Legends of the large format lenses.

[Shtativ]

Hallo!
Share experience and tell your opinion -this information will be interesting to all!
Musicians very much respect old guitar amps, for example Fender Bassman and Marshall JTM 45. These amplifiers are old, heavy, making a lot of noise, but make a unique sound which to be repeated nobody even today. Question: wich of large format lenses can be named legendary (old and new)? Which lenses possess unique and individual "drawing"?

[Armin Seeholzer]

Older Universal Heliar, Heliar and Imagon!
Newer ones all Schneider XL lenses!

[John Kasaian]

In reference to older lenses, its a safe bet anything ending with "or" or "ar" is considered by somebody somewhere to be a "classic."

[John Layton]

14" Goerz Blue-Dot Trigor - the last series of this formula produced by Kern in Switzerland.

[Bill_1856]

Kodak Ektar f:3.7/105mm. B&W prints from negatives made with this lens show an incredible clarity (like cut with a razor), although paradoxically an examination of the negatives themselves under high magnification details seem somewhat mushy. Despite being determined strictly by mathematical rules, depth of field seems to go on forever.

[Alan Davenport]

90mm f/8 Super Angulon.

[Jason Greenberg Motamedi]

Well, as you see. everybody has a different answer.

I have an ancient tube amp on my home stereo which is able to produce a completely different sort of "round" tonality than my other, much newer, digital receiver. The sound is anything but "cleaner", it has all sorts of artifacts and weird distortions. I am hardly a music equipment junkie, just a bottom feeder, but I love the tube and hate the digital. Similarly, I have quite a few "clinically" sharp lenses, mostly modern plasmats which have to my eye no discernible personality whatsoever; super sharp, contrasty, and no distortion.

If I compare my tube amp to my lens collection, I would guess that the closest thing I have would be my Heliar; it isn't terribly sharp or contrasty, has a fair amount of color aberration, but it is able to create unique images which I prefer over those which my more modern and more "perfect" lenses produce.If I take one step further from perfection, portrait lenses such as the Petzval or soft focus like the Verito produce images even more unique. I love my 11" Dallmeyer and my tube amp, but sure wouldn't want to claim that they reproduce reality...

[Mark Sawyer]

Older lenses: Anything ever mentioned by Adams or Weston

Newer lenses: Anything with a sales pitch from Dagor77

[David A. Goldfarb]

Heliar fan myself. Bill's 105/3.7 Ektar is a coated Heliar-type. Kodak also made a 100/3.5 version for the 6x9cm Medalist camera, and I've adapted one from a defunct Medalist for 35mm use.

I have a few Dagors that have a lot of character and really wide coverage. Not as sharp as more modern designs, but for contact prints I prefer them to the newer lenses.

Apo-Artars are still remarkably sharp lenses.

Among the soft-focus lenses, I have two Veritos that I like.

[paulr]

"Not as sharp as more modern designs, but for contact prints I prefer them to the newer lenses."

makes a big difference! some old lenses that are otherworldly for making contact prints go to pieces when you enlarge.