You might also try a 15" f/5.6 Wollensak Telephoto...remove the rear element, and it becomes an ~180mm f/2.8 SF lens that covers 5x7.
You might also try a 15" f/5.6 Wollensak Telephoto...remove the rear element, and it becomes an ~180mm f/2.8 SF lens that covers 5x7.
2.8?Originally Posted by Dugan
Yes, the focal length gets shorter, and the apparent aperture stays the same.
The 250mm Imagon (in either shutter) works (for me) admirably - on 4x5. While it will illuminate 5x7 (or even 8x10) it is not satisfactory because of distortion at the edges which preclude rendering a straight line. Unlike many others, I really like the rendition with the "strainer" but I am careful about avoiding specular light sources/reflections in the image area.
Joel
The Verito, Veritar or Kodak Portrait lens are all nice variable soft focus lenses (more highlight bloom at the widest aperture, acceptably sharp stopped down).
softer lenses are nice but these days they can cost you an organ and you 'll wake up in a bathtub full of ice ...
Reinhold's lenses are absolutely lovely and you'll have your organs intact ..
have fun!
Fuji isn't really soft. It's a notch mellower than a tessar. Like if you wanted an old cheap triplet with good bokeh but in a shutter. I would call it a mellow focus lens.
For 5x7 Kodak Portrait is nice, but a bit long for 4x5.
Otherwise, Verito, Veritar you can't go wrong.
I also like the Imagon without strainer. The strainer slightly decouples depth of field from soft focus effect, but it's needlessly complicated and a decades late option/gimmick to sell soft focus lenses decades after their heyday.
When shooting landscapes, try to find scenes that are simple / not too detailed.
The Imagon and its "strainers" were developed in the 1920s by Pictorialist photographer Heinrich Kuhn, and put on the market in 1930 by Rodenstock, so it pretty much fits in with the Pictorialist heyday. It just stayed on the market a lot longer.
I too like it with the conventional aperture.
"I love my Verito lens, but I always have to sharpen everything in Photoshop..."
Use only the rear elements of a f/4.5 12 inch Wollensak Velostigmat. Gives you approximately a f/3 200mm optic with nice Bokeh. I got a bargain 12 inch Wollensak Velostigmat in a working Betax shutter because the front element was all scratched up but the rear elements pristine.
That certainly can be done but myself, I never liked the picture made by any Tessar-type lenses' rear glass group. They are very different from the old-style cemented doublets, and the image is nowhere near the classic soft-focus one. Though that does not mean that the image can't be loved by other people of course....
Yes that's quite close to the classic soft-focus lenses. And for this purpose, not only the Wollensak Telephoto is usable but a lot of other maker's telephotos of the period are, too. Tele-Tessar and Tele-Xenar are prime examples, and lots of other specimens would do. And one also has to check if they prefer the image with the glass in front of the aperture (as it was in the original telephoto) or behind the aperture, with the lens cell screwed into the back of the shutter (as most of the old cemented doublets work).
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