180mm enlarging lens

Can a 180mm enlarging lens work for 4x5 enlarging ? If so, what is the drawbacks?
Sincerely,
Jerry

Yes - you need a little more height for the equivalent enlargement using a 150mm, but all else being equal, the 180mm will tend to have a larger image circle and you will be using a more central protion of it so you could have slightly better sharpness and less fall-off in illumination.

Yes. I use a 180 Rodagon on my Beseler 45. It is easier to see all the way to the edges of the image with the grain magnifier with the longer lens.

All things considered a 150mm modern lens will be corrected for better printing from a 45 then a 180mm will be.

For instance a 150 Rodagon is corrected for 2 to 10x while a 180 Rodagon is corrected for 2 to 8x prints. If you will be making large prints or doing much cropping the 150 would be better in this example. The 150 will also require less column height to reach a print size and this can also be a major factor. Even a 150 may be too long for some darkrooms so another choice would be a WA enlarging lens. The 120 Rodagon WA was corrected for prints up to 15x and would be a better performer overall then a 135 a 150 or a 180 unless you were considering an Apo enlarging lens. The other advantage to the 120 over a 150 is that it requires 30% less column to make the same size print as a 150mm.

Thank all of you for the advice. I now have data to think about.
Jerry

One other thing to check is to ensure that you can get (or have made) and can fit a lensboard which will take the lens. Most 180mm lenses have a larger mount size (typically 72mm) than their 4x5 directed counterparts. The lensboards which my Durst 4x5 enlarger uses are unfortunately not large enough.

PS ignore my previous message if you're using a 5x7 or bigger enlarger. :)