For my uses, the venerable Plaubel Makiflexes are the retro photo equivilents of the electronic GX680 in many ways. It has a nominal 9x9cm film gate, so all of these lenses cover 9x9cm very nicely. As far as building "Frankenlenses", these GX680 lenses are cheap and fun and amazingly good perfomers on my Makis. And as a bonus, the Makis are bulky, but way lighter than a GX680. Their focal plane shutters may well outlast me, how many of these non-working electros will go in the trash? They still have utility obviously. By the way the Makis have ODOMETERS on them, it counts the number of actuations. My first automatic Makiflex has been actuated over 35,000 times, and still working smooth as butter.

I didn't buy these to use on a 4x5 monorail, they are exquisite on the Makis. So now I have a choice of using olde classic original 60's era lenses, or the modern cutting edge Fuji 90s glass, depending on my intended photographic choices. Occasionally I push the envelope (why not?) and not all foregrounds and sky areas need to be razor sharp.... I enjoy building with my hands and most of the time I enjoy the results. If not I go on to something else.

Photographic tastes are very subjective. One person's Meh is another person's WOW!! All I know is that I am having a blast

Std Maki 120-125mm lens group by Nokton48, on Flickr

Even the GX680 Porro Viewfinder can be adapted to the Makis. One of my fave finders on these cameras.