Which Rodenstock Imagon lens do you recommend for portrait work with a 4x5 Sinar , 250 or 300 mm?
Which Rodenstock Imagon lens do you recommend for portrait work with a 4x5 Sinar , 250 or 300 mm?
I would recommend the 250 for 4x5. I generally use a 250 fuji and get excellent results, I personall believe that the 300 is just a tad too long for anything except very tight head shots, I go as far to say that for waist to head portraits you would be better off with a 150mm
250 the 300 is corrected for 5x7 and the 200 for 2x3 roll film.
I love my 250 alot. It gives a good 3/4 and full length perspective.
Whichever fits your style. There isn't much difference between them - the 250 is equal to ~65mm on 35mm film and the 300 is equal to about ~75mm. Personally I'd prefer a 480.
Actually there is a major difference between them. They are optimized for various formats.
The 250 for 45 and the 300 for 57.
So if you were to use both on 45 with the same disk (for each lens) at the same setting, and make an exposure on each and enlarge them to the same size you will find the halation different.
The halation from the 250 on 45 will be what is expected from the Imagon but from the 300 would be less then expected.
"The halation from the 250 on 45 will be what is expected from the Imagon but from the 300 would be less then expected" ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? It is what it is - how have you devined the poster's expectations?
Haven't divined anythin.
At a given aperture and magnification the 200mm (if it covered 45) would have excessive ha;ation, the 300 too little and the 250 what would be expected and what the lens was designed to produce at the proper lighting ratio (5:1) and with the proper lighting (no umbrellas and preferably no soft boxes) remember this lens was designed in the 19th century - long before umbrellas and soft boxes and its' original purpose was to duplicate, photographically, romatic style landscapes. Not portraits.
The continuing education of Bob...
The definitive scholarly work on the topic of Imagons was undertaken by Dr. Alfred Scholz, Rodenstock, in 1979. The following is a precis of his history of soft focus lenses with our apologies for simplification. In a nutshell, the Imagon lens is based on a 2 element Achromat. One of the simplest lenses available. Imagons have 2 unique properties. a) Tremendous depth of field due to the fact that light is not resolved at the focal plane but exhibits instead a zone of focus and b) The ability to stay gently diffused even while sharpening up at small apertures. Invented by Dr. Heinrich Kuhne (1868-1944) and still in production by Rodenstock, these lenses represent, in the purists sense, an ideological struggle that took place amongst lens designers prior to current times. Should a lens produce the sharpest technically correct image possible or should a lens produce an image the natural way that the human eye sees light, which is directly speaking, a low resolution interpretation of reality with fuzzy edges sharpened and refined by the brain. The simplest photographs are pin hole images, image sharpness is affected by aperture, but the length of exposure is too great for general use. Daguerre and Niepce used the simple 1 element Wollaston (1812) Meniscus Lens in their cameras. In essence an eyeglass lens with a diaphram mounted at the front. This lens caused light to converge at the film plane thereby speeding the imaging process. The Meniscus lens was useful primarily in the near shooting range such as portrait work and was restricted to small film formats. In 1897 Henry S. Smith produced a 2 element 'semi achromat' in Boston which was used by Alfred Steiglitz for 5x7 and 8x10 formats. This lens produced a shimmering quality and was initially considered difficult to work with because different shooting circumstances produced wildly divergent results and also because shorter focal length lenses proved to be too soft. In the 1920's in Rathenow Germany, Nicola Perscheid, a renowned portrait photographer approached Emil Busch the lens designer, about custom making a portrait lens. Thus the Aplanat was born. The design was inspired by the periscope which is two meniscus lenses, concave to concave, with the addition of a divergent lens cemented in between. Like the Meniscus and Smith lenses before it, softness was variable according to aperture such that by f 8 the image becomes sharp. After the first world war Voigtlander introduced the Universal Heliar which was produced up until 1970. This design allowed softness at all aperture settings for large format work with longer focal lengths. In the 30's Ernst Leitz introduced the 9cm Thambar f2.2 for 35mm use. This 4 element design was replaced by the Hektor 125mm f2.5 after the 2nd world war. Both lenses produced soft images wide open, sharpening up as the diaphram is closed down. It was in the 20's that Kuhn, who was a photographer, approached Dr. Franz Staeble, a lens designer in Munich, with his concept of what a lens should be, 'romantic softness without sugariness, blurring without a woolly effect'. The first Imagon hit the market in 1928 and was called Kuhn's Anachromat. In 1930 the Staeble lens works were acquired by Rodenstock and in 1931 the Imagon was introduced. The Imagon is currently available in 3 focal lengths: 200mm H5.8, 250mm H5.8 and 300mm H7.7. The 200mm has a covering power of 154mm and therefore can be used on 4x5 without movement, although it is primary adapted to Medium Format cameras. The 250mm has a field of 180mm and is thus a better choice for 4x5. The 300mm covers 5x7 (220mm field).
Focusing an Imagon is technically challenging and should be done at the taking diaphram due to a focus shift which occurs when closing down. The discs can then be mounted to produce the halo effect for which the Imagon received it's patent. The subject is usually lit in a contrasty fashion to counter the softness of the lens, however at H 11.5 the Imagon produces a hard shape focus with very little diffusion. The Imagon is not simply a soft focus lens, but more accurately a lens with variable image production qualities that will reward the student of photography with unique interpretations of portrait and field work limited only by the imagination..
So Wayne,
Other then wasting an awful lot of space you essentially dup[licated some of my points.
Why the effort to simply quote from a translation?
Or do you always need the last word?
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