Industar-51 210/4.5 - does anyone actually use and like? :)

Hello friends,
as usual, I ask for your advice I want to get an another 210mm lens for my Speed Graphic, as a company to my Trioplan 210/3.5. Of course, the lenses like old convertible Symmars are extremely over-priced and unavailable in Russia... if I only had one So I decided to take a try and to buy an old Industar-51 from FKD - they're very very cheap on Moscow's market, and can be easily found in flawless state. It would work fine with focal plane shutter of my SG. Does anyone use this lens for his 4x5 camera? I shoot with it maybe 16 years ago, on FKD beast itself, when I worked as a document photographer - so I can't remember much about it, nor those tests were quite adequate, he-he-he What can you say about its performance? Should I give it a try, or it's better to find some money and buy such a long-wished convertible Symmar 210/5.6 somewhere?? I don't have any troubles with making custom pro-quality aluminium alloy lensboards for SG, but is the game worth the candles?

Cheers,
Zhenya

I have one that I shoot on my speed graphic. It seems to be a nice lens, but I have no other 210 to compare to. They are cheap, so give it a try. If you are not happy you are not out much.

Zhenya, a couple of years ago I bought an I-51 in an FSU-made cup-shaped adapter to M39x1. It came with a Zenit M39 bellows, so I suppose it had been used with a Zenit SLR. Poor people have to be ingenious, eh?

I blackened the adapter's interior, attached it to a female M39 to male M40x0.75 adapter, screwed the thing into a Copal #1, mounted it on my little 2x3 Speed Graphic, and took a couple of shots. Short answer, my I-51 passes light and forms an image. The image it forms is sharper centrally -- that's the part I use on 2x3 -- at f/16 than at f/11. I have sharper 210s that are smaller and lighter too, so I don't use my I-51.

Should you get it? I don't know. Is your Trioplan that horrible? FWIW, if I had no other 210 I'd use my I-51 but there are better lenses at that focal length.

If you're going to shoot with your Speed's focal plane shutter and don't anticipate shooting at apertures larger than f/11, look into 210 mm f/9 or f/10 process lenses that are hard to put in shutter as an inexpensive alternative to a convertible Symmar. Apo Gerogon, say, or Staeble (= Eskofot) Intergon (= 210 Repromaster = 210 Helioprint).

If you need a little more speed, look into a good grade of tessar. I recently got a 135-235 Symmar and have been shooting it against my 127/4.7 Tominon, a tessar type. So far I'm not convinced that the Symmar is a better lens for 2x3. Possibly for 4x5 at distance, but for 2x3 the jury is still out; on 2x3 neither lens is overwhelmingly superior to the other.

Cheers,

Dan

Ok, Dan, thank you for your information - really, I-51 was sometimes used by Former Soviet People as a macro lens It was usually done in a manner you describe - self-made adapter, etc. + macro bellows. Can't personally view any reason for it, but there you are. That bad habit comes maybe from Fotosnajper photo-rifle, I-51 was installed there as a telephoto lens

My Trioplan is not bad at all - it's an excellent portrait lens, you can see the portrait taken with it in APUG Standart gallery - I just want some other lens of Tessar type, just to try it and to diminish a bit my hunger for 210 Symmar convertible f/11 is too small, I think - I would love to get something between f/4.5 and f/6.3, perhaps.

The QC of russian optics manufacture was quite different on different factories - KMZ and LOMO were by far the best. Where your lens was made? If in Kazan, this can be just a bad specimen - I've never seen one good lens from there, for they didn't make anything for war industry. Their lenses were just a mass-production crap, alas.

Cheers from Moscow,
Zhenya

Zhenya, my I-51 came from what I understand is the home of I-51s. KOMZ, in Kazan.

The Zenit bellows that came with mine is too short for macro work with a 210. Semi-close, maybe. I think the original owner used it to be able to shoot on 35 mm still with a 210. The adapter could well have been home-made. Very crude. But it works.

It sounds like you won't be happy until you've tried an I-51 or several. So do it and be happier.

Cheers,

Dan