Best 75mm / 90mm lens?......totally kidding, but not really...read on pls

[Alan Klein]

Is it true with old LF lenses (Nikkor, Rodenstock, Fuji, and Schneider) that the sharper more expensive ones are better wide open? But once you start to stop down, they're all about the same?

[neil poulsen]

. . . Higher contrast rendition by an lens alone is NOT an advantage it is merely a look, nothing more, nothing less. For some this feature is of high value, for some this feature is of zero value. It depends on image goals.

Good point. To be considered, but not an end-all, be-all. I've sold lenses because of their high contrast.

That said, I gathered that high contrast was an important consideration for Ansel Adams, et.al.

[neil poulsen]

For the 90mm focal length, there's a pretty clear response . . . A 90mm Nikon f8 lens would be excellent. I have one of these. I photograph both landscape and exterior architecture, and this lens works really well for me.

It's the smaller f8, yet it has the same image circle as other f5.6 lenses. (235mm at f22.) So, it would be excellent for landscape, and while it may be a little more difficult to focus for interior architecture, it's got the movements that you would need. . . .

Something else worth mentioning that Kerry Thalmann observed in his comments on the topic. . . The Nikon 90mm f8 lens has eight elements, whereas other 90mm f8 or f6.7 SW's have six elements.

[Bernice Loui]

Nikkor, Rodenstock, Fuji, and Schneider would be consider modern as they made LF lenses for a long time and continued making them until the market collapsed. Majority of modern LF lenses were optimized for f22.

This was not the case for the previous LF lenses made by Kodak, Voigtlander, Zeiss, Taylor Hobson, and many others. Examples. Zeiss Biogon (aero recon version and..) were optically good at f4.5-full aperture, Kodak Commercial Ektars (Tessar) were good at full aperture of f6.3 then improved at two f-stops down and begins to degrade at smaller apertures. This generation of LF lenses were used by image makers with a different need and market. If one were to look at commercial ad images from the 1950-late 1960's -vs- mid-70's on, the style of commercial images took on a very different style and feel that in many ways were in sync with what those cultrual-social times were.

There are modern LF lens exceptions, Rodenstock Grandagon 35mm, 45mm, 55mm f4.5 had published these wide angle lenses had good performance at apertures larger than f22. Other examples are the current crop of digital sensor lenses where f22 becomes diffraction limited for a image sensor that needs more resolution that is possible with larger optically optimized apertures.


Bernice

Is it true with old LF lenses (Nikkor, Rodenstock, Fuji, and Schneider) that the sharper more expensive ones are better wide open? But
once you start to stop down, they're all about the same?

[Bob Salomon]

Nikkor, Rodenstock, Fuji, and Schneider would be consider modern as they made LF lenses for a long time and continued making them until the market collapsed. Majority of modern LF lenses were optimized for f22.

This was not the case for the previous LF lenses made by Kodak, Voigtlander, Zeiss, Taylor Hobson, and many others. Examples. Zeiss Biogon (aero recon version and..) were optically good at f4.5-full aperture, Kodak Commercial Ektars (Tessar) were good at full aperture of f6.3 then improved at two f-stops down and begins to degrade at smaller apertures. This generation of LF lenses were used by image makers with a different need and market. If one were to look at commercial ad images from the 1950-late 1960's -vs- mid-70's on, the style of commercial images took on a very different style and feel that in many ways were in sync with what those cultrual-social times were.

There are modern LF lens exceptions, Rodenstock Grandagon 35mm, 45mm, 55mm f4.5 had published these wide angle lenses had good performance at apertures larger than f22. Other examples are the current crop of digital sensor lenses where f22 becomes diffraction limited for a image sensor that needs more resolution that is possible with larger optically optimized apertures.


Bernice

There were no Rodenstock 35, 45 or 55mm Grandagon lenses. Those were the Apo Grandagon series. Proper names are always more useful if one was to look them up.