Schneider 135mm APO coverage

[macmx]

Hi,

I am looking to buy a medium wide lens for my 4x5 camera and was considering the 135mm Schneider Symmar APO as my other lenses are also Schneider. However, I am unable to find the data sheet for it. Specifically, I am interested in the image circle, since I do some interior photography. These usually only require moderate movements, but since the 120mm Symmar seems to lack a lot of coverage, I want to be sure about the 135. In the latest Schneider brochure I can find, the 135mm doesn’t appear, but is it safe to assume that the coverage is somewhere between the 120mm and 150mm?

http://linhof.com/wp-content/uploads...mat_lenses.pdf

Another option is the 110mm Symmar XL but it’s pretty darn expensive an a bit larger.

Also, I am wondering if the 135mm would fit inside a Technika when closed?

Any help is much appreciated.

[r.e.]

The coverage data for Schneider's 135mm f/5.6 APO-Symmar is in the 4x5 lens comparison chart on the home page of this forum.

This is a direct link to that chart: https://www.largeformatphotography.i...s/LF4x5in.html

[Kevin Crisp]

I wouldn't suggest the 120 Symmar for architectural work, but I've found the idea that they have barely any excess coverage to be a considerable understatement.

[macmx]

I wouldn't suggest the 120 Symmar for architectural work, but I've found the idea that they have barely any excess coverage to be a considerable understatement.

Do you mean that it has less or more coverage than you expected?

[Kevin Crisp]

I mean it covers 4x5 with room to spare. It is no super angulon, but it is a fraction of the size and easily allows for an inch of rise at infinity.

[Oren Grad]

Specifically, I am interested in the image circle, since I do some interior photography. These usually only require moderate movements, but since the 120mm Symmar seems to lack a lot of coverage, I want to be sure about the 135. In the latest Schneider brochure I can find, the 135mm doesn’t appear, but is it safe to assume that the coverage is somewhere between the 120mm and 150mm?

See the attached file.

Since you mentioned interior photography: don't forget that as you focus closer, the image circle increases in proportion to the bellows extension. Of course, you also lose image circle if you work at apertures wider than f/22.

FWIW, I have the 135 Apo-Symmar. For outdoor work at greater distances, the difference in coverage compared to the 120 is enough to be material for my purposes, all the more so as I tend to want more front rise as the focal length gets shorter. But my main basis for choosing is whether the focal length produces the field of view and the foreground/background relationships that I'm looking for. Because of the way I see, I prefer 135 to 120. As always, YMMV.

[Drew Wiley]

I realize it would be breaking rank with your Schneider theme; but if it were me, I'd consider a 135/5.6 Fujinon right up front. It is likely to have a larger image circle (76 degree angle of view @ f/22 vs 72 deg for the Schneider), and will be every bit as good optically, maybe better. Or, if you can afford to pay five or ten times as much, there's alway the 135 Apo Sironar S option; but unless you're routinely shooting at relatively wide openings like f/11, there is otherwise little real-world advantage to forking out all that extra money.

[xkaes]

The coverage data for Schneider's 135mm f/5.6 APO-Symmar is in the 4x5 lens comparison chart on the home page of this forum.

This is a direct link to that chart: https://www.largeformatphotography.i...s/LF4x5in.html

I only see one Fujinon 135mm on that list, but there were more than that -- with image circles from 206 to 228mm.

http://www.subclub.org/fujinon/byfl.htm

[r.e.]

I only see one Fujinon 135mm on that list, but there were more than that -- with image circles from 206 to 228mm.

http://www.subclub.org/fujinon/byfl.htm

The forum's lens comparison chart covers what was being sold in 2002. It doesn't cover the history of focal lengths from every manufacturer. I imagine that there are lots of 135mm lenses, made at one time or another, that aren't on the chart.

[Drew Wiley]

Clean used examples of Fuji multicoated 135's turn up from three similar generations of them, and all would be excellent. The "latest and greatest" CMW, however, does have one potential liability - it requires a larger 67mm filter.

My understanding of the Schneider "Apo Symmar" L line is that the re-design was mandated by glass type restrictions due to EPA banned ingredients, and not necessarily according to any real-world improvement in actual optical performance. Probably the two tweaks occurred simultaneously, since Rodenstock and Fuji were already ahead of Schneider at that point, and it was a game of catch-up.
I'm speaking of general purpose plasmats, and not expensive HM tweaks, or already superior lenses of smaller max aperture like G-Clarons, which are more equivalent to the Fuji A series than Fuji W's. Rodenstock and Nikon didn't have any equivalent to GC's or A's, but other kinds of specialty niches.