pictorist lens for doing portrait with a 5x7 view camera

skwal4 · Feb 7, 2015

Hello everybody,

I am looking for a lens for portrait (head and shoulder) that could fit my 5x7 canham camera.

I love the woman portrait style that you could see in the Dead Link Removed (see attachment), unfortunately this lens are too expensive, too rare and without shutter

Maybe someone of you could propose me a lens that could produce the "same" estethic style for close portrait, knowing that it should be adaptable for my camera ?

Thank you so much.

Sorry for my poor english,
Christophe

smieglitz · Feb 7, 2015

I like my 8 3/4" diffused-focus f/4 Wollensak Verito on 5x7. There are longer focal lengths available if the Canham lensboard will allow.

You might also try one of Reinhold Schable's Wollaston meniscus lenses stopped way down. He sells them very inexpensively here on APUG and elsewhere. A quick search should turn him up.

GKC · Feb 7, 2015

Take a look at any of these---
Dead Link Removed

removed account4 · Feb 7, 2015

in addition to what joe suggested ..
you might also look into a fast tessar and shoot it wide open ( and front focused ) or a veritar which is a modern version of a verito that came in a alphax shutter. athe veritar is either a 10 or 14 inch ...
the schneider symmars also might work, but converted ( the longer of the 2 focal lenghts )
you can poke around the schneider optics website for lens data on their lenses and which focal lengths were offered ...

lastly, you might also look for a Morrison portrait lens the one for 6x8 ( whole plate )
might also work ....

getting an old lens might be 1/3 of the problem solved...
usually they are barrel lenses so you need to deal with slow exposures ...
and then learning how to use the lens ... since plug and play doesn't always work ...

have fun !

Andrew O'Neill · Feb 7, 2015

Wollaston meniscus lens.

http://www.re-inventedphotoequip.com/Lenses.html

smieglitz · Feb 7, 2015

FWIW, I don't really consider the Veritar to be a replacement for the Verito. Completely different look as far as I am concerned. The Verito is diffuse and dreamy, the Veritar is just unsharp. If you like the look the Veritar produces, you might just buy a much cheaper Velostigmat and unscrew the front element a bit if you can.

A good reference on soft-focus lenses is Charles Abel's 272-page, 1947 book entitled "Professional Portrait Lightings" (and not to be confused with some other books he co-authored later). It illustrates examples made with Veritos, Velostigats, Vitaxes, Vestas, Variums, Heliars, Graf Variables, Tessars, Patent Portraits, Cooke knucklers, Pinkham & Smith's, Dagors, Celors, various anastigmats, etc. It has a pretty steep price usually, but well worth it IMO (especially since I have two copies ). I've made a reference pdf file of the various images and lenses used to create them for the book and attached it to this post.

removed account4 · Feb 7, 2015

smieglitz said:
FWIW, I don't really consider the Veritar to be a replacement for the Verito. Completely different look as far as I am concerned. The Verito is diffuse and dreamy, the Veritar is just unsharp. If you like the look the Veritar produces, you might just buy a much cheaper Velostigmat and unscrew the front element a bit if you can.
.

hi joe

while i don't mean to be argumentative, i own both and use both.
the veritar pretty much IS a verito that is choked and isn't as fast, it it is coated and in a modern shutter.
while the verito can be found in a factory mounted betax they are far and few between. i have taken image side by side
with a 14" verito and veritar at the same Fstop, also taken them stopped down ... can't really tell the images apart.
maybe you can ... if the veritar is unsharp, as far as i have been able to tell, the verito is too ..
to each their own ...

GKC · Feb 7, 2015

If you're on a budget, smear some K-Y jelly on a filter and call it good (get creative and smear the edges if you want leaving the center uncoated), or stretch a piece of milady's pantyhose over you lens (a rubber band works good for holding it in place.) Enjoy some Bourbon before fine focusing.

smieglitz · Feb 7, 2015

Might have just been the example I had. It was a 10" (254mm) in an Alphax shutter and wasn't what I would call diffused at all. Just soft with pics like from some of the adjustable Velostigmats I've seen. Maybe I just had a bum example.

Can you post some pics taken with your Veritar? Here's one from the Verito:

And a few from the 10" Veritar I owned:

skwal4 · Feb 8, 2015

Hello Smieglitz,

Do you think a 305 kodak portrait lens could be used for head and shoulder portrait with my canham 5x7 ? At what distance should I place the camera in front of my subject with such lens ?

Thank you so much,
Christophe

smieglitz · Feb 8, 2015

I'm not familiar with the Canham camera so don't know the extension of which it is capable. I would think most 5x7s could handle a 305mm lens easily. As far as the distance for H&S on 5x7, try Googling optical formulas and plug in the numbers for focal length (305mm) object size (actual H&S size of subject in mm) and image size (H&S dimension in mm on groundglass) where needed. That should produce an answer for the required distance, extension, and magnification depending on which formula you use. Here's an example calculator:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/geoopt/lenseq.html

removed account4 · Feb 8, 2015

smieglitz said:
Might have just been the example I had. It was a 10" (254mm) in an Alphax shutter and wasn't what I would call diffused at all. Just soft with pics like from some of the adjustable Velostigmats I've seen. Maybe I just had a bum example.

Can you post some pics taken with your Veritar? Here's one from the Verito:

View attachment 102924

And a few from the 10" Veritar I owned:

View attachment 102925

hi joe

here are a few from the veritar ...
the last one is the 10"
and the other 2
are from a 14"
they were hand processed
and printed on paper before i scanned them

smieglitz · Feb 8, 2015

smieglitz said:
I've made a reference pdf file of the various images and lenses used to create them for the book and attached it to this post.

Bill (cowanw) caught a typo in one of the listings and alerted me. I've corrected it and am reposting the file.

jimgalli · Feb 9, 2015

I hope you'll allow some advice from someone who is prolific in the type of photography you're expressing interest in. Click on the link and wade through some of the pages at my site.

My advice is to set the Canham aside and build yourself a "dedicated" soft focus outfit. The reason is because you really need an old wooden camera with a Packard shutter mounted behind the front bulkhead. That way the shutter is inside the camera ready to give consistent exposures to whatever lens you've found and want to see some images from.

The venerable Burke and James 5X7 wood cameras still plentiful here in USA and cheap, are good for this. Kodak 2D is a good choice. What you need to look for is a wood camera with stout front carriage that has plenty of room for a shutter mounted inside and can carry the weight of antique fast lenses. Some of these old ugly clunkers go begging for little money and make a marvelous platform for the lenses we love. Lensboard should be wood and the bigger the better. 5 1/4 - 6 inch is large enough for the flanges on some of the classics.

Then with slow film and a consistent way to control the exposure you're set for working with antique lenses in barrel. You need to get your mind in the same mindset as the guys who made the images 95 years ago. They never thought once about Copal shutters. They worked with what they had and produced the legacy we have today.

An inexpensive lens to get the pictorial quality you've shown (I own that catalog) would simply be the front group from some of the earliest cinema projector lenses. Take the front off and face it toward the film and you'll be surprised. Or if you have some antique petzval's, try the same thing. Front group alone. Facing the film.

Below is one done with the front of a Gundlach projector lens. Original lens was 6 inch. Front element alone was about 9" focus. This was done on 4X5. Still not as soft as the example shown I suppose.

djdister · Feb 9, 2015

Using a Verito or Kodak Portrait lens is only part of the equation. If you really want to try to mimic the portrait style as shown in the Pinkham catalog, you should also consider your choice of film and method of output, such as an alternative process. If all you do is use a soft focus lens but everything else is modern materials, I think you will be disappointed with the results.

removed account4 · Feb 9, 2015

djdister said:
Using a Verito or Kodak Portrait lens is only part of the equation. If you really want to try to mimic the portrait style as shown in the Pinkham catalog, you should also consider your choice of film and method of output, such as an alternative process. If all you do is use a soft focus lens but everything else is modern materials, I think you will be disappointed with the results.

hi djdister,
while I am sure some would agree with you
i don't really agree ...
one certainly doesn't need to use alternative processes
with antique lenses, any more than one needs to use
antique processes with a rapid rectalinaer or tessar lens or an old anastigmatic lens
one has to shoot daguerrotypes with petzvals ( and nothing else )
all these lenses were around when photo paper was not developed out paper
what does help with these lenses is to learn how to use them ... what kind of light works best
jim's pages are wonderful, and a great catalog of lots and lots of these lenses and hardcore portraits
and photographs of "old stuff" that gives a nostalgic feel doesn't hurt either ..

but then again ... if you are a garo fan ( he is the guy that taught karsh )
you will have to use one of these old lenses, to do luscious dreamy landscapes
and bring pt/pd and gum printing back from the dead as he did ...
i agree old processes, mastering technique and old lenses ... are very suited for eachother ...

smieglitz · Feb 9, 2015

Well put Jim. You make many subtle but important observations in your reply.

And to comment on John's post, well, that is exactly the path I took. Looked at George Seeley's Pictorialist work ca. 1907 and wondered how I could accomplish a similar look. I had experience with gum printing and several alternative printing processes and decided part of the equation was the paper, part the printing process, part the lens, the lighting and the camera format (and of course Seeley's vision). I first bought the big Verito then followed with ortho films exploration and an 11x14. I haven't actually produced much with that specific combination, but modern photographic papers (save perhaps Fomatone 542-II chamois) are not part of that equation.

Funny, we seem to be disagreeing while agreeing at the same time all throughout this thread.

removed account4 · Feb 10, 2015

hi joe

i think you are right
we are all saying the same thing
with a different twist or a barely different POV.

i think its all good ...
olde tyme ... new subject matter
old lenses, new ones made funky

its all about the photographs and photography anyways ...

btw regarding the veritar ... i am probably going to start needing optics in the next year
so maybe it is blurry and my vision is already blurry to begin with ... so blurry x blurry = not blurry
( like a negxneg=postiive )

whatever it might be, its ok but me ...

TheFlyingCamera · Feb 10, 2015

As to the Canham 5x7 and the 305 Kodak Portrait ... I wouldn't recommend it. The 305 comes in an Ilex #5. That shutter is really just too big to fit on the lensboard for a Canham 5x7 (I have one of the Canham wood fields that uses the Toyo 110mm size board - it's a stretch to get an Ilex #4 on it, and the #5 is significantly larger than the #4). Theoretically you could make it work with some kind of custom lensboard/top-hat kind of arrangement, but I don't think the lens elements would actually fit inside the front standard. You might be able to find the 305 in barrel and be able to make it work, but then you're back to the no shutter problem, AND front-mounting a shutter on one of the Kodak Portrait lenses in barrel is challenging because the aperture ring is so close to the front of the barrel.

I'll put in another vote for a Verito, as they can be found at shorter focal lengths (under 12") in shutters. They're quite popular, though, so they're not cheap. Yet another option to consider is a Voigtlander Heliar - I have a 240mm Heliar that works wonderfully on my Canham, and is in a Compound shutter. While theoretically possible, I haven't seen a 300mm Heliar in a shutter. Others with more knowledge/experience can correct me on this. Regardless, if a 300mm Heliar exists in a shutter, it is probably too big to fit the Canham front standard.

skwal4 · Mar 12, 2016

Hello Everybody (one year later),

My kodak 305 portrait lens fit my canham 5x7. Impossible n'est pas français.

Here a scan of a portrait done with my canham (palladium & platinum process ; Arches paper)

pictorist lens for doing portrait with a 5x7 view camera

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