A couple of newbie questions

[Tobasco]

Hey all-

I'm brand new to the forums here. I just finished building a custom acoustic guitar, and my next project will be a 4x5 field camera. From the reading I've been doing, it looks like a 90mm lens is a good place for me to start. Because I'm not completely sure whether or not I'm going to get further into LF photography, I don't want to buy a brand spanking new Schneider 90mm that's corrected for color aberrations etc.

I chose the 90mm focal length primarily because I intend to shoot landscapes. I may end up getting a normal 135mm or 150mm somewhere down the road, I don't know yet. But 90mm is where I want to start.

So anyway, I have a couple of questions I was hoping you guys could answer for me.

-What is the largest size you recommend printing off of a Schneider 90mm f/8 Super Angulon with 100 ISO black & white film?

-I'm aware that older lenses are not color corrected, so I will have some chromatic aberrations if I shoot, say, Velvia or something with the lens I mentioned above. However, I'm planning on scanning the negatives and then working on them in Photoshop/Lightroom anyway. Lightroom has very good tools for removing color fringing and the like. Is it realistic to expect to be able to solve most chromatic aberration problems in post processing if I shoot color or slide film with that lens?

Thanks in advance,
Andrew

[aduncanson]

Very highly corrected fixed focal length lenses have been available for more than 100 years. Chromatic Aberration will not be a problem with the Super Angulon.

Do you expect to walk up to your largest prints and inspect then with a loupe or will you view them from a reasonable distance, say something on the order of the print diagonal? If the latter, then I would say that there is no limit to how large a print you can make from 4x5.

[Jack Dahlgren]

Hey all-

I'm brand new to the forums here. I just finished building a custom acoustic guitar, and my next project will be a 4x5 field camera. From the reading I've been doing, it looks like a 90mm lens is a good place for me to start. Because I'm not completely sure whether or not I'm going to get further into LF photography, I don't want to buy a brand spanking new Schneider 90mm that's corrected for color aberrations etc.

I chose the 90mm focal length primarily because I intend to shoot landscapes. I may end up getting a normal 135mm or 150mm somewhere down the road, I don't know yet. But 90mm is where I want to start.

So anyway, I have a couple of questions I was hoping you guys could answer for me.

-What is the largest size you recommend printing off of a Schneider 90mm f/8 Super Angulon with 100 ISO black & white film?

-I'm aware that older lenses are not color corrected, so I will have some chromatic aberrations if I shoot, say, Velvia or something with the lens I mentioned above. However, I'm planning on scanning the negatives and then working on them in Photoshop/Lightroom anyway. Lightroom has very good tools for removing color fringing and the like. Is it realistic to expect to be able to solve most chromatic aberration problems in post processing if I shoot color or slide film with that lens?

Thanks in advance,
Andrew

People regularly enlarge 35mm film 8x or more. You can expect the same enlargement possible from 4x5.

A question for you, did you play the guitar before you built one? Might be worth considering trying a LF camera before you spend a lot of time building one. That way you might be better able to make the inevitable design trade-offs.

90mm is a bit wide. I'd start with 135 and I most commonly use an ultra wide on my digital camera. LF is a bit different.

As for brand new lenses, anything built in the past few decades should be adequately color corrected. You shouldn't worry much about that. The most recent changes (say in the past 20 years) have been better lens coatings which increase contrast.

[Tobasco]

Thanks for the help—it makes sense that I would want to try a camera out before I decided on the specifications for building mine. My boss at work has one, I bet he would let me use it.

And this is good news about the lens! I was expecting to get some kind of ancient chunk of glass for the roughly $200-$300 that I'm seeing these f/8 Super Angulons going for.