Kodak Ektar 127 mm f4.7 shutter opening size?

[Leonard Robertson]

It occurs to me if we could go back in time and ask a working press photographer if it worried him his corners weren't especially sharp, he would probably laugh at us, then blow cigar smoke in our faces. I suspect most press photos and maybe wedding photos were shot "loose", since the framing with optical finder or wire frame finder wasn't absolutely accurate. Cropping could always be done to turn the 127mm image into effectively a longer FL. If a longer FL (i.e. 152mm) were used, but due to lack of working room the entire scene couldn't be included then the photographer was sunk. His editor wouldn't care how sharp the corners were from the 152mm, if key parts of the scene were missing.

I saw the work of a local wedding photographer who shot with a 4X5 Crown Graphic (probably with a 135mm, but I don't remember), working in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He showed me a stack of 8X10 glossies of weddings he had done. Beautiful prints, although mostly done with flash so they had that "flashy" look I don't care for myself. I imagine he did some bigger enlargements when the customer ordered them.

Len

[Mark Sampson]

The 127 Ektar is quite a sharp lens. You can find information about that through the front page of this site. It does cover 4x5 with a little room for movement; I used one happily for my first seven years with a 4x5. No one told me I wasn't supposed to shift with it; I just accepted the small image circle until I tried a 135 Wide-Field Ektar. The press and wedding photographers who the 127 was meant for didn't use camera movements much, if at all, and so its image circle was sufficient for them. If you're planning on shooting architecture there are better lens choices, but the 127 is certainly worth a try.