I shoot trains at night a lot, but have been using a Nikon D800E with Sigma 35 & 50mm f1.4 ART lenses for this. I'd really like to shoot with my Chamonix 4x5 though. I've been experimenting with how much exposure I can get, and with snow on the ground I've been hitting ISO 800 & f11. (I have 10,000ws flash power.) For the past three years I've mostly been buying either classic (lenses from 1910 to 1930) or ancient (1845 to 1865). These aren't synced of course, and aren't coated. For this project I'm thinking my needs are:
1. Wide to normal.
2. Fast, hopefully faster than f5.6 (to make focus in dark easier, and so I can stop down a little for sharpness)
3. Sync
4. Multicoating (to control flare from my flash and train's powerful headlights.
So far I bought a Nikon 90mm f4.5 SW, which will probably be the main lens I use. I would like to buy one more, in the 125mm to 150mm range. I find f5.6 150mm lenses all day long on ebay, and they would probably work, but was wondering if there was something else out there a little faster? Are any of the 150mm f5.6 better than another for this (especially flare control.) A number of my shots involve small town architecture/structures, so the movements on my 4x5 would be put to use. I'm now using a Nikon 24mm PC-E shift lens.
My plan is to shoot Ilford HP5 pushed one stop to ISO 800, and probably mostly use f5.6 to f8. (The f11 was a best case scenario.)
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