150mm 4x5 Best Lens

[Charlie Snedaker]

I am looking to buy a 150mm lens for landscape and architectural 4x5 color photography. I have seen some glowing comments about the Rodenstock APO Sironar-S f/5.6 but is there a better lens? For instance, the new Schneider APO Symmar L f/5.6 costs about the same price. Do they have essentially the same performance? I would like to keep it reasonably light for backpacking but like the idea of a decent amount of light for focusing from an f/5.6 lens.

[Eric Leppanen]

The APO Sironar-S and APO Symmar-L have the largest coverage specs of the 150mm plasmats, so these would be your best bets for architecture. There are very subtle differences in terms of color temperature, contrast vs. resolution, and bokeh (rendering of out of focus areas), but for most folks these differences are inconsequential. The APO Sironar-S has been on the market for many years, and is frequently available used. The APO Symmar-L is a new design (the previous APO Symmar "non-L" had a smaller image circle spec) and rarely shows up on the used market.

[Paolo]

The APO SIRONAR S is a wonderful little lens. Smaller and, in my opinion, sharper then Symmars.
Both lenses will surely make you happy. But I would go with the Rodenstock.
I would not trade mt 150 S with any other lens on the market.-

[Dan V]

I have experience with the Rodenstock only and find it to be very sharp. Its small size makes it ideal for backpacking. I wouldn't trade it for anything but a new Ebony.

[Ken Lee]

Speaking of the Rodenstock APO Sironar-S, here is a sample image and an enlarged sample portion. 4x5 TMax 100, developed in D-76 (before I discovered PyrocatHD) scanned at 2500 ppi. Moderate sharpening.

Full frame

Detail Section

[Colin Graham]

another vote for the sironar-s.

[Jack Flesher]

I can answer this one from a bit of experience...

First, keep in mind that performance of individual lenses of the same type from the same manufacturer can vary significantly in performance; there are good ones and bad and you simply have to be willing to buy, test and sell until you get a winner...

I had a Rodenstock APO N. My friend had a Schneider APO Symmar pre-L, but his was the hand-picked anniversary version with the gold-anodised front barrel. His APO Symmar was sharper than my APO N by a little bit.

Of course this bothered me... So I bought a regular pre-L APO Symmar. It was notably less sharp than my APO N that I had already sold -- Yes I know, how STUPID was that!

So just a few weeks ago I bought a Rodenstock APO S. We just re-tested these two lenses last week and my new APO S is equal to my friend's anniversary APO Symmar.

~~~

Two side notes:

1) Conventional wisdom seems to be that the newer 150's and 135's will be the sharpest lenses in your bag. I have NOT found this to be true in actual testing! In the recent test above, my Fujinon 240 A outperformed both of the 150's mentioned above. And before anybody claims it was the effect of the longer focal length and image magnification, we were shooting the Edmund USAF test target and used the proper formula which mitigates image magnification: (Target Distance - Lens focal / Lens Focal) * Target LPMM. The 150's achieved just under 60 LPmm while the Fuji 240 made 72 LPmm.

2) This test also confirmed that most APO lenses are indeed NOT true APO, making slightly different resolutions on the different colors, though I suspect they fall into some range that qualifies them under a loose definition. The exception was my friend's Schneider red-dot APO Artar 300, which is very nearly perfectly APO -- and nearly as sharp as the Fuji 240.

Cheers,

[John Berry ( Roadkill )]

Jack, Thanks for the info. Do you think the variables would be cut down by going with a siranon or a linhof select? Thanks, John

[Jack Flesher]

>>Do you think the variables would be cut down by going with a siranon or a linhof select?<<

Hi John,

I honestly don't know as I've never personally owned or tested a Linhoff or Sinar badged lens. If the hand-select process Linhoff or Sinar went through to pick the lenses badged for them was as stringent as those used by Schneider, then one would think so. Personally I have my doubts about the veracity of the rumors surrounding the higher quality of the so called hand-picked Sinar and Linhoff lenses. Makes one wonder who got the rejects... Calumet?

[Bill_1856]

My guess is that what Linhof actually tested for wasn't sharpness, but focus stability when stopped down (no focus shift). That would be very important when rangefinder focusing, much less so for striaght GG focusing.