Lens help needed.

[BillMar]

Currently I have a 150 mm Symmar S and a 90 mm Super Angulon to use with my Wista DX III.
I am thinking of buying a longer lens say a 240 mm or a 270 mm. The limit is the bellows extension on the Wista at 300 mm and, to a certain extent, budget! I suppose one way round this is to get a Tele Arton or a Tele Xenar of a longer focal length. There is currently a 240mm f5.5 Tele Xenar for sale at Linhof and Studio reasonably cheaply.
Does anybody have any experience with or uses one of these lenses currently. I am thinking of sharpness and contrast.
I shoot mainly monochrome landscape so colour correction is not high on the list of priorities.
Is there any value in a longer lens for landscape work?
I am experimenting with a barrel G-Claron of 210 mm temporarily mounted on a cardboard lens board using a lens cap for a shutter. Not very easy and probably not the best lens for the job.

Any suggestions or help would be appreciated.

Thanks

[IanG]

I sometimes use a 300mm f9 Nikon lens on my Wista, it's just possible with very limited close focussing, but a 240mm Symmar is much better.

My lenses double up for my 10x8 camera or I'd buy a Tele Arton or similar 270mm lens, They are usually quite cheap SH.

Ian

[vanman]

I've got a 240 G-Claron and they are cheap, sharp and if you move upwards format wise it covers 8x10. Nice lens. it is an F9 but I can live with this.
Vanman

[BillMar]

Thanks for the answers.

Vanman - I too could live with f9 for landscape work.

Ian - Nice to know it is possible to use a full 300 mm lens.

Think I am going to keep looking for now until something better turns up.

Thanks again

Bill

[Emmanuel Bigler]

Hello from France !
Il you have access to 300 mm bellows draw, you'll be able to use many lenses of quasi-symmetrical design up to, say, 270mm of focal lengths ; at least for landscape use with far distant objects.
As far as telephotos are concerned, it should be clear that Schneider Tele Artons are an improvement over previously designed tele-xenars.
Tele Artons are heavier and more expensive on the second-hand market than tele xenars, but they are better in terms of image quality.
The weak points of older telephotos were : reduced angle of view (not a real problem !), limited performance in terms of distorsion and sharpness in the edges if compared to a symmetrical (e.g. G-claron or apo ronar) or quasi-symmetrical like 6-element standard lenses.

The best would be that you make a test with the tele-xenar you have in mind and check whether it is OK for your images or not.
For your information, the specs in terms of bellows draw for 250 and 360 tele-artons are:
- 250 tele arton : 159mm between the last lens vertex and the focal plane ; add a few centimetres for the lensboard-to-focal plane distance;
- 360 tele arton : 210 mm between the lens board and the focal plane, so the 360 tele arton requires only 210mm of bellows draw at infinity.

Complete catalogues for 1956, 1967 and later telephotos are here in pdf in the Schneider archive:
http://www.schneiderkreuznach.com/archi ... obj_56.pdf
http://www.schneiderkreuznach.com/archi ... obj_67.pdf
http://www.schneiderkreuznach.com/archi ... _xenar.pdf

You have a test of a 250mm tele arton here by Chris Perez, the lens has nice performances at f/16 and 22
http://www.hevanet.com/cperez/testing.h ... thru_270mm

There were telephotos on the Voigtländer (Telomar) or Rodenstock (Rotelar) catalogues in the past,but of older design compared to tele-artons.

But you can't go wrong with a 240 G-claron or apo-ronar !

[BillMar]

Thanks for the comprehensive answer Emmanuel.

I think I am going to save the pennies and look for a more modern lens in the near future.

Bill

[Emmanuel Bigler]

If I dare to add a comment about older view camera lenses of "long" focal lengths i.e. with a focal length twice as long as the diagonal of the film, or more.
Telephotos for view cameras have been continuously improved since the last 50 years. The very last models e.g. Schneider Apo-Tele-Xenars deliver images of incredible quality. Nikon telephotos of the T-ED series are outstanding ; they are discontinued now like all the Nikon view camera lens catalogue, but the T-ED still command high prices on the second hand market.
Fuji discontinued their line of Fujinon-T for which very few comments or appreciations can be seen on the Internet.

Schneider Apo-tele-Xenars seem to be the last of the mohicans in their league ; together with the Nikons T-ED, they are very expensive and they do not show up very often on the second hand market.

On the other hand, older process lenses like the apo ronar, apo artar, Fuji-C (4-elements) or G-claron and Fuji-A (6-elements) already delivered outstanding results in the sixties. The G-claron covers (64°) more than the apo-ronar (officially : 48°) but for long focal lengths you do not care.
The very last improvements of the apo-ronar was anti-reflection multi-coating, but this does change the image sharpness that was already very good.

An issue which is not always clear is : those process lenses were designed for taking pictures of relatively close objects, say, an object of one square meter located at 2 meters of distance, so are they really usable at infinity ?
The practical answer, suprisingly, is in fact : yes, those lenses work nicely at infinity, so you can go for them without hesitation. In 2006 at the French large format meeting, a German friend, Joerg Krusche, demonstrated a 750mm Apo-Germinar process lens from the former East-German Zeiss-Jena factory. Landscape images taken with this lens similar in design to the apo-ronar, 4-elements, coated but not multicoated, were simply... stunning.
The only important drawback of process lenses is that they demand a bellow draw approximately equal to their focal length. I let you imagine the length and weight of the camera required to focus the 750mm apo-germinar !
Hence telephotos are more practical for folding or field cameras.

[vanman]

This is all good useful stuff. I do remember reading (not in any official document) that Schneider tweaked the later G-Clarons to be more suitable as LF camera lenses (as opposed to process lenses). I use an older 240mm and a modern 150mm (bought new from Robert White in about 2000) and the quality of both is superb.
Vanman

[IanG]

G Claron element spacing should differ from a lens optimised for Process work and general photographic use.

However Schneider only recommend G Clarons stopped down past f16 for LF camera use. They have never recommended G Claron's for LF camera use, instead they acknowledge that they can be used.

Michael Langford or someone similar published some example of the spherical distortion of flat field Process lenses used as LF lenses back in the late 60's early 70's. The difference in overall qualities/distortion between a G Claron and equivalent Super Angulon or Symmar is quite startling, particularly if you shoot architecture or similarly critical work..

Ian

[joolsb]

Interesting topic...

Emmanuel, are you sure that Fujinon 'C' lenses are process-lenses? I was under the assumption that they are simply 'long-focus' (as opposed to telephoto) lenses. The simpler construction makes them an excellent lightweight alternative to teles - providing you have enough bellows draw. I have a Fujinon 'C' 300mm and it delivers fantastic results.

Regarding G-Clarons, I also have a G-Claron 210mm in my lightweight line-up and, to my eye, the quality is indistinguishable from my 150mm APO-Symmar L. However, I shoot mostly landscape so the differences might be more apparent with more demanding subjects.

[Emmanuel Bigler]

Emmanuel, are you sure that Fujinon 'C' lenses are process-lenses? I
Well, I should not have used the term "process lens" which should be in principle, dedicated to lenses built and optimised for a repro/copying bench of the good old days. For example the Klimsch Apo Ronar, sold by the Klimsch company for their repro benches.

However the Fuji C like the apo ronar and many, many other 4-element symmetrical lenses (apo artar, etc..) belongs to a family of so-called dialyte or apochromatic lenses, 4 non-cemented elements in 4 groups, the earlier example is named Celor and was patented in 1902, two years before the tessar.
When those dialytes are built perfecty symmetrically and used at 1:1 ratio they take advantage of an automatic correction/cancellation of distorsion, lateral color and coma.
Very probably, Fuji-C lenses although similar to many 4-element dialytes is probably carefully opimised for general use including landscape use. Probably a very slight departure from absolute symmetry or whatever the engineers have found suitable to optimise this famous lens design for far-distant objects.
Note that their exsite Tessar type long focallens for view cameras, th eNikon-M series, they need the same bellows draw as an apo ronar or Fuji-C. tessar-types being un-symmetical are optmised for far-distant objetc in principle.

There are some information circulating on the Internet about how you could, or could not, transform a "true" process lens optimised for short distances into a good lens for landscape use at large distances. For example, Arne Croell in his article (on the US web site maintained by Tuan, Luong) about Jena apo-germinars explains how some apo-germinars were slightly modified with a spacing ring between the front group and the shutter front shutter seat, in orider to deliver an improved image performance at infinity.
The 750 apo germinar I have seen is a plain one without any spacing ring and the images at infinity are stunning.

Besides a 360 Tele Arton I also have a 360 apo-ronar, sold as a view camera lens and not as a process lens for a special instrument. This lens works really fine for landscape, although I did not check it side by side with the tele-arton !

[Ole Tjugen]

If you still have a 210mm G-Claron in barrel, I have a brand new shutter to fit one. I've discovered that my barrel G-Claron has a rear cell so fogged it's unuseable - and when I bought another one, it arrived without a rear cell.

So I have two good front cells, a new shutter, and no rear cells.

[BillMar]

Hi Ole

Interesting conundrum.

I still have a 210 mm G-Claron barrel lens that has good glass and caps front and rear that I do not want and you have the shutter for it.

I have decided I want something longer than 210 mm and after reading the comments on this forum have decided to look for something a bit newer than a Tele-Xenar. I have spotted a 240 mm Apo Symmar MC allegedly in mint- condition. I think that will be a better bet for me. Alternatively I have also seen a 240 mm G-Claron again in mint condition so I think I am going to purchase one of those 2 lenses. Accordingly if you want to make up a good 210 mm G-Claron with your existing shutter then perhaps we could discuss further offline.

Bill

[masch]

Bill,

I use a Nikkor M 300/f9 on my Wista SP which is absolutely fine for landscapes. The lens is bitingly sharp and I have managed to focus down to about 10m or so, if I recall correctly, with a standard lensboard. Those lenses are not overly expensive and come up on auction quite regularly....
If you can throw in a top hat lensboard, things are even better...

As an alternative, may I suggest a 210/f5.6? I find that length very useable for things like still lives and object photography where I do not need the wider macro lenses.
They are standard studio lenses and are incredibly plentiful. Ffordes has a bucketful of them at the moment. Most of these are standard modern Plasmat designs and are really nice and bright to set up and focus. I have a Caltar version which equates to an Apo Rodenstock design which I got cheaply when I bought my camera body.


Marc

[BillMar]

Thanks to everybody for their help and advice.

To close the loop on this one I have decided that perhaps the Tele-Xenars are a bit too old and I should look for something better.

Accordingly I have bought a Schneider Apo Symmar MC, 240 mm f5.6. It should arrive Tuesday or Wednesday.

A little more expensive than I first planned but overall probably a better lens.

Bill