What is the longest lens for this 8x10?

[Gene McCluney]

Color or B&W? An important detail relating to whether you need multi-coated lenses or not....

--A

Oh come on. You don't need multi-coated lenses for color. Color was available for LF at least 30 to 40 years before multi-coating became available. I still use Kodak Commercial Ektars in my studio for product photography in color. They are single-coated and are fantastic. Even uncoated lenses are great for color, it is not the coating that supplies the corrections in chromatic aberrations, rather it is the lens design. The coating just helps with flare control and contrast (in some cases). Look at all those Technicolor movies from pre WW2. Not a lens was coated.

[Dominique Cesari]

I used to have a Tachihara double extension with 550 mm of draw. To get the front rigid, I had to avoid full extension. The 450 mm Nikon was right for landscape, but the 600 T Nikkor which is heavy, was in fact too much. Your Ebony is probably sturdier, but also slightly shorter, beware of the weight of these telelenses at the limit of extension. Another option is an Apo-Ronar 480 mm, preferably in a top hat (I'm not sure that they exist in #3) or at least extent lensboard.

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

It's the arm extensions that are tricky.

Sure ! If you insist on using a wooden field camera
Have look at page 7/22 of the well-known Arca Swiss catalogue
http://www.largeformatphotography.info/ARCA.pdf
and you'll see a monorail extended to 1.5 metre (maximum extension of the telescopic rail of 1 metre long)

Enough to accommodate the 1200mm apo ronar at the magnification ratio of 1:4 !

[Pete Watkins]

If Emmanuel means what I think he means I can only agree. I've got a TTH Cooke 25 inch lens. It's all very nice but I can't reach the lens and look at the ground glass at the same time, my arms are just not long enough. The first time I used this lens people were watching, I felt and looked a right idiot.
Pete.

[Sizam]

Well there is the Schneider 800mm and 1100mm. I'm currently lusting after the 800mm...

[John Brady]

I've never tried attaching one of these while under water.

Wow! Thanks for all the great replies, as usual you all are the best.

Those of you who know me know that I am I wide angle freak, so this is uncharted territory for me.

This won't be my primary lens but an important piece of my arsenal all the same. So far it sounds like the fuji or nikon are good choices.

I shoot landscape so I would imagine I will be focused at infinity most of the time. And Eric I plan to use this lens when I dont want to get in the water

www.timeandlight.com

[alec4444]

Oh come on. You don't need multi-coated lenses for color. Color was available for LF at least 30 to 40 years before multi-coating became available. I still use Kodak Commercial Ektars in my studio for product photography in color. They are single-coated and are fantastic. Even uncoated lenses are great for color, it is not the coating that supplies the corrections in chromatic aberrations, rather it is the lens design. The coating just helps with flare control and contrast (in some cases). Look at all those Technicolor movies from pre WW2. Not a lens was coated.

I was under the impression (it's certainly not from experience, since I shoot B&W) that you lose some color saturation when shooting with single coated or uncoated lenses. But since that's NOT from experience, I'll take your word for it!

...And it that case, there's some fine 480mm lenses that I think will do John well, like the Rodenstock 480mm f/9 APO Ronar or the Schneider 480mm f/8 APO Symmar. If he's looking for the longest lens, why stop at 450mm?

--A

[Struan Gray]

Enough to accommodate the 1200mm apo ronar at the magnification ratio of 1:4 !

By 'arm' I meant the ones attached to my shoulders. I've had my rail up to 1200 for grins, but as Pete found, front movements are a royal pain.

FWIW, I have found that for field use an 18" barrel lens or a 16.5" lens in shutter hit a sweet spot with my Sinar. They work down to reasonably close distances with only a single bellows, and I only have to carry one 12" rail extension to add to the 6" rail the camera is stored upon in my rucksack.

I often use such a lens to isolate part of the ground in front of me with movements front and back to lay the plane of focus along the ground and to minimise the receeding perspective for a more head-on feel. So the oft-repeated mantra that a you don't need much in the way of movements in a field camera or for long lenses is absolutely wrong for the sort of photographs I take. I also use movements a fair bit in dense woodland, although only to welly-depth as our equivalents of cypress swaps - the alder carrs - are too muddy for me to want to go in up to my waist. In my case, being able to manipulate the front standard while looking at the ground glass is a huge help, so much so that I have stopped lusting after long APO-Ronars (mostly :-) and am saving for the elusive Nikon Tele set.

Not everyone works this way, but the ape-index (the ratio of your arm length to your eyes' closest focus distance) is a useful metric in addition to mere bellows length.

[Rodney Polden]

By 'arm' I meant the ones attached to my shoulders. I've had my rail up to 1200 for grins, but as Pete found, front movements are a royal pain....................

Not everyone works this way, but the ape-index (the ratio of your arm length to your eyes' closest focus distance) is a useful metric in addition to mere bellows length.

Your comments regarding long lenses and their value for landscape work certainly echoes my experiences with them. I use a 480mm Apo-Ronar and a 600mm Apo-Nikkor, and enjoy the look they bring.

As for the "ape-index", I found that using a cheap pair of 4 diopter reading glasses really helped, both by allowing maximum extension of my arms to the lens, and by letting me see clearly the instant when the image popped into crisp focus. Very useful.

The extension required for the 600mm though (even at infinity), means that front movements have to be accomplished by small increments and viewing the GG. Not really an impossible problem, just a small chore of the kind that LF tends to provide in plenty