180mm for 5x7

[Drew Wiley]

The Fuji A is an 80 degree lens. The circle of illumination will actually cover 8x10 point blank, but the corner definition falls off way too much to make it a realistic lens on film this large, unless used close-up, an application in which this lens series excels. With the 5X7 format, you'd want to be conservative with front movements at infinity. With 4x5 and smaller, miles of wiggle room. The smaller aperture is a non-issue outdoors compared to 5.6 general purpose plasmats. But for portraiture, I prefer the less acute rendering of the old Symmar S series.

[arthur berger]

Thanks for all your input. I decided on the 180mm Fuji with the inner lettering and ordered one I had seen on the bay.
Arthur

[Bernice Loui]

Had the 180mm Fujinon A twice for 5x7. Once during the mid 1990's and later in the early 2000's.

Pass twice, No thank you, never again. Just not for me.
Coverage was_what it is_ok. Resolution based on testing two examples were lesser than the 7-1/2" Kodak Ektar (likely due to lager aperture used with the Ektar, Fujinon A starts at f9, Ektar is GOOD at f8. Larger aperture = higher resolution), color was not for me, contrast was ok...



Bernice

Optically, the Fuji A 180/9 would unquestionably be the pick of the litter.

[Eric Woodbury]

Bernice, larger aperture = lower diffraction, not higher resolution. With a "perfect lens", your statement is true, but for the lenses we can afford, not necessarily true. Best to stick with the "two stops down" rule.

[Drew Wiley]

Well, unless one wants very shallow depth of field, Bernice, why on earth would a large format shooter use wider apertures? For portraiture I'd rather have a fast tessar anyway for that kind of application. Decently stopped down, the Fuji A's truly are just what Fuji claims them to be, "Super Plasmats" - better corrected both close up and at infinity than general 5.6 plasmats. Eighty degree coverage. The color correction is absolutely superb. But they are modern relatively high contrast lenses which I don't like for things like portraiture. The out of focus rendering or bokeh is rather harsh, and a gentler contrast rendering is indeed often desirable in portraiture. For landscape use and nature closeups they're amazing. Incredibly sharp, even with greater magnification like roll film usage. Portable too. But I have no idea what specific applications the Poster has in mind, so am just chiming in with my two cents worth. I wouldn't use a 180 Fuji A for typical architectural work either, regarding 5x7, because the image circle is somewhat shy for serious rise; with 4X5, yes.

[Bernice Loui]

7 1/2" Kodak Ektar has a full aperture of f4.5, two stops down would be .... f8_ish.

Using a Sinar P which is quite precision and GOOD film holders allows using f8 at infinity focus with not a lot of DOF problems. So no, large aperture LF lens are not beyond affordability and using them with a precise imaging system in specific image making situations works GOOD with large aperture LF lenses.


Bernice

Bernice, larger aperture = lower diffraction, not higher resolution. With a "perfect lens", your statement is true, but for the lenses we can afford, not necessarily true. Best to stick with the "two stops down" rule.

[Bernice Loui]

For the same reason why aero-recon lenses for BIG roll film back in the day used fixed LARGE aperture lenses with LONG focal lengths. When focused at or near infinity, large aperture works, and works good enough to do high definition military intelligence recon.

As sheet film grows so does problem with lens options, lens availability and $, problems with depth of field-depth of focus grows with the exception of images at infinity focus. Specifically to 8x10 a larger film formats where one of the constant struggles is with DOF-F, lens choices, film flatness and more..

We have batted this about more than once Drew and the replies continue to repeat much the same. It seems we have been at this LF stuff for about as many decades.. over that time we have figured out what works for our image making needs. There was a time when 8x10 with apertures smaller than f32 were the thing for me. Since then, moved on to 5x7 with all the optical advantages of that smaller format. Adding to this was using the largest possible taking aperture mixed with careful use of camera movements to achieve absolute focus control.

LF image making is not always about everything in SHARP focus or actually apparently sharp focus as any lens has a single true point of focus.

There was a time when the Group f64 mind set was doctrine and ideology, since then I'm no longer a believe in the Group f64 doctrine-idealogy as exampled in soft focus, selective focus and more offers a broader variety of expressive image making possibilities.

As for lenses, the variety available to use for image making is not small.



Bernice

Well, unless one wants very shallow depth of field, Bernice, why on earth would a large format shooter use wider apertures? For portraiture I'd rather have a fast tessar anyway for that kind of application. Decently stopped down, the Fuji A's truly are just what Fuji claims them to be, "Super Plasmats" - better corrected both close up and at infinity than general 5.6 plasmats. Eighty degree coverage. The color correction is absolutely superb. But they are modern relatively high contrast lenses which I don't like for things like portraiture. The out of focus rendering or bokeh is rather harsh, and a gentler contrast rendering is indeed often desirable in portraiture. For landscape use and nature closeups they're amazing. Incredibly sharp, even with greater magnification like roll film usage. Portable too. But I have no idea what specific applications the Poster has in mind, so am just chiming in with my two cents worth. I wouldn't use a 180 Fuji A for typical architectural work either, regarding 5x7, because the image circle is somewhat shy for serious rise; with 4X5, yes.

[Drew Wiley]

Since when has an ordinary film holder ever held the film precisely flat??? Recon and mapping aerial and cameras tensioned their big film on spooled rolls.

[Bob Salomon]

Since when has an ordinary film holder ever held the film precisely flat??? Recon and mapping aerial and cameras tensioned their big film on spooled rolls.

And vacuum backs

[Bob Salomon]

For the same reason why aero-recon lenses for BIG roll film back in the day used fixed LARGE aperture lenses with LONG focal lengths. When focused at or near infinity, large aperture works, and works good enough to do high definition military intelligence recon.

As sheet film grows so does problem with lens options, lens availability and $, problems with depth of field-depth of focus grows with the exception of images at infinity focus. Specifically to 8x10 a larger film formats where one of the constant struggles is with DOF-F, lens choices, film flatness and more..

We have batted this about more than once Drew and the replies continue to repeat much the same. It seems we have been at this LF stuff for about as many decades.. over that time we have figured out what works for our image making needs. There was a time when 8x10 with apertures smaller than f32 were the thing for me. Since then, moved on to 5x7 with all the optical advantages of that smaller format. Adding to this was using the largest possible taking aperture mixed with careful use of camera movements to achieve absolute focus control.

LF image making is not always about everything in SHARP focus or actually apparently sharp focus as any lens has a single true point of focus.

There was a time when the Group f64 mind set was doctrine and ideology, since then I'm no longer a believe in the Group f64 doctrine-idealogy as exampled in soft focus, selective focus and more offers a broader variety of expressive image making possibilities.

As for lenses, the variety available to use for image making is not small.



Bernice

Ever look at those recon images of the personnel around the Cuban missle sites, or the missles in the ship holds? Those were all 5x5” long roll aerial film shots from RF101 Voodoos out of Homestead AFB, FL. Those were shot by my squadron and I printed many of them either on a Kodak package printer for prints up to 10x10” or on Durst or Loge enlargers for prints up to 24x24”. Also duped the film on Loge and all were detailed enough for the photo interpreters and for Langley and JFK.

If you haven’t seen them before they are usually displayed at the AeroSpace Museum in DC under one of our units Voodoos.