You may find it helpful to read the article. The numbers represent lp/mm, a fairly common measure which stands for line pair per millimeter.Originally Posted by StoneNYC
You may find it helpful to read the article. The numbers represent lp/mm, a fairly common measure which stands for line pair per millimeter.
As a relative newbie to LF, I find it difficult to wrap my head around lens designs and stuff like that. I'd hardly know a Tessar from a Dagor......I don't know why I would or wouldn't want 6 lenses in 2 groups......
I do keep hearing over and over that there are few bad LF lenses, that's good, I guess.... But whereas so much in the smaller formats is somehow is canonized, I know what a zeiss lens renders like, I know how Leica renders.... A Schneider..... Not so much.... And I think this is where people's confusion sets in.
LF isn't cheap to get into, dropping several hundred on a lens without really knowing what to expect is tough. Maybe it's true that there aren't any really bad large format lenses, I feel like the two I have are great....
Maybe some broad overviews on lens design and rendering characteristics would be a good place to start.
Bob Salomon raised very valid points. Another is that test charts used by many bear zero resemblance to real world photography unless it's copy lenses being tested which is why lenses like G-Clarons do so well in these tests, it's what they are optimised for.
Apart from two poor early 90mm f6.8 Angulons I've never had a poor post WWII LF lens, for B&W work they've all been remarkably flare free even the pre multi-coated lenses, I don't like the term Single coated because some lenses had more than one coating but not the very balanced Multiple Coating that Pentax introduced with the help of Zeiss. I'd add that my 1968 65mm f8 SA has poorer coatings (in terms of colour balance) compared to my 1965/6 f5.6 75mm & 90mm SA's, it's Linhof Select and in a silver (unpainted barrel) while the other two are in (supposedly) later black barrels and more modern Compurs.
This forum opened my eyes, I was 110% against using non Multi-Coated lenses after some bad experiences with 3rd party 35mm camera lenses (all MC as well). Now I'll happily shoot with a 150mm CZJ T (coated) Tessar that's about the same age as I am and know that the images made with it are on a par in terms of final print quality as images made with my 150mm Sironar N, same goes for my coated 90mm Angulon & Super Angulons (non MC) compared to my 90mm Grandagon.
Similar to - a bad workman blames his tools.
A lot of it is about knowing the limitations or weaknesses of equipment & lenses and how too get the best out of them.
Ian
If you want to read it, write it.
Once again, you made my day.
OP - another wise man, Brooks Jensen, wrote that one can know all about lens designs, but if he has not used a particular lens, then he doesn't really understand how it renders. Or as Dan Fromm wrote, "Ask the lens."
Many have written that moderately priced modern lenses are more than adequate. That is correct. Choose one and be prepared to experiment with several lenses if you feel there is something missing in the look. Comparing others' lens outcomes online is difficult, in particular if the print is your goal.
The world is not flat so resolution charts and MTF data is, IMHO, useless in LF.
Good luck
As others have pointed out, good lens testing is challenging to do, and even if it is done correctly on someone else's lens, your lens will probably perform differently due to sample-to-sample variation. One approach when starting out is to pick lenses according to the characteristics that you need, focal length, coverage, weight, filter size, sync..... and then buy a widely recognized high value/good performer. Photograph with it. Evaluate if it has any deficiencies for your type of photography. If not, enjoy... If so, figure out the problem. Be specific. Talk to others and find out if it is a short coming of your sample or your type of lens. If you have the money, research what might be better, borrow, buy.... and compare to your first lens. There's simply no way around testing for yourself.
“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
Or a shortcoming in how you use it.
Absolutely. A number of years ago, I bought a Keith twin lens 4x5. When I picked it up, I asked the owner, "How are the pictures?" "Soft!" he said. On examination, there was a piece of silk mounted on the back of the taking lens, and the ground glass for the viewing/focusing lens was mounted the wrong way. No doubt the pictures were soft! When these issues were remedied, the lens, an Ilex 254mm Paragon, was an excellent performer.
“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
If you want a good read on traditional lens design history, there's a book by Rudolf Kingslake. Names like tessar, dagor, plasmat, dialtyte, artar, etc have been around for decades. This book goes into the evolution of camera lens design. But within each of these types or brands there has obviously been a lot of internal evolution based upon changes or upgrades in design options, glass types, coatings, shutters, etc. A very late tessar or dagor might perform quite differently from an early one, so it's risky to generalize performance based merely on generic category of lens or even upon objective tests. Besides, older lenses were often marketed for a different kind of visual rendering than modern ones, and are still prized for those very characteristics in analogous applications. A portrait photographer might have a very different opinion about a certain lens than a nature photographer, for instance. And standards for graphics lenses were different
from those marketed to photographers, though many of these lenses can be excellent on view cameras too.
There's plenty of variation in how Zeiss lenses render, and how Leica lenses render... and how LF lenses render, even within optical design types. Canonizations confuse and mislead. People "know" lots of things that aren't true.
As so many others have already said: best to test and judge for yourself.
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