"The big two" - Please tell me about your japanese lenses!

[Warren Clark]

Hi Ig,
My favorite Fuji lenses:
Fuji A series 240,300,360
Fuji 450 C
Fuji 600C

All optically excellent, lightweight and wide coverage.

Good shooting,

WC
Grand Junction, Co.

[Drew Wiley]

Yeah, I use all of those same ones too, except for the 300A, plus 180A and 200 & 300 Nikkor M's in my field lineup. I could mention several more too, both Japanese and German. You can tell how much certain of these lenses are coveted, because their asking price even used keeps going up, in contrast to most general purpose studio plasmats, where prices have plummeted.

[Luis-F-S]

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Seriously, pick a modern lens brand & focal length and move on.

+1!! Most lenses are better than most photographers.

[Peter Lewin]

At my level, the issues are my technique, not the lenses. I have 3 Schneiders (80, 120, 210), a Rodenstock 150 (my most used lens), a Fuji (300) and a Congo (180). I would have a hard time detecting quality differences between them, perhaps the Congo isn’t quite as sharp at the edges, but I’m not even sure of that.

[Bob Salomon]

At my level, the issues are my technique, not the lenses. I have 3 Schneiders (80, 120, 210), a Rodenstock 150 (my most used lens), a Fuji (300) and a Congo (180). I would have a hard time detecting quality differences between them, perhaps the Congo isn’t quite as sharp at the edges, but I’m not even sure of that.

There use to be a very good camera store in Phoenix called PhotoMark. Rod Klukas managed the pro department there. He set up some shots that he shot on 57 chromes with Rodenstock, Schneider, Nikon and Fuji lenses. All the same shot and same exposure and focal length and same film. You could easily see differences between brands in color, contrast, etc..
Unfortunately nobody does tests like this anymore, or even back then.

[Pere Casals]

Unfortunately nobody does tests like this anymore, or even back then.

A problem is that sample to sample variation in the same brand/model is higher that the difference between brands. An even that sample to sample variation may not be even be noticed most of the times.

Regarding contrast, MC coatings all are very good, and what provocates flare is the photographer himself if not knowing when to use a compendium shade.


I guess that LF glass reached an amazing technical maturity in the 80s/90s. A 5x7" shot with any good modern lens blasts 650Mpix effective taking a 4 GByte 16bit/c file... In fact 1885 wet plates were surpassing 100MPix effective, challenging 2020 $40k digital backs

So we mostly need to not buy a (defective) dog and to have the right shimming in place.


A (defective) dog may come from some ebay sellers that take two broken lenses to make one (while manufacturer paired the right front and rear cells to have a good compensation, and placed the right shim in certain cases). Only a few lenses are of that kind, but this it is a probable cause when a dog is barking.

[Bob Salomon]

A problem is that sample to sample variation in the same brand/model is higher that the difference between brands. An even that sample to sample variation may not be even be noticed most of the times.

Regarding contrast, MC coatings all are very good, and what provocates flare is the photographer himself if not knowing when to use a compendium shade.


I guess that LF glass reached an amazing technical maturity in the 80s/90s. A 5x7" shot with any good modern lens blasts 650Mpix effective taking a 4 GByte 16bit/c file... In fact 1885 wet plates were surpassing 100MPix effective, challenging 2020 $40k digital backs

So we mostly need to not buy a (defective) dog and to have the right shimming in place.


A (defective) dog may come from some ebay sellers that take two broken lenses to make one (while manufacturer paired the right front and rear cells to have a good compensation, and placed the right shim in certain cases). Only a few lenses are of that kind, but this it is a probable cause when a dog is barking.

I didn’t mention resolution, I said that it was easy to detect differences in color, contrast, etc. between manufacturers.

[Jody_S]

There are very few bad large format lenses. I've tried out, if not used regularly, well over 100 lenses dating from the 1860s to my most recent which is probably late 80s. I've only had 2 where I felt the lens was letting me down rather than vice-versa: a 'Scientific Lens Company' 12" rapid rectilinear circa 1910(?), and a Topcor 90/5.6 that came from a photography school that was clearing out their lf stuff (so likely dropped or abused). In every other instance, if my images were less than satisfactory, the fault rested squarely on my shoulders. And sometimes on my other gear, like leaky film holders or bellows.

My current kit of modern lenses consists of Fujinon and Schneider lenses, but only because of price and availability. I won't pay 50% more for a lens that says 'Rodenstock' or 'Nikkor' if I think I won't be able to see a difference in the results.

[Pere Casals]

I didn’t mention resolution, I said that it was easy to detect differences in color, contrast, etc. between manufacturers.

Bob, regarding color, there are minor differences that ususal come from the particular transmission of the multicoating, IMHO those differences can be compensated perfectly in the post processing and it not requires a different filtration in the taking, what has a severe impact is the spectral response of the different color films (a protrait with Velvia 50 ), but the sprectral transmissions of modern lenses are all very flat, so easy to correct. For color consistence best is having a kit with the same coating.


Regarding contrast, I found that all MC plasmats have exactly the same: the perfection, 4 MC groups don't generate flare, nothing you can measure on film.

Problem with contrast is flare, but flare from the bellows, not from the glass. Say that you shot with a 300mm MC plasmat, the circle surface is 200,000mm² , but a 4x5" sheet has 12,900mm², so 7% of the light entering in the camera goes to the sheet and 93% illuminates the bellows inside, that are black only in theory, thus generating the flare, specially if bellows are very extended or very compressed the amount of flare is amazingly high.

So, at least, it's crazy complaining/comparing about glass flare if not using a very, very good compendium shade, very well adjusted and at small aperture (crops a sharper light rectangle).


Yes, a Sironar-S has an ED element allowing better correction of secondary color aberration (green-magenta fringes) in the corners, allowing larger circle (with top performance) for the same focal...

[Tin Can]

Comments indicate LF lenses are better than the photographer (great)

A good working shutter is a variable and many can work around that

'Hat off' is one, 'Galli shutter' is another, my choice is often Packard shutter

I have yet to pay anyone for CLA of a camera (aka box) or lens which is just a variation on a hole (think pinhole)

The capture is the rapture...(not a religious statement)

Exhibition these days is privacy (or not)

ymmv