3 lens setup for 8x10: 450, 300, and ?

[evan clarke]

I have done some searching on this as well in the meantime. Looks like the Fujinon 240A has a lot of fans because of quality, light weight, and small size. I don't see many of those used but it looks like Badger sells them.

Hi Jaimie,
I carry the 450 Fuji, the 300 Nikkor, the 240 Fuji and a 150 SSXL. I never use anything but the 300 and the 450!!..Evan Clarke

[Gem Singer]

Jerold,

Given the two lenses that you already have, I would choose the Fuji 240A.

Call Jim at Midwest (mpex.com). I got mine from him at a reasonable price.

[Chuck Pere]

Another good 8x10 lens is the older Fuji 250 f6.7. Coverage spec is 398mm. Only single coated. It has it's fans.

[Songyun]

I have been using a 210W for the past years, it does not give you a huge amount of shift and it is rather bulky, but it is a great lens that is more in line with 450-300-?
I sits in a Copal 3 shutter.
It is the only lens that does not fit into my standard Technika plates due to the size of the rear element: it wouldn't fit through the hole of Technika opening, so I will have to have a look for a diferent lens for new Shen Hao 4x5.

Great lens, tack sharp and easy to use on my Sinar P2 4x5/8x10.

Peter

Do you mean 210 apo sironar W in copal 3? I think the rear element is not that big, it should fit through technika's opening.

[Jeff Morfit]

How about a Cooke XVa? Cooke will have a batch of them ready for sale in a couple of months.

[Don Hutton]

How about a Cooke XVa? Cooke will have a batch of them ready for sale in a couple of months.

I owned a pair for a couple of years - they have some drawbacks - for the long 24inch set-up, you need at least 30 inches of bellows; there is a little CA with the single elements on color and unscrewing lens elements in and out in the field is not a lot of fun....

[Maris Rusis]

My three lens Tachihara 8x10 kit is based on the longest and shortest lenses that the bellows will accommodate plus a 300mm "normal" focal length.

The longest is a 740mm f16 achromat, middle is a Fujinon-W 300 f5.6, and the wide is a 121mm f8 Super Angulon. The big gaps between the focal lengths I make up for by "foot zooming". So far, so good.

[Eric Leppanen]

I do mostly outdoor landscape and abstract nature/architecture stuff so I use a fair amount of rise and tilt. I have looked at the table posted which lists coverage but some say not to worry so much because the coverage is ample at working apertures.

Not all lens designs exhibit significantly expanded coverage when stopped down past f/22. Lens such as the G-Claron and Germinar W do. The Nikon M, Fuji A and Fuji C series lenses and most plasmats do not.

The wild card here is the "A" word (architecture), which traditionally imposes much more extensive coverage requirements than landscapes/nature. Your Nikon 300M is a very sharp lens, but its coverage of 8x10 is fairly tight, and the coverage of the Fuji 240A is even tighter (roughly one inch of movement before vignetting occurs). If you indeed use "a fair amount of rise and tilt," then you may have to revisit your 300mm lens choice as well as pick a wide angle. For example, the Nikon 300M and Fuji 240A definitely do not have enough coverage for traditional architectural applications.

If you back off the architecture requirement, then you have a lot of leeway for lens selection, and the previous posts have already listed a lot of good options. If you must have architecture, then you might initially try a 240mm G-Claron or 240mm Germinar W (the Germinar is slightly better in that it is multi-coated; the G-Claron is more commonly available); these lenses will have adequate coverage for architecture when stopped down, are small and light, and reasonably priced on the used market. If after working with your 8x10 system for awhile you subsequently determine that your Nikon 300M has insufficient coverage, then you can replace it with something like a Fuji 300A (420mm image circle), 305mm G-Claron or a much larger plasmat. Or you could just keep the 300M and use the 240 (and crop the negative) whenever extended coverage is required.

210mm 8x10 lenses with sufficient coverage for architecture are either rare (Graphic Kowa, Computar, Fuji W) or huge and expensive, so you are probably better off with a 240mm lens, at least for now.

[Diane Maher]

Based on the original post, I would recommend either the 240 G-Claron or the Germinar-W. I have both and have used both on 8x10.

[Jim Fitzgerald]

I use my Fuji 240A on my 8x10 a lot and I love this lens. You do have to be careful because you will run out of coverage real quick. 1" of movement is about right.

Jim