Hi all. I have a 180mm 5.6 APO Macro Sinaron SE that I found for a very good price a few years ago. Currently I use it as a dedicated macro lens on 4x5 and 8x10. I believe it is optimized for 5x7, but it has done very well for me in 4x5 and 8x10 for true macro use. I believe I tried it once at infinity, and it was not great. I do not have any other 180mm lenses, so I was curious as to what the reasonable limits are for focusing distance and reproduction ratio with this lens. I have seen many times that it is "optimized" for 5:1 to 1:5, but being optimized and being perfectly usable are different things. Unless I did my math wrong, which is entirely possible, it seems like 1:5 is around 1.3m. 1:10 is around 2.2m. The question I have is when do the tables turn from the macro in favor of the standard lens?

I know that APO Sironar S lenses are optimized for 5:1 to infinity, but does anyone know about a 210mm APO Symmar L? A portrait distance is often 1.5-3m, depending on the lens and how much of the subject is in the frame...I am curious if the 180mm is still a good performer out to 3 or 4m, or if it is best to just ignore it for anything further than 1.5m or so...

One answer is obviously to test, but it is a wet sunday afternoon with no one around and I am 100km from my darkroom, so I figured I would ask to see if anyone had experience...