Tele-Arton 5.6/250 - surprisingly good! :)

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eumenius

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Hello friends,

yesterday I've tightened my belt and finally bought a beautiful Tele-Arton 250/5.6, Linhof selected. $250, glass flawless, the plastic handle on release lever is lost (usual issue with Compurs). Well, I tried the lens on infinity - no movements on 4*5, almost. But I wanted it for the portraits, and that's where the lens really shines - it's very easy to focus (on great SatinSnow glass, of course), and there's a full sharpness beginning from the full aperture! But the most nice thing about this lens is a good crisp sharpness together with an unusually long tonal range of resulting negatives - it's not a lack of contrast, it's an excellent plus rendition of skin tones. My Fujinon-W 210/5.6 works way much harsher. The only lens I have I can compare with this Tele-Arton - an old barrel-mounted Trioplan 210/3.5, but it's not as sharp as the relatively modern T-A (not as if I needed that from Trioplan, though :smile:). So it looks that I've got a perfect portrait lens for my LF work - with exactly the characteristics I wanted :smile: And it's in Compur 1, a very convenient feature. And the bellows draw on my Toyo-View 45D allows me to choose whatever scale of portrait I want, no limits in reasonable boundaries :smile:

Thanks to everybody whom I eventually misled with the lens type in my previous post, and who gave me their opinion on T-As - I've had a chance already to see 240/5.5 Tele-Arton, and it's just incomparable with my lens :smile: I would scan the prints tomorrow, and post them in my gallery - just to show how everything works :smile:

Cheers,
Zhenya
 
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eumenius said:
Hello friends,

yesterday I've tightened my belt and finally bought a beautiful Tele-Arton 250/5.6, Linhof selected. $250, glass flawless, the plastic handle on release lever is lost (usual issue with Compurs). Well, I tried the lens on infinity - no movements on 4*5, almost. But I wanted it for the portraits, and that's where the lens really shines - it's very easy to focus (on great SatinSnow glass, of course), and there's a full sharpness beginning from the full aperture! But the most nice thing about this lens is a good crisp sharpness together with an unusually long tonal range of resulting negatives - it's not a lack of contrast, it's an excellent plus rendition of skin tones. My Fujinon-W 210/5.6 works way much harsher. The only lens I have I can compare with this Tele-Arton - an old barrel-mounted Trioplan 210/3.5, but it's not as sharp as the relatively modern T-A (not as if I needed that from Trioplan, though :smile:). So it looks that I've got a perfect portrait lens for my LF work - with exactly the characteristics I wanted :smile: And it's in Compur 1, a very convenient feature. And the bellows draw on my Toyo-View 45D allows me to choose whatever scale of portrait I want, no limits in reasonable boundaries :smile:

Thanks to everybody whom I eventually misled with the lens type in my previous post, and who gave me their opinion on T-As - I've had a chance already to see 240/5.5 Tele-Arton, and it's just incomparable with my lens :smile: I would scan the prints tomorrow, and post them in my gallery - just to show how everything works :smile:

Cheers,
Zhenya
Why be surprised? I have a 360/5.5 Tele-Arton and it's one of my favorite lenses, really good definition and very good flare supression (flare is very low). Just shows what you can do with 4 elements and single coating!
 

David A. Goldfarb

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I used to have a 360/5.5 Tele-Arton as well, and it was quite a good lens on 4x5". It was also in an aluminum barrel (but still a Copal 3), so it was fairly light for a big lens.
 
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eumenius

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Moscow, Russ
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Um, I was just a bit worried about these negative opinions about those old Tele-Artons from f/5.5 series. No good coverage, vignetting, no contrast etc. But when I've seen my 250/5.6, I thought "Such a charming thing, obviously multicoated, just can't be all this bad" :smile:

What's really bad, that's my scanner - I promise to post the pictures ASAP, the damned machine won't work :sad:

Cheers, Zhenya
 

David A. Goldfarb

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The 360 Tele-Arton that I had was definitely better than my 360 Tele-Xenar, but I sold the Tele-Arton, because the Tele-Xenar is cammed for my Tech V, and since the maximum shutter speed is 1/100 (max for the Tele-Arton was 1/125), I tend to use it stopped down anyway.
 
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eumenius

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Moscow, Russ
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And on my Compur 1 the maximum speed is 1/500 - maybe for shooting some car races with 4x5? :smile:
 
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