on 4x5 cameras and lenses.

Stephanie Brim · May 13, 2007

I think I'm finally going to get a larger format camera. 4x5 is as high as I'm willing to go at this point, though, with a baby on the way. I bid on a Speed Graphic without lenses that looks a bit rough (cosmetically horrible and the bellows may need patching, but that's not a big problem), but otherwise it's usable. The focal plane shutter even works.

Considering I don't get a lens with the camera, I have more choice for a first lens. What's a good, decently cheap lens, in a shutter or not, that would work well for landscapes and general photography with slow shutter speeds?

rwyoung · May 13, 2007

Any barrel lens with sufficient coverage. For 4x5, 150mm is considered about "normal". Most Graflexes had 135mm and 127mm and some had 90mm. All of these are a bit on the wide side. Which considering the camera was meant mostly for press use and a lot of "shooting from the hip" a slightly wide angle lense makes good sense.

If you can put your hands on a 135mm Kodak, Graflex or Wolensak (spelling?) I think you would be pretty happy. Lots of those float by on eBay. Lots of good barrel lenses too. Slow film, small apeture and you may not even need your focal plane shutter, just the lens cap.

I suggested this to the guy with the "new" 8x10 too. Consider a pinhole lensboard too. Can't ground glass focus, but you can at least play with the camera, and at almost no addtional cost (cost of the lens board, some brass shim stock and a beading needle).

Peter Schrager · May 13, 2007

Get a shutter

No offense but for a first time user she will be having enough issues without the use of a shutter. There are a zillion good lenses out there going for nothing on epay. only a fool would be so naieve as to NOT buy a lens with a shutter. I struggled plenty over 30 years ago with a an air bulb;etc. do not waste time and energy-make pictures you know will come out. as an aside you would be way better off with a 5x7 camera as it is almost 50% larger image and you can contact print with a light bulb!! think about it Stefanie....
Best, Peter

Stephanie Brim · May 13, 2007

The camera has a focal plane shutter...the lens having a shutter doesn't really matter.

Ole · May 13, 2007

Peter, Stephanie does have a shutter - the focal plane shytter in the camera.

The main difficulty with barrel lenses on a Speed Graphic is that the tend not to fit in "standard" lensboard holes, so some "tuning" may be necessary.

I've got a Speed Graphic myself for exactly that reason: Playing with old, cheap barrel lenses.

Stephanie Brim · May 13, 2007

I have a Dremel and I know how to use it!

...or, well, my grandfather does.

Terence · May 13, 2007

Pretty much any 150mm lens made in the last 30 years should be fine and is a great all purpose focal length. A lot of folks like wider, but I find for landscapes it just makes everything too small. My favorite lens on 4x5 is my 210mm G Claron.

For making lens boards, I cut up a piece of tempered hardboard from the 99 cent clip boards at the drug store, Kmart, etc. A piece of black mat board on the back completes the light seal and prevents any reflections/glare.

rwyoung · May 13, 2007

Ole said:
- the focal plane shytter in the camera

Hmm, a "shytter" might not be the accessory you were hoping for. Especially if it shyte into the camera. Seems like you would be spending all your photo-time cleaning up after it.

(Just teasing Ole, your English and grammar is usually better than mine!).

Stephanie Brim · May 13, 2007

Yes, we all love Ole.

(I'd love to have most of his cameras.)

Terence · May 13, 2007

You can have the cameras, if I can have the lenses and lens irises.

Anscojohn · May 13, 2007

A place called Surplus Shed sells a barrel lens called a Graphic Raptar for either 25 or 35 bucks, which includes a flange. It's 138mm, 4.5 to 32. Might be worth taking a look at.

keithwms · May 13, 2007

Indeed you don't necessarily need a shuttered lens at this point, but nevertheless you will find many inexpensive, modern, multicoated shuttered lenses that will serve you very well and be useful if and when you later migrate to something other than the speed graphic.

What lens to get? Well that depends on your preference. A graphlex optar 135mm f/4.5 mm came with my crown graphic and it's not half bad, but my interests tend wide, so I picked up a schneider 90mm f/8 super angulon and it hardly ever comes off that camera. There are a lot of excellent and affordable lenses between 90-210mm. BTW I think the longest lens I've used so far with my crown is the nikkor 360 T.

Dan Fromm · May 13, 2007

Stephanie Brim said:
The camera has a focal plane shutter...the lens having a shutter doesn't really matter.

Wrong! The Pacemaker Speed Graphic's focal plane shutter's slowest timed speed is 1/30. Anniversary and older Graphics' FPS' slowest timed speed is be 1/10. In addition, Graphics' focal plane shutters won't synch with electronic flash. There are good reasons why Graphics were sold with lenses in shutter.

Don't be so damned impulsive. Read a book. At least visit www.graflex.org and read the FAQs before you get a Graphic.

FYI, I have a 2x3 Pacemaker Speed whose FPS is on spec. And I have a heap of lenses in barrel, of which three can't be front-mounted. I use those three with the FPS. I shoot the ones that can be front-mounted on leaf shutters, use the FPS with them only when I need 1/1000, i.e., hardly ever.

Wayne R. Scott · May 13, 2007

I am pretty sure Steph is looking at an Anniversary Speed Graphic.

Steph, should you win this auction let me know and I'll send you a 4x5 ground glass for your birthday this month.

Wayne

P.S. Dan, I love your warm and friendly tone in all of your posts.

Stephanie Brim · May 13, 2007

Yes, I'm pretty sure it's an Anniversary Graphic. I've already read plenty. Also, I won't be using flash. I don't need to worry about a flash at all.

I think I'm going to look at a 135/4.5 Tessar as my first lens, which will have a shutter and bulb, and then possibly look into a 210mm-250mm option as well. We'll see.

BrianShaw · May 13, 2007

Wayne R. Scott said:
P.S. Dan, I love your warm and friendly tone in all of your posts.

Funny you should mention that, Wayne. One of the major reasons I check APUG daily is for my daily dose of reality... and nobody delivers reality quite as straight-forwardly as Dan.

jstraw · May 13, 2007

Reality? I hope not.

John Kasaian · May 13, 2007

Theres lots of cheap barrel lenses out there looking for homes on old speeders. I'd suggest a Wollensak 168mm Velostigmat or any of the traditional 4x5 press camera lenses from Wollensak or Kodak---you should be able to find good examples for well under $100. Try Midwest or Equinox (or ebay.) If your speeder is an Anniversary model it will take the "C" board, made of wood and a lot easier to work with than the metal boards on the pacemaker series (IMHO. ) Try to get one with the lens already mounted on it. By all means check out www.graflex.org you'll find it a very valuable resource---especially the forum!

The holey bellows are what I'd be concerned about. If its just pinholes, Equinox sells a wonderful patch compound for a couple of dollars. Anything larger and you'll be looking at replacement and that isn't something thats friendly to the budget.

John Kasaian · May 13, 2007

Stephanie Brim said:
Yes, I'm pretty sure it's an Anniversary Graphic. I've already read plenty. Also, I won't be using flash. I don't need to worry about a flash at all.

I think I'm going to look at a 135/4.5 Tessar as my first lens, which will have a shutter and bulb, and then possibly look into a 210mm-250mm option as well. We'll see.

Not likely you'll find one in a barrel, but a fine lens is a 203mm Ektar, which will give you loads of movement if you decide to upgrade to a camera than can accomodate more moves than an Anny. Less than $200 in a shutter if you look hard enough

Stephanie Brim · May 13, 2007

John Kasaian said:
Theres lots of cheap barrel lenses out there looking for homes on old speeders. I'd suggest a Wollensak 168mm Velostigmat or any of the traditional 4x5 press camera lenses from Wollensak or Kodak---you should be able to find good examples for well under $100. Try Midwest or Equinox (or ebay.) If your speeder is an Anniversary model it will take the "C" board, made of wood and a lot easier to work with than the metal boards on the pacemaker series (IMHO. ) Try to get one with the lens already mounted on it. By all means check out www.graflex.org you'll find it a very valuable resource---especially the forum!

The holey bellows are what I'd be concerned about. If its just pinholes, Equinox sells a wonderful patch compound for a couple of dollars. Anything larger and you'll be looking at replacement and that isn't something thats friendly to the budget.

Putting some work into the camera isn't something I'm worried about. If I have to patch the bellows I will. I have a hobby store 20 miles from here that sells everything from leather to various compounds for patching it. I shouldn't have any trouble finding a good way to patch the bellows. If it comes to needing new stuff I'll get around to it at some later date. The camera just presented itself and I bit...hopefully no one else bites it, too.

Ole · May 14, 2007

A 135mm Tessar-type lens has just enough coverage to cover 4x5" straight on - if you want to play around with the (limited) movements of the camera, get a 150mm Tessar-type or a 135mm Plasmat like the Symmar.

When I got my Anniversary Speed Graphic I just happened to have a 150/4.5 Xenar in a Speed Graphic lens board already, and another lens board just big enough to mount my smallest iris holder on. The Xenar is nice if I think I might need flash sync; otherwise I'd far rather use the tiny little 150mm f:6.8 Zeiss Doppel-Amatar.

jacobus · May 15, 2007

A 135mm Tessar-type lens has just enough coverage to cover 4x5" straight on

Ole,
this is true with a 4.5/135 Tessar that covers only 60° or an max.image circle of 160mm.

But there are also those 6.3 Tessars that were equally or even higher renowned for their sharpness and contrast, and which cover 70° when stopped down. A Zeiss Jena data sheet ( from the sixties or seventies?) gave a maximum image circle of 185mm for the 6.3/135mm Tessar, and 290mm for the 6.3/210. Rather small lenses BTW, and I would be surprised if their performance would be one grain below the 6.3 Xenar that has been praised so convincingly by Christopher Perez.

Cheers
Uli

Ole · May 15, 2007

You're right again Uli, but in this case a 135/4.5 was specifically mentioned a few posts earlier. I should have put f:4.5 in my reply.

BTW - I agree with Christopher Perez about the 210/6.1 Xenar: It's a great little lens!

bdial · May 15, 2007

I am sure it is not universal, but how or why does a smaller lens (aperture wise) produce a larger image circle?
Seems counter-intuitive at the very least.

Ole · May 15, 2007

Lens design is the art of compromise. With "simple" designs (there's nothing simple about it, but there are only for elements) like the Tessar, one of the compromises is between speed and coverage. By restricting the maximum aperture to f:6.3, the coverage can be increased a little before the image quality gets bad.

That's partly why there are no old fast wide-angle lenses - the f:6.8 Angulon was among the fastest until a very few years ago!

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