4x5 lenses: telephoto and portraiture

[Alan Klein]

Nikkor-T 270/6.3 or the NIkkor-T 360/8 would be good choices for both portrait and landscape. Both would work with the limited bellows length, no problem.

Would the 270 portrait lens be too soft for landscape shots?

[Alan Klein]

Would the 270 portrait lens be too soft for landscape shots?

Oh wait, The T means it's a telephoto. So would it be too sharp for portraits?

[drew.saunders]

How do you know which lens is a telephoto design?

Download this from B&H: https://static.bhphotovideo.com/Fram...SourceBook.pdf

Scroll to page 228 in the PDF (labeled 230 on the image). You'll see 3 LF lenses. The telephoto one, on the far right, is enormous, and looks almost stretched out, compared to a regular lens. Besides almost every telephoto LF lens having "T" or some other indicator in the name, they really do look different.

Page 232 in the PDF (234 on the page) shows the Nikon T series, which allow you to change the rear lens component to get 2 or 3 lenses from one front lens/shutter setup. Annoyingly, B&H didn't list the bellows draw for these lenses!

From the archive of the Ebony Camera website, https://web.archive.org/web/20170514...es/lenses.html , you can scroll down to the telephoto lenses and see that they have much shorter flange back (a.k.a. flange focal distance) than regular lenses of the same focal length. The Fuji 300/8 T requires 195.3mm of bellows, while the Fuji 300/8.5 C requires 282.3mm.

[Greg Y]

Oh wait, The T means it's a telephoto. So would it be too sharp for portraits?

It all depends what you're after. Many photographers select older lenses for portraiture. No tool does it all. You can have a pleasing portrait result....or a portrait made with the 'sharpest lens made.' Check out Heliars, & Yousuf Karsh' 14" Commercial Ektar..... & others.

[Bob Salomon]

It all depends what you're after. Many photographers select older lenses for portraiture. No tool does it all. You can have a pleasing portrait result....or a portrait made with the 'sharpest lens made.' Check out Heliars, & Yousuf Karsh' 14" Commercial Ektar..... & others.

Or Al Gilbert, Monte Zucker, etc..

[mdarnton]

There's a lens that hasn't been mentioned that I really think should be in everyone's bag and that's the 15" Tele-Raptar / Tele-Optar. Its an excellent lens with flange focus around 9 inches, so you don't need a lot of bellows. With shutter they often cost $150 on Ebay. If you're into soft focus, and being into portraits, you might eventually go there, the front component by itself is a dandy toy which gives the gentle softness of a Verito used on the back of the shutter and the full-out effect of some of the really pricey c1900 lenses when used on front. Used as a normal tele, it's sharp without the brittleness of some modern lenses.

You can find some examples in my large format Flickr pages. It's well represented there in the various modes, and I have more of these lenses than anyone deserves. :-)

[Peter De Smidt]

I've tried to get one, but the times I looked, there wasn't a good choice. I'll keep at it.

[Alan Klein]

Would this work Nikon Nikkor M 300mm F9 Copal 1? Is the f9 too dark? I sometimes use a reflex viewer with the Chamonix 45H-1? Price right at $590? https://www.ebay.com/itm/TOP-Mint-Ni...fBTQn#viTabs_0

[blue4130]

Would this work Nikon Nikkor M 300mm F9 Copal 1? Is the f9 too dark? I sometimes use a reflex viewer with the Chamonix 45H-1? Price right at $590? https://www.ebay.com/itm/TOP-Mint-Ni...fBTQn#viTabs_0

Since it's a 300mm, it will be plenty bright even though it's f9 (I have one, love it) The brightness of a lens on ground glass is more affected by the angle of the light hitting it, so a 75mm f9 will be WAY more dim than a 300mm f9.

With that said, it's not a tele design, so you are not going to be able to focus super close with your limited bellows draw.

[Mark Sampson]

The NIkkor-M 300/9 is a great lens; I will never part with mine. See my first post above... if I wanted to do LF portraits (but I don't), that's the lens I'd use. It will focus close enough on your camera if you don't want a tight close-up.
And as mdarnton has mentioned, the 15" Tele-Optar is a very underrated lens. We had one in the cabinet when I worked for Kodak, and the few times it was called for, it performed very well. An excellent choice for portraits (that's what we mostly used it for on the job.)