I might go shorter, like 300mm for portraits. The Fujinon A 300mm f9 is relatively light (410g) and small with 55mm filters. It's special in that it has a lot of coverage at 420mm to allow for quite some movements. If you can handle the weight and size then by all means use an f5.6. The Fujinon A in 300mm is somewhat rare but comes up for sale on the auction site for about $500-600. It's multi coated and in a silver newer Copal 1.
"Sharp" lens for 8x10 is not difficult to obtain. Does out of focus rendition matter? What is the expected working aperture?
Know images posted in the web is not a goo way to judge image quality due to the HUGE number of variables involved.
Bernice
My idea is to make portraits but not nearly as close to the subject as the linked images in the first post. I will be as far as I need to have the entire person in focus.
I will be in a studio using flashes and will try to use the lense on the sweet spot (a couple of stops down but not to much to start having diffraction)
I know that a scanned and compressed web image is not good to judge image quality. It was just a reference.
Diffraction for 8x10 starts at.... ?? I don't think you have to worry too much about that with a couple stops down ;-)
So full length portraits? Get something in 300mm. Nikon, Fuji, Schneider, Rodenstock all make great lenses. The f/5.6 lenses are big, but they make a very bright ground glass image. I have a 300mm Symmar-S, and I'm perfectly happy with it. If you need something more compact, then a 300mm Fuji C, Nikon M, g-claron, Computar, Kowa-graphic, all should be fine. Some of the older lenses, such as a Commercial Ektar, are just as sharp, but they might be a little less contrasty.
“You often feel tired, not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you.”
― Alexander Den Heijer, Nothing You Don't Already Know
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks