Hello and W/A advice sought

[Nick De Marco]

Hi I am Nick, from London. A photographer and barrister. I have mainly worked with 35mm and medium format as well as digital (currently Leica M8)

I purchased my first 5x4 camera last year, picked up a lens a little later and have slowly been trying to learn.

I bought a Toyo 45IIA as my camera, as it is more portable than others, seems well made, and I got a good deal used.

I bought a Schnieder 150mm 5.6 used lens as my standard lens, which seems OK. But I love wide angle and saw a used 47mm f5.6 lens for sale and bought it, having read that you can use the 47mm on a Toyo filed camera.

A friend had previously given me a Toyo recessed board in case I ever bought a wide lens, and I mounted it to this and then used the lens, with camera, for the first time last weekend.

Having developed my own b/w film I saw some strong vignetting and part of the camera board in the frame. I took some more colour the next day and just picked those up, and see the same problem. I wonder if anyone can advise me what, if anything, I can do to stop this or whether the 47 is just too wide for the Toyo.

I used it wait a 6x12 back and there it worked almost fine, as the vignetting is on the corners, so if I can't use the 47 properly I guess I can always use it with a 612 back.

Here is a link to a photo with 5x4 slide and lens showing full extent of vignetting:

http://www.pbase.com/nickdemarco/image/131805629

And here to one with the 612 back:

http://www.pbase.com/nickdemarco/image/131805636

Any advice very gratefully received. I am a novice here.

Anyway, hi, and I shall be coming back

Nick

[Leigh]

Hi Nick,

There are two specifications you must check when selecting a wide-angle lens:

1) Flange focal length (FFL) - the distance from the lensboard to the film when focused at infinity. This number can vary all over the place, but is typically greater than the focal length of the lens for wide-angle types. For example, on the Super Angulon 65mm, the FFL is 72.5mm even though the focal length is only 65mm.

If the FFL is less than the distance from the film to the front of the lensboard with the bellows racked all the way back, you need a recessed lensboard.

2) The diameter of the image circle (usually given at f/22). As a minimum this must be greater than the diagonal dimension of the film (163mm for 4"x5"). Significantly larger diameters are required if you want to use rises or shifts. If the image circle is too small you'll get vignetting (corners will be dark as shown in your first photo).

Both of these factors will determine whether or not a particular lens is suitable for use on the camera. Many WA lenses are not usable with the 4x5 format.

The only 47mm lenses I can find are both Super Angulons, with image circles of 123mm, much too small for 4x5 work.

What 47mm did you use? That's an awfully short FL for 4x5.

- Leigh

[jb7]

Hello-

This isn't a 47mm XL, is it?

It doesn't look like it covers sufficiently-
as Leigh suggested, it might be the non-XL version-

The 47mm XL will cover, though if you shoot transparency, you'll probably need a centre filter- and it will allow only very limited movements.

Given the picture of St.Clems you posted, perhaps the 72mm XL might suit you better-
it has a similar angle of view, but a larger image circle, allowing much greater use of movements.

I don't know if your camera position was restricted, but a little more distance between you and the building might not have been a bad thing...

[Nick De Marco]

Thank you for the replies so far.

It is a Super-Angulon but not an "XL", I guess it is "pre-XL". Toyo claim this camera can take lenses down to 47mm, but I am not convinced, and have read some stuff on the net suggesting they can't, at least not without the XL.

I am already using a recessed lens board with it, but I cannot be sure it is the right one - it was one given to me. Maybe I need more "recess".

The building in shot is actually the one my flat is inside, so I have photographed it a few times. You can't actually step any further back away from the building. I think the best I have done with the building before is with a 15mm voigtlander lens on 35mm film and a 47mm Mamiya lens on the Mamiya 7. However, I get a lot of distortion because I am near the building and it is high. I hoped to do better with LF. In one sense I love the 37mm lens as it gives me such a wide view I can get distance and a view of the building I have never got before. But I cannot really get any movement at all with that lens on, so still get distortion and have to crop the neg.

It sounds to me like the answer is a 72mm + lens for 4x5 and, sadly, keeping this extreme 47 just for 6x12.

Thanks again for the welcome and advice

Nick

[jb7]

I think the claim is correct, from what I can see-
the vignetting is caused by the lens, not the camera-
The Data for this lens can be found on this page- http://www.schneiderkreuznach.com/archiv/archiv.htm
and I'd be surprised if the FFL was very different to the XL version-
which is here- https://www.schneideroptics.com/ecom...D=168&IID=1841

Using the 72mm, I think the building would fill the frame, without the need for tilt-
though if that's as far back as you can go, the sides will be very close to the edges of the frame-

The 47mm xl would work too- the image of the church would be the same size as here, but with no cutoff- and a few mm of rise to play with.

[Nick De Marco]

Thank you for that explanation Joseph

Forgive me, I don't quite understand. Do you mean that the lens will cause such vignetting anyway - but it is fine to use on my camera? Or that the 47 lens I have cannot be used on a toyo field, only a 47xl can?

[jb7]

Yes, it makes an image-
Often, the shortest lens will be determined by the FFL mentioned earlier-
if you can't get the lens close enough to the film to focus at infinity, then it won't work-
but it would appear that your church is in focus at this distance.

The XL lenses have a wider angle of view-
as you can see from the Schneider link, your 47mm is described as a 6x9 lens, and will allow some movements on that format.

You could choose to use it like that, and crop from 4x5- or 6x12,
but if you want to shoot 4x5, that's a little less than ideal.

It's the lens that's causing the vignetting, not the camera-

[Scotty230358]

Personally, the widest lens I have for 5x4 is a 75mm which I use with a flat lens board and bag bellows. It is so wide that I have to compose very carefully to ensure that there are no unwanted elements in my picture. As a landscape photographer I have never had the need for anything wider. I am, by no means, saying that a 47mm lens has no place in 5x4 photography, its just that I have yet to find a situation where I need one.

[Nick De Marco]

Thank you for the very helpful advice
I should have come here before buying - nevertheless, you have to jump in the pool to swim

I shall keep th 47 and use it for only 6x9 and 6x12 (where as I say I juist about get away with it)

It sounds like the best thing for me is a 75mm. I am on the look out for one. In the meantime I have seen a used 58 XL and a 90 both with toyo boards, and wondered if anyone could tell me whether the 58XL would have the same problems as the 47 and whether the 90 is just not wide enough for most things (not necessarility including my dificult church)?

Nick

[John NYC]

If you compare a 75mm on 4x5 to what lens focal length it would be on 35mm film, you have this...

The long side of the 4x5 comparison works out to be 22.5mm lens equivalent. The short side ends up being 18.9mm equivalent.

So, since the formats are not the same, you could consider this lens somewhere in that range... say 20mm for argument's sake.

If you do the same comparison for 58 and 47mm on 4x5, you get these equivlents (long side then short side):

47mm: 14.1mm, 11.9mm
58mm: 17.4, 14.7

Again, just roughly you could call the 47mm about a 13mm equivalent and the 58mm about a 16mm equivalent.

I don't know about you, but I never shoot anything below 16mm equivalent on any format. And that is really, really wide to me.

I have a 150mm that I use on 8x10. This is almost a direct comparison to the 75mm on 4x5. I find it to be about as wide as I would ever want to go on large format and looks very wide (but great!).