135mm and 150mm help

Hello,

I've been shooting with a Rodenstock Sironar-N 210mm f/5.6 for a few months now, and absolutely love it. I haven't fallen for a lens this hard since the 90mm sekor k/l. However, what I am going to be shooting soon calls for a wider lens--something in the 135mm to 150mm range, but finding one that works well in the criteria I need has been significantly more difficult than I originally hoped. I have a Busch Pressman Model D which has weird proprietary lens boards and rear filter size restrictions (I have to take the ground glass off and screw in the rear element from inside to get the 210 to fit). I need a lens that:

1. Uses a copal 0
2. Uses the copal shutter that has speeds up to 1/500th
3. Rear filter thread of under 62mm
4. $200-$300 range--preferably on the cheaper side.

The issues have been:

I happened across the massive list of lens test results--how much credit should I give to that list?
Poor selection on KEH atm (not happy about the site update either)
Not 100% on buying lenses on ebay
Nothing on craigslist
Not enough money to buy new
Still undecided on 135 or 150--a bit worried the 150 will be too close to the 210 in fov.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for your time--this has been causing a lot of stress for some reason.

Amfooty

Since you already have a 210 I'd look for a 135. My Crown Graphic came with a 135 lens so I added a 210. It's a nice spacing.

Amfooty said:

1. Uses a copal 0
3. Rear filter thread of under 62mm

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For these 2 criteria, you can look here, all the newest lenses listed with shutter and filter sizes (and all Fujinons are here). There's a list of older lenses here but no shutter sizes listed.
Apo Sironar N/S (inc Caltar II-N), Nikkor & Fujinon W, Apo-symmar, G-Claron and Xenar, they all have <62mm fronts (The Fujinon CM-W has 67mm front so might be <62mm rear, not sure).
Out of all of them, the G-Clarons and Xenars are the cheapest, but you'll get less coverage. A regular Symmar-S or even original convertible Symmar shouldn't be over $150-200, if you're lucky you could get a bargain Apo-Symmar for $300 (but then, I'm looking at fleabay prices).

As for length, that's really up to you. I've only got 90mm and 180mm, I'm still deciding myself whether to get a 135 in the middle or get a 150 and sell the 180. Depends on what this 'new project' is that warrants the focal length.

Alan Gales said:

Since you already have a 210 I'd look for a 135. My Crown Graphic came with a 135 lens so I added a 210. It's a nice spacing.

Click to expand...

Yes, nice spacing. I decided on 90,135 and 210 mm for 4x5 and i'm happy with that;like to add 350 for close-up portraits one day.

I also have a BP model D as my cheap field camera and use a Fuji 210mm L(nice and small), 135mm Symmar-S and a 100mm Wide-field Ektar as my lens combo. I picked these more for size, but image quality was important also. You could do far worse than the 135mm Symmar-S and prices are pretty fair on clean ones. Many of the Schneider lenses of that era have Schneideritis, as does mine, but I see no downside when it comes to image quality. Plus, it allows you to buy them cheap that way. Are there better lenses out there? Probably, but you'll also have to pay for it.

If you want small and light, you can't go far wrong with the older Fujinon 135mm W (the one with lettering inside the filter ring). Cracking little lens with bags of room for movements. The only way you'll get mine is by prying it from my cold, dead hands once hell freezes over.

Thanks for the input everyone, I decided to go with a Fujinon W 135 f/5.6. Got a pretty good deal on it and couldn't let it pass.