What long lens for 4x5 should I go for? 210/240/250/270/300

[loccdor]

I'd consider it if it wasn't so cold outside.

 

[_T_]

FGAS "fat girl angle shot" was a popular meme in the early days of the internet. The idea was that a chubby girl trying to hide her weight would use a wide angle lens (usually around 28mm equivalent) and a close, high angle. This would both increase the eye size in relation to the rest of the face, making them look younger, and reduce the size of anything far from the camera.

A person of healthy weight photographed at a normal angle and distance on the other hand, usually looks best in the 85-135mm range.

So you can both be right.

It’s definitely a matter of opinion and I would personally tend to defer to some extent to the preference of the sitter. But in the end it’s the photographer’s job to choose the perspective.

That’s why I favor a longer lens in the range being discussed (to bring myself back to topic.) A 300mm or even 360mm of non telephoto design (though not every camera can use these lenses) coupled with a set of close-up diopters gives access to a wide range of focal lengths.

And if you decide you want a longer distance even than that you can simply use the lens as though it were convertible and remove either the front or rear element.

My sironar n 300mm f/5.6 yields the following specifications when used in this way:

600mm f/14
300mm f/5.6
231mm f/4.3
188mm f/3.5
136mm f/2.5

You can do this with any lens, although the image quality may be better or worse depending on the design of the lens and the quality of the close-up filters.

OP: Depending on the design of your 135mm lens you might even be happy simply using that as though it were convertible, which would give you something in the range of a ≈270mm ≈f/11 and spend the money you would have spent on a new lens on a bunch of film and processing for that film.