Ebony 23S Wide Angle Lens

[trhull]

Having tried a 65 MM Caltar, unsuccessfully, are there suggestions as to a lens in the 72 75mm range that would allow for decent movements?

 

[Claire Senft]

I would think that a 72mm Super Angulon Xl will give you more movement than you can use. An 80mm Super Symmar Xl would also work beautifully. I hope that you can afford these.

 

[Baxter Bradford]

I've just bought a Super-Angulon 75mm for my SU45. However, my funds didn't run to bag bellows and so have been limited to small amount of tilt and rise with the std bellows straining. There seems to be some fall-off, but then I didn't use a centre filter.

If using Lee Filters, the XL lenses require the push-on filter which swayed me in my choice. Concur with Claire that the XL series will have more image circle than usefully used on an SW.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Which 65mm Caltar did you try? If it was the one that's really a 65/8 Super-Angulon that should just cover 4x5", so I would think it would be plenty for 6x9 (what format are you shooting?).

There's room on the 75/4.5 Apo-Rodagon N (same as a Caltar II-N) to cover either 6x17cm or 4x5" with lots of movement.

There are some good comparison charts for modern lenses on the main page at lfphoto.info.

 

[George Hart]

You have not made it clear why the 65 mm Caltar didn't work. If I can hazard a guess, you may have found that front rise was restricted because the rear element of the lens meets the top of the rear standard. This, together with the limited bellows freedom, would make it difficult to use this focal length. I wanted to use a 55 mm lens for 6x9 so I bought the Ebony 45S instead of its smaller brother. This together with a sunk panel means that I can just outrise the coverage on 6x9.

AFAIK the 75/4.5 Grandagon should work, as should the 72 Schneider XL. But I would suggest trying before shelling out the cash.

 

[trhull]

George-your guess is right. Front rise was restricted, due to standards being to close together. I am confused. Do all 65 mm lenses, for example, have the same physical limitations, vis front rise (as you point out), or are some lenses of the same focal length made differently, to permit more physical space for movements? If they are all the same, then I assume I have to move to a slightly longer focal length to get more movement? Were I smarter when I bought this camera, I would have bought an Ebony 45S rather than than the 23S!!

 

[trhull]

David-It isn't so much image circle, or coverage, but rather physical limitations that restrict rise and fall. I guess I just have to move to a longer focal lenth right? Is there a common benchmark for a given lens, that determines physical limitations? Is this the flangeback distance? If Ebony says my camera will handle lenses from 47MM to 250MM how do I determine how much movement (not coverage) I will get?

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Unfortunately, this sort of thing is hard to predict. The flange-to-film distance doesn't tell you anything about the rear element. On the other hand, some of the newest LF wide lenses are slightly retrofocus, so they might give you a little extra breathing room, and this you can find out from the flange-to-film distance.

For Schneider lenses, you can go to the website and look at a drawing usually, which will give you the physical dimensions of the lens. Unfortunately, the wide lenses that have big coverage tend to have big rear elements. A lens like the old 65mm/6.8 Angulon has no physical restrictions, but the image circle won't give you much more than 6x9, for instance.

A recessed lensboard will give you more room, if you haven't tried that yet.

There are a few Ebony users on the Q&A forum at lfphoto.info, and they might be able to tell you which wide lenses are really practical on a 23S. It might turn out that a lens like the 75/8.0 Super-Angulon with less coverage than a newer lens (but plenty for most uses with 6x9) is more practical on the 23S than something like a 75/4.5 Apo-Grandagon N, because the older, slower lens is physically smaller.

 

[George Hart]

Your problems with this lens (though not specific to it!) are 2-fold, first the top of the rear element hitting the underneath of the top of the rear standard (well actually, the bellows in between), and second the restriction caused by the bellows themselves. The manufacturer's catalogue gives 66 mm as the minimum bellows distance for the 23S. If your lens is similar to the Rodenstock Grandagon 65/4.5 then it will have a flange focal distance (FFD) of 70 mm, which means that at infinity focus, the standards on your camera will be only 4 mm apart. This means that the bellows are very compressed, so limiting front rise. Therefore I suggest that before you ditch this lens, you try it on a 13 mm recessed lensboard. This will give you ~17 mm bellows freedom, which may result in a worthwhile amount of additional front rise. But you will still be restricted by the rear element problem.

The other factor to be taken into account is the image circle, and how much rise this theoretically permits. For the 6x9 format the Rodenstock brochure indicates that the 65/4.5 lens will allow 45 mm rise, which is approximately the same as for the 47, 55, and 58 mm focal lengths. You will therefore get a similar degree of restriction of front rise for all of these lenses on your camera, and all of them would benefit from a sunk panel (absolutely required for the 47/5.6 lens on your camera because of the minimum bellows restriction). I can only guess the extent to which this camera will restrict rise within the useable 45 mm, but I suspect that even with a sunk panel you may get only ~30 - 35 mm. But that's just a guess.

Once you look at the 72/5.6, 75/5.6 or 75/4.5 lenses the situation gets easier because the FFD is ~82 mm, the top of the rear element is therefore further forward, and the bellows are less compressed.

 

[trhull]

George-thanks your explanation is clear. I am going to try one of the focal lenths you mentioned. I guess the real answer is that the ebony 23S is a general purpose camera, while I am trying to force a wide angle solution, better suited to a camera with interchangeable bellows.

 

[AllanD]

Which movement to you want to use ?

If rise is the problem, and the lens rear element is not hitting the rear standard, you may be able add some “fixed” rise by making a custom lens panel that has the lens hole offset. The idea of a fixed rise is used on at least one of the Linhof wide angle roll film cameras (the Technorama 612 I think). I believe that your camera uses Linhof style lens panels. I have successfully made these from sheet aluminum using a jig saw and a file.

I use a Technikardan 23 with 6x7 (occasionally 6x9). The lens I use most often is a 47 SA, and I have noticed that I nearly always use it with 10-15mm of rise (with is as much as I can get from my non-XL version of this lens). Of course, whether the fixed rise idea would work for you will depend on your preferred subject matter and how much flexibility you want. Perhaps you could even extend the idea to making a panel with variable rise built in. Alpa and Silvestri make dedicated wide angle cameras with this kind of arrangement.