Good, cheap, "standard" 4X5 lens

I just came into a 4x5 body with no lens or lens board. I want to a decent lens and lens board set up. I'll probably only use B and W so uncoated is fine. Can I make this happen for less than 150? Where should I look and what should I look for?

Thanks,
John

Zeiss Tessar or Schneider Xenar 135mm or 150mm, or Schneider Symmar 135mm or 150mm for more coverage.

Either should be possible to find for around $100, leaving $50 for a lens board.

I just sold a nice little Schneider 150 Symmar S for $200

david b said:

I just sold a nice little Schneider 150 Symmar S for $200

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I said Symmar, not Symmar S.

To add to Ole's list, 152/4.5 Ektar.

John, which camera do you have?

Caltar IIN 150mm f5.6

127mm Ektar, though it is slightly wide and allows limited movements, it is also really cheap.

Hi !
Look for a 150 mm lens and do not stop if the seller said it has cosmetic marks. If the glass and the shutter are pristine, what influence a bit of black paint on the mount will have on your pictures ?
You may find decent Nikon in a used shape in addition to the Schneider and vintage Rodenstock lenses indicated above.
Just my 2¢

The 127 mm lenses are cheap for good reason - unless they are WA they are of little use on a 4x5 camera. Look for something between 150mm and 210 mm that is in your price rrange. There are hundreds of good lenses out there in this range.
Be sure the shutter is fully functional and somewhat accurate, or at least consistent, in speed. The lens elements should be clear and have at most minimal cleaning marks.
Keeping these thoughts in mind should get you a lens which will work well for you and make you feel welcomed in the world of LF photography.
Good luck!

The 135mm Optars are very reasonable and coated, and I have two, both in perfect shutters.

I don't understand why you'd think that an uncoated lens is sufficient for B&W work. The improved contrast of coated lenses has advantages for any type of film you'll use. Don't forget a lens hood or shade. That helps a lot too.

Don't know how this compares, but for what it's worth - http://www.surplusshed.com/pages/item/l3382.html

Plenty of choices if you don't need a lot of money for the board.

Fuji-W the first model is often pretty cheap if you can find one. The Seiko shutter I guess keeps the price down. Lots of coverage. Tiny lens. Both mean if you move up in format you'll want to keep the 5x7.

But 150mm aren't hard to find if you take your time. I bought a Xenar for $50.

Nick Zentena said:

Plenty of choices if you don't need a lot of money for the board.

Fuji-W the first model is often pretty cheap if you can find one. The Seiko shutter I guess keeps the price down. Lots of coverage. Tiny lens. Both mean if you move up in format you'll want to keep the 5x7.

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Interesting comment. I've had my 150/6.3 Fuji-W for 22 years now, sometimes getting lots of use over a year, sometimes sitting for a couple years. The Seiko shutter does just fine thank you.

It's a fine lens, I don't think you will find one for under 150.00 but I could be wrong. Very small,very light. I use it both on a 4x5 Speed Graphic and a 5x7 B&J field camera, mostly for 4x5. And no, it and the Seiko shutter are not for sale.

Ever.

tim in san jose

I'll second the Fujinon 150 lens in the Seiko shutter. I would rather put my money on a Seiko shutter than others, Seiko is probably right now, the pre-eminent watch maker in the world.

At the height of mechanical watch manufacturing, Seiko were basically unmatched, especially when it came to mechanical gear trains and such. This was in the seventies.

Seiko started manufacturing camera shutters in 1930.

In the leadup to the 1964 Tokyo Olympic games and only two years out (1962) Seiko submitted mechanical stop watches to the Swiss, these stopwatches had an innovative type of heart shaped cam that Seiko had invented. The officials who were testing the stopwatches had difficulty understanding the accuracy of these watches, so enquired as to how Seiko had achieved this.

Another interesting titbit of information about Seiko and their driven desire to manufacture the worlds best timepieces, and the 1964 Olympic games, is that Seiko had to design and manufacture electronic printers for the readouts.

The electronic printer division, sometime after the Olympic games, was hived off into another part of Seiko. The name of that new company was derived from the original divisions name and in a traditional manner it was named son of. The wording then became Electronic Printer's SON, or EPSON.

I currently own two Fujinon 150 W lenses, both of which are in Seiko shutters. Wishing to know whether one shutter was better than the other, I had the shutter speeds tested last month, both shutters are remarkably similar in their speeds, both shutters also have the same slight deviations, which I take to be their inherent build characteristics, and I think, tells me that both are running, more or less, as they exited from the factory.

I spent an abnormal amount of time in the late sixties and all through the seventies at motor racing tracks, in the pits. What I learnt there about mechanical timers, was that there were two kinds of time; normal time and Seiko time.

By the way I have a Seiko wrist watch which is simple, mechanical, waterproof to 10 bar, small and extremely accurate. It has an accuracy of 0.2 seconds a day!

The Seiko Speedmaster SBBT001 chronograph wristwatch, is the world's only chronograph with 1/100 second accuracy.

Most of you probably do not know much about Seiko and their history of driven excellence. Yes, they have made some products that were not even reasonably good. Generally these were either marketing mistakes, or material failure, especially after WWII when quality materials were not that readily available.

Mick.

3Dfan said:

Don't know how this compares, but for what it's worth - http://www.surplusshed.com/pages/item/l3382.html

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Oh, come on! That lens is in barrel and the cells won't go into a standard shutter. The OP needs a lens in shutter. Not only that, my 138/4.5 Graphic Raptar is mediocre.

i have a 127 tominon in a press copal shutter.
it came on my speed graphic when purchased 20 years ago.
covers 4x5 without a problem and it gets used on a view camera too.
it is a nice, sharp, cheap and always an overlooked lens.

i think the nevada lens miner used to have these by the wheelbarrow.
it might be worth looking into ...

I picked up a Schneider Symmar S 135 MC for $150. It was a camera swap meet as people were packing up. If you stretch your budget to 200-250 you should be able to pick a modern MC specimen. A 135 Caltar IIn (modern Rodenstock Sironar N in disguise) is also a superb choice and is absolutely tiny. A single coated early Fuji W should be under $200 and has greater coverage than the more modern lens. Nikkors are also good.

The 135 mm focal length is my most used in 4x5. It doesn't give huge coverage but is enough for landscape photography. I say add $50 to your budget and look for a modern MC lens. The Caltar IIn is my favorite, very sharp and very small (40.5 filter thread).

Sincerely,

Hany.

Look also at KEH

Look at KEH and don't be shy about ordering a bargain grade lens they have a Fuji W in Copal 135 mm lens for 179 and a Caltal IIS (Schneider Symmar I believe) 150 mm for 199. You could try to figure out if the Fuji is single or MC based on the location of writing on the lens (look to kerry Thalmann's descriptions for details). You can also call Jim at Midwest photo (MPEX), and ask him what he has in stock, highly recommended. He often has lenses that do not appear on the website.

Sincerely,

Hany.

jnanian said:

i have a 127 tominon in a press copal shutter.
it came on my speed graphic when purchased 20 years ago.
covers 4x5 without a problem and it gets used on a view camera too.
it is a nice, sharp, cheap and always an overlooked lens.

i think the nevada lens miner used to have these by the wheelbarrow.
it might be worth looking into ...

Click to expand...

John, I always thought you were a kindly peaceable type, but here you are making a statement that flatly contradicts what many, including that guy in Nevada, have said here.

Cheers,

Dan

fschifano said:

I don't understand why you'd think that an uncoated lens is sufficient for B&W work. The improved contrast of coated lenses has advantages for any type of film you'll use. Don't forget a lens hood or shade. That helps a lot too.

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Yes indeed, a lens hood/shade will help.

But I can't agree with you or the OP that uncoated lenses are fit for use only with b/w film. I use a couple of pre-WWII CZJ Tessars (f/6.3s), an Aldis Uno that may be that old, a 1940 Kodak 203/7.7 Kodak Anastigmat, and a 1946 101/4.5 Ektar, all uncoated. Also some uncoated B&L f/6.3 Tessars. They all make superb Ektachromes. If you don't believe me, ask Emmanuel Bigler. A couple of years ago I got involved in a polemic on the French LF board about the benefits of coating, sent him some sample shots that make the point.

To be fair, it depends on the lens. I have an uncoated 5"/4 Ross Wide Angle Xpres that's very flary; with it, exposure per the meter yields unsaturated trannies because of all the stray non-image forming light the lens passes.

Cheers,

Dan

Dan Fromm said:

John, I always thought you were a kindly peaceable type, but here you are making a statement that flatly contradicts what many, including that guy in Nevada, have said here.

Cheers,

Dan

Click to expand...

hi dan

strange, i dunno what to say
... mine says 4.7 tominon 127mm right on the lens ..
maybe mine is different than some of the others,
including the ones that the lens-miner is selling?

i've had it since 88', use it all the time ...
and never had any problems with coverage --
it doesn't vignette or dim edges, i get rise and "stuff"
on the view camera too ...

i don't mean to be the feather ruffling type ...
but both the collapsed-barnscape the portrait were
taken with the tominon on a speed graphic

the barn was pretty much at infinity ( 20' + )
and cookie was sitting not very far away from me
.. maybe 6-7 feet ?

-john

ps. guess i should have said " YMMV " ?

I would also put my voice for Fujinon lenses. There is not only the super small and super light Fujinon 150/6.3 W in seiko - there are also 125, 135, 150, 180 etc f/5.6 plasmat fujinon W lenses (in Seiko - single coated and in Copal - MC, but with smaller coverage). Just check the auction site

Here's a picture that just couldn't have been made with a coated lens:



The difference between single-coated and multicoated is much much smaller, and mostly irrelevant with the simple constructions of LF lenses. It makes a great difference on a modern superzoom with 25 elements in 18 groups or whatever, but when few LF lenses are more complex than 6 elements in four groups the benefit of multicoating is practically zero.

M $.02 is to go bigger. Maybe in the 210-260mm range. I end up doing more 4x5 portrait work in the 5-15 foot range from the camera. My favorite lens right now is a 300mm Zeiss.---again--it's all dependent upon what the OP wants to take pictures of...correct?