasaian]

A 19" Artar is one of my most used lenses on the 8x10. My bellows don't allow for much longer. Generally, long lens=vistas; wide lens=intimate landscapes, or at least that seems to be how it works out for me.

[Drew Wiley]

If large format photography hangs on a few more millennia, maybe there will be a race of
humans with longer arms. It would help. Or just maybe, LF photographers are less evolved, and still retain more distinct simian traits than regular people. We could all submit DNA samples I guess. I personally like long lenses for most of my work, including near
subject matter. But 600mm is just about the limit of practicality for me.

[Brian C. Miller]

Here's the real reason:
$4,308.95 - Schneider 600mm f/9 Apo-Tele-Xenar Lens, 461mm Flange Length
$4,568.95 - Schneider 800mm f/12 Apo-Tele-Xenar Lens, 628.2mm Flange Length
$5,687.95 - Schneider 1100mm f/22 Fine Art XXL Lens in Copal #3 Shutter

These weigh at least 4-1/2 pounds. Take a guess at what an 1800mm telephoto lens would cost and how much it would weigh. Yeah, these are 1/2 the price of a new car, or the price of a decent used car. Nikkor was the cheap seats at about half the price, and Nikon has dropped out of the LF lens market.

Added: If you want to "make" a long lens yourself, visit Surplus Shed and browse through their lens element selection.

[dh003i]

Nikkor-T 600/800/1200 can be had for around $2200 if you can find someone selling it...but it depends on the seller and market.

There are longer lenses, they get much heavier. 1200mm is the longest large-format telephoto focal length that I'm aware of. I think there might be some 72in (1828.8mm) Artar lenses. You'd need 6 feet of bellows to focus at infinity.

[stradibarrius]

Great answers that make perfect sense when pointed out.

[Hermes07]

Here's the real reason:
$4,308.95 - Schneider 600mm f/9 Apo-Tele-Xenar Lens, 461mm Flange Length
$4,568.95 - Schneider 800mm f/12 Apo-Tele-Xenar Lens, 628.2mm Flange Length
$5,687.95 - Schneider 1100mm f/22 Fine Art XXL Lens in Copal #3 Shutter

These weigh at least 4-1/2 pounds. Take a guess at what an 1800mm telephoto lens would cost and how much it would weigh. Yeah, these are 1/2 the price of a new car, or the price of a decent used car. Nikkor was the cheap seats at about half the price, and Nikon has dropped out of the LF lens market.

Added: If you want to "make" a long lens yourself, visit Surplus Shed and browse through their lens element selection.

Price and lens weight aren't key reasons IMO. People are buying the latest, hefty Canon lenses for those sorts of figures.

There are just few practical uses for lenses that long when you can't also pan, autofocus, use shutter speeds in the hundredths of a second, shoot multiple frames in rapid succession, e.t.c. Those sorts of applications (sports, photojournalism, wildlife, e.t.c.) are what create the demand for long lenses for 35mm. The smaller formats have long since supplanted large format for this type of work.

When there was a demand for long focal lengths for process cameras, they were made in spite of the cost. I have a Dallmeyer 1500mm f/8 that the original owner would have had made on special order at some considerable expense. It looks like a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher and probably weighs more. Very few of these lenses were ordered, even in the days when 8x10 was the standard for serious work. Compare that to how many professional and enthusiast photographers are toting the big 400mm, 600mm & 800mm lenses from Canon and Nikon.

[cyberjunkie]

Price and lens weight aren't key reasons IMO. People are buying the latest, hefty Canon lenses for those sorts of figures.

There are just few practical uses for lenses that long when you can't also pan, autofocus, use shutter speeds in the hundredths of a second, shoot multiple frames in rapid succession, e.t.c.

Cost is always a factor, but i agree that there is no market for them.
Nikkor has trown the towel, and Schneider caters for the VERY restricted target of those interested in their line of expensive tele lenses. I bet that the annual sales are quite low, more like a flagship product than an economically motivated production.
BTW, when Nikkor tele line was still available new, and not exactly for a cheap price, the used market was flooded by repro lenses, some of them of very long FL, which were incredibly cheap (much more than today!).
Unfortunately at the time i was shooting 4x5" or smaller, and i wasn't interested.
Today i love them, i own quite a few between 480mm and 640mm, and i think that sooner or later i'll get something around 800mm, even knowing in advance that i would be limited to infinity (or very close to it).
Sometime i dream about longer focals, which would allow for some of the flexibility available in smaller formats (i've used a 500mm many times with my Pentax 6x7), then i realize that none of my 8x10" camera can be extended beyond its original bellows reach. Yes, i have a wonderful Linhof Bi-System 4x5" (a format which i feel i'm perfectly fine with using my current longest focal), but when i think that i should find an 8x10" conversion kit, intermediate standard/s, additional bellows, and maybe even use a second tripod... i wake up from my dream and decide thati'm not willing to sell some of my much loved gears to be able to afford such a monster setup :)

That's a very personal story, but i think that it can be generalized: long repro lenses (over 800mm) are expensive, a camera ready for them even more so, and the very shallow DOF and the sensibility to minimum vibrations are BIG constraints.
All that explains very well why, in the old days when 8x10 was the medium of choice for a pro, the use of very long focals was the exception, not the rule.
Those who really needed them used a componible monorail, with that bulky, impratical setup, and an Apo-Ronar (or any other similar graphic art lens). They knew very well what they were doing, cause i guess that taking super-sharp pictures outdoor, with such monsters, should not be very easy!

Having said all that.. if you know about a 1200mm apo, which is going on sale for very cheap, please drop me a line as quick as you can:D

have fun

CJ

[polyglot]

While I think it's true as a generality as stated above because we often use long lenses on 35mm for distant, fast-moving things for which a small, sensitive format is a good match (and small format digital is now good enough), it's not completely true that people didn't put crazy-long lenses on LF for shooting sports: Big Bertha (http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulmoseleyphotos/sets/72157627614102841/).

[Brian C. Miller]

Hermes, the Dallmeyer isn't a telephoto, is it? I'm guessing the lens was made for a banquet camera, or similar.

Now, can you imagine an 8x10 that could run at 4fps for 36 sheets with a 2400mm f/2.8 telephoto? Never mind a tripod, the thing would be mounted on a motorized turret with a seat! Oh, yeah baby, follow that action!

Yes, there is the $25,999 Sigma 200-500mm f/2.8 APO EX DG Ultra-Telephoto zoom lens (http://www.amazon.com/Sigma-200-500mm-Ultra-Telephoto-Canon-Cameras/dp/B0013D8VDQ/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1336189580&sr=1-3), and I'm sure that it has a much larger consumer base than one of the Schneider lenses.

Personally, I rarely use a telephoto lens. I've done a number of 300mm shots with my 6x7, but there's only a couple which I'd really want to do with a large format camera. The vast majority of them have been "normal-wide" focal lengths. Maybe it's just the Washington landscape, IDK. My longest lens is a Rodenstock 480mm, but I just can't see myself buying an 800mm or longer lens for just a dozen shots.

(added) The Big Bertha is a f/5.6 40-inch (1,016mm) lens. For comparison, the Nikkor T 1200mm is f/18.

[Hermes07]

Hermes, the Dallmeyer isn't a telephoto, is it? I'm guessing the lens was made for a banquet camera, or similar.

Now, can you imagine an 8x10 that could run at 4fps for 36 sheets with a 2400mm f/2.8 telephoto? Never mind a tripod, the thing would be mounted on a motorized turret with a seat! Oh, yeah baby, follow that action!

Yes, there is the $25,999 Sigma 200-500mm f/2.8 APO EX DG Ultra-Telephoto zoom lens (http://www.amazon.com/Sigma-200-500mm-Ultra-Telephoto-Canon-Cameras/dp/B0013D8VDQ/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1336189580&sr=1-3), and I'm sure that it has a much larger consumer base than one of the Schneider lenses.

Personally, I rarely use a telephoto lens. I've done a number of 300mm shots with my 6x7, but there's only a couple which I'd really want to do with a large format camera. The vast majority of them have been "normal-wide" focal lengths. Maybe it's just the Washington landscape, IDK. My longest lens is a Rodenstock 480mm, but I just can't see myself buying an 800mm or longer lens for just a dozen shots.

(added) The Big Bertha is a f/5.6 40-inch (1,016mm) lens. For comparison, the Nikkor T 1200mm is f/18.

Yep, the Dallmeyer is a Dallon Tele-Anastigmat. Made for 8x10". Can actually cover 16x20" adequately in my experience. Bellows draw for infinity is around 900mm which is within the reach of many 8x10 cameras (even if the lens weighs 10 times as much as any of them). If the goal was only to cover 4x5 with a tight image circle, I'm sure telephotos could be made that required very little bellows draw in the same vein as modern telephotos for 35mm.

Back when large format was the only game in town, people had to use what they could for sports, wildlife, photojournalism, surveillance, e.t.c. Dallmeyer being in many ways originators and pioneers of telephotography, eventually made f/8 lenses in 500mm and 1000mm with a 1500mm being special order only. Not sure the competition (tele-tessars, tele-megors) e.t.c. went quite as far with the focal lengths but there were certainly other options in the 600mm-1000mm range. The rise of smaller formats would have killed the use of these camera-lens combos for action work early in the 20th century though. Still subjects that need to be photographed in a lot of detail, either at a great distance or in a certain perspective still would have (and still do in my opinion) warranted the use of a large format camera with an extreme focal length.

[Old-N-Feeble]

<snip>...subjects that need to be photographed in a lot of detail, either at a great distance or in a certain perspective still would have (and still do in my opinion) warranted the use of a large format camera with an extreme focal length.

IMHO, those subjects are extremely highly specialized... mostly for scientific study. I believe someone else mentioned telescopes and that most, if not all, of those have switched to medium format sensors. Specifically what subjects, other than heavenly bodies (no, not ladies, you perverts), would merit such an immense and pricey camera/lens combo?

[Hermes07]

IMHO, those subjects are extremely highly specialized... mostly for scientific study. I believe someone else mentioned telescopes and that most, if not all, of those have switched to medium format sensors. Specifically what subjects, other than heavenly bodies (no, not ladies, you perverts), would merit such an immense and pricey camera/lens combo?

Firstly, pricey is a relative label. My Sinar P setup with custom made bellows, all 8x10 standards and a 1500mm f/8 or 1200mm f/9, cost less than a Cacon 5dIII and 85mm f/1.2.

Secondly, you seem to be equating a long focal length with a very narrow, telescope-like field of view which is not necessarily the case with big negatives. 1200mm on a 16x20 is the equivalent of an 85mm or 90mm lens in 135. If you can accept that a large negative or in-camera positive has merits over an enlargement from a smaller negative or a digital sensor, you can surely appreciate the need to use an appropriate focal length for the format.

In terms of what will merit such techniques, that's a personal decision. I don't think scientific study is much dependent on film or plates anymore, technical and repro fields have on the whole switched over to digital in recent years. Very large artwork for display is my application. Others will have theirs. I should have pointed out that it's not purely about detail/resolution - having a physical negative or positive to work with is obviously important if your method of printing depends on it.

[Old-N-Feeble]

On ULF or even 8x10 I'd agree. I was thinking the OP stated 4x5 format but "4x5" didn't arise until the 2nd post. The OP only mentioned LF which indicates up to 8x10. My oversight...

To clarify my opinion; I don't see how any FL longer than 600mm on 4x5 or 1200mm on 8x10 is of any practical use and, honestly, I think 1200mm on 8x10 is really pushing it.

Maybe I'm just projecting my personal limitations, which are very significant, but I know darned-well that I could never produce decent results with a 1200mm lens on any LF camera.

[ic-racer]

In 135 format it is fairly common to see lenses that are 600mm or maybe even more. In L/F it seems that long focal length lenses are not used that often??? Is there a reason for this or am I just not aware that long lenses are used all the time?

Common to see big lenses and gear, but are images taken with that stuff commonly seen in galleries and museums? I can't think of any of my favorite 35mm photographers that used a 600 mm lens.

[Brian C. Miller]

O&F, I think that there's a difference between producing good shots (stable tripod, focus, blah blah blah) and actually needing the lens on a regular basis. For instance, in this post (http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?43423-safe-haven-for-tiny-formats&p=884273&viewfull=1#post884273) I had to use the 300mm lens, otherwise the scene would have been far too wide. When a long lens is needed, it's definitely needed.

[Old-N-Feeble]

Brian... I don't question the need for 300-600mm lenses on 4x5 film. But the OP mentioned 600mm lenses on 135 and wondered why ultra-long lenses aren't used on LF. A 600mm lens on 135 format is equal to a 2160mm lens on 4x5 or 4320mm on 8x10. It's like shooting 6x7cm with a 1270mm lens but without a rigid body camera and with a big wind sail (bellows) attached. But using a 300mm lens on 6x7cm format is about like using a 510mm on 4x5... not too uncommon.

[Two23]

I have a 1930s photography annual that has an article about bird photography. The guy was using 8x10 with 15 inch lens, as I recall. He was using a long cable fired trigger on the camera photo'ing birds on perches, and would also crop down to suit. I used to shoot a lot of wildlife with a Nikon 35mm system, but really can't see a need for a lens longer than 450mm on my Chamonix 4x5. I actually only have a 300mm as my longest lens and don't plan on getting anything longer.


Kent in SD

[Leigh]

Long lenses are quite commonly used on LF cameras, but not those of the "portable" type such as you imply.

Those lenses can be found routinely on process cameras, which have huge robust support structures to maintain rigidity when
mounting lenses that might weigh ten pounds or more.

- Leigh

[Sevo]

Long lenses are quite commonly used on LF cameras, but not those of the "portable" type such as you imply.

Those lenses can be found routinely on process cameras,

Which long lenses have you seen on process cameras? Hereabouts, the oldest horizontal cameras I handled had (Apo-) Tessar types of fairly normal angle, the more modern vertical cameras even have strongly wide lenses (Dagor, Apo-Gerogon etc.), in proportion to the very large formats. At 1:1 any extension will be long, but that is another issue.

[Leigh]

...the oldest horizontal cameras I handled had (Apo-) Tessar types of fairly normal angle...
Angle of view has absolutely nothing to do with focal length.

You're confusing two totally unrelated parameters.

- Leigh

[Sevo]

Angle of view has absolutely nothing to do with focal length.


For many definitions of "long", angle and proportion are very relevant. A hippopotamus may be long in absolute scale, but compared to a snake we'd describe it as a plump animal...

There is no doubt that process cameras often are big - but relative to their size, their lenses are short. Usually they are only half to one fifth the focal length of the "normal" lens of a similarly sized camera for pictorial photography. My Klimsch, with a 50x75 cm frame, is equipped with a 240mm Apo-Gerogon - this is about the equivalent of a 43mm lens for 4x5", i.e. wider than money can buy.

[Leigh]

The focal length of a lens is the distance from the rear node to the film plane when focused at infinity.

Period. End of story.

- Leigh

[Old-N-Feeble]

It's clearly understood that the OP referenced lenses "longer than normal" for a given format. Right? That would be 43mm for 135, 90mm for 6x7cm, 153mm for 4x5in, 305mm for 8x10in, etc.

[Arne Croell]

Most technical points have already been made, I think: stability, the bellows "sail" etc. In addition, for the real long ones, two tripods are a necessity, but also a major hassle! For 8x10, the longest lenses used for well known published images that I am aware of were the ones used by the late Reinhardt Wolf for his images of NY skyscrapers and of Spanish castles; he used Apo-Ronars up to 1200mm(and two big tripods, extra bellows, an extra bellows frame, an extra rail section, and an assistant to schlepp all that gear). That is however, only equivalent to about a 180mm lens on 135. In the skyscraper book, there is an image of him with his 8x10 Sinar on some roof in NYC, and it should be immediately obvious why that is close to the practical limit.
The longest lens I've used for 4x5 (on my Technikardan) is the 720mm Nikkor T, but that is also only equivalent to just 200mm; here is an example: http://www.arnecroell.com/p423836129/h2aa5d8e3#h2aa5d8e3 I could see myself maybe going up to 1000mm on 4x5, for similar images, but I do net see any need for longer lenses.

Let me turn the question around. The main photographic areas of LF are/were in no particular order: architecture, product photography and still life, portraits, landscape (not wildlife) - all of these are also done with smaller formats, where 400 or 600mm lenses or longer are certainly available. How often have you seen an image from these fields done with one of those lenses?! Maybe the occasional city skyline against a mountain backdrop (e.g. Salt Lake City) to really compress the perspective, but thats about it.

[Old-N-Feeble]

Arne... that image prompted me to view your other images. Impressive work!!

[Arne Croell]

Arne... that image prompted me to view your other images. Impressive work!!

Thank you!

Arne

[Clive Gray]

I would be interested in getting hold of a 1200mm Apo Ronar somewhen and giving it a go while they do not go for peanuts they do not go for insane amounts either untill then I have a Apo Germinar 750mm that comes out to play now and then (http://www.flickr.com/photos/abbandon/5720351986/sizes/l/in/set-72157617841692352/), that is a some what indifferent shot but if any one cares to look at the silly size version there is a fair amount of detail there and although I carry a double base plate and extra rail clamp for the F2 10x8 that was shot without it.

[Vaughn]

I have used a 28" (~710mm -- a TR 12-21-28) on my Zone VI 8x10 -- the standards were clutching onto the last teeth of the rails at infinity...but my Kodak 2D could handle it much easier.

If I needed a longer lens, I'd probably turn my van into a camera.