Thinking of Getting an 8x10 View Camera

DREW WILEY · Sep 22, 2020

Bob - circuit board printing didn't even exist in the present sense when Apo Nikkors were introduced. They were marketed to the printing industry, and soon caught on with pro photo labs making big enlargements. And industrial applications for Apo El's didn't typically require adjustable apertures or correction over a wide focus range, so comprised another market category entirely. But in terms of Euro equivalents from Rodenstock or others, you'd have to tell me. Certain local chip makers have even employed some of the recent Zeiss-Nikon (Tokina) 35mm lenses. I pay about as much attention to that industry as I do to corn flakes manufacture - one is an edible chip, the other isn't.

DREW WILEY · Sep 22, 2020

Lachlan, I get wryly amused whenever someone tries to save up enough money for the "very best" (an Apo El Nikkor), but doesn't even realize that their garden-variety enlarger won't even reliably hold the weight of the thing, and will either deflect out of alignment or tend to vibrate. Then they want to use a glassless carrier, defeating any kind of precision! - like they're intending to drive around a flashy Ferrari which has three flat tires.

Lachlan Young · Sep 22, 2020

DREW WILEY said:
Lachlan, I get wryly amused whenever someone tries to save up enough money for the "very best" (an Apo El Nikkor), but doesn't even realize that their garden-variety enlarger won't even reliably hold the weight of the thing, and will either deflect out of alignment or tend to vibrate. Then they want to use a glassless carrier, defeating any kind of precision! - like they're intending to drive around a flashy Ferrari which has three flat tires.

I wouldn't disagree - and if the 480 Apo-EL is straining the considerable bearing surfaces of the De Vere breechlock mount, it's probably at very real risk of overloading the smaller bearing surfaces of a Durst UNIPLA's mounting lugs/ screw.

Bob S · Sep 22, 2020

DREW WILEY said:
Bob - circuit board printing didn't even exist in the present sense when Apo Nikkors were introduced. They were marketed to the printing industry, and soon caught on with pro photo labs making big enlargements. And industrial applications for Apo El's didn't typically require adjustable apertures or correction over a wide focus range, so comprised another market category entirely. But in terms of Euro equivalents from Rodenstock or others, you'd have to tell me. Certain local chip makers have even employed some of the recent Zeiss-Nikon (Tokina) 35mm lenses. I pay about as much attention to that industry as I do to corn flakes manufacture - one is an edible chip, the other isn't.

Zeiss made them for years before Nikon entered the market.
Rodenstock sold them through Rodenstock Precision Optics in MA which was the Rodenstock special optics division. We were their photographic lens division.

braxus · Sep 22, 2020

Well my 300mm f5.6 Fujinon lens came yesterday. I need to get some lens caps for it, since it didn't come with any. My lensboard is still stuck in the USA. I might get it shipped up here in the next month or two, as it seems the border won't be opening any time soon. I am looking at replacing my 210mm lens with an earlier version, so I can use it on my 8x10 camera too. I missed out on one for a hundred bucks, as timing wasn't right.

138S · Sep 23, 2020

Congratulations! with that lens you get a powerful tool. For some 8x10 portraiture situations it will be a bit short as you have to go too close to frame a head&shoulders for example, but you can shot 5x7 or 4x5 with it. As you can use several formats then you multiply your choices.

"Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite National Park" was made with a 300 focal...

If you see the Yousuf Karsh 8x1o work, most was made with a 360mm (14") , the 300 (for 8x10) would slightly be a bit more ambiental portraiture, as at (usually wanted minimum) 3m from subject you take the ambient, you are shooting with the around "normal" focal , what it would mostly be 50mm in a SLR. At 300mm for 5x7" you are shooting longer than normal which is very suitable for half body. If you use it for 4x5" then the 300 works about like a 100mm in a slr.

In general mugshots are a bit boring in LF, you tend to shot portraits a bit more ambiental to perhaps exploit better the OOF roll-off signature of LF, but this is a totally personal choice. Reviewing Yousuf Karsh work is a good thing when starting 810 potraiture. https://karsh.org/photographs/humphrey-bogart/ illumination is all !!!

Some portraiture gurus have been overexposing TXP and HP5 by 2 stops and later developing HC-110 with reduced time, to 5 or 6 min (Dil B) for TXP, but if you do hybrid then you may bend the tonal curve in PS for a similar effect.

braxus said:
My lensboard is still stuck in the USA. I might get it shipped up here in the next month or two

A great thing of the Ansco and the like is that you can DIY a lensboard in the kitchen in 10min, after you have made one it's like rigding in a bicycle. Also any basic workshop or carpenter would do it, but don't tell it's a "lens board" because he will rise the price , ask for a specific (a bit strong) board with a hole. If it is wood you may have to sand two sides to fit in the attachment.

Cut the board in "technical" wood, alluminium, or carbon fiber, see this search: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=carbon+board+fiber+3mm&ref=nb_sb_noss_2 , Ebay may be cheaper

Then machine the hole, you need a 65mm hole for the size 3 shutter you have https://www.largeformatphotography.info/lensboard_hole_sizes.html, safety is first

The hole does not need to be totally exact, depending on the retaining ring you have more or less tolerance, if you don't have the exact size tool you may make it a bit smaller and sanding until it fits...

Regarding the caps, you may DIY make a provisional one until you get a nice one

_ _

DREW WILEY · Sep 23, 2020

Pere - Anybody in this day and age would probably throw away any lens AA used back then for "Clearing Winter Storm". It's an iconic image, which was hell to print because it survived his studio fire but suffered from stains afterwards. But the original neg wasn't very sharp at all by modern standards, and doesn't hold up to enlargement much bigger than 2X very well. Wistfully looking back at old classic lenses is fine if one has a reason for a special vintage look, but any modern Fuji lens is going to be way better in technical terms. I realize you're mostly referring to perspective, so 300mm on 8x10 would be equivalent to "normal" angle of view. But that Winter Storm shot was taken from the very same parking lot millions of pictures are taken from, elbow to elbow. It's where the tour busses pull over one after another, at least pre-Covid. The magic occurs when the road closes due to heavy snow, and one can have such a spot almost completely to themselves. But I've taken only about six shots in my entire life in Yosemite Valley, even though I lived right across the River; three of them were on just such a day, when the Valley was almost totally vacant due to deep snow closure.

138S · Sep 23, 2020

DREW WILEY said:
But the original neg wasn't very sharp at all by modern standards, and doesn't hold up to enlargement much bigger than 2X very well.

You overlook what a fully assembled old Cooke (both cells in this case) can do.

This is only 1885 and 5x7", before astigmatism could be corrected and shot with an inferior format

When you have to stop a click beyond f/32 (for DOF) your top notch "modern" lens is not to resolve much more than the Cooke, perhaps the same, because of diffraction.

The crappy lens AA used is the Adon for the Half Dome when he was "poor", the Cooke of the "Clearing Strom" plays in another division.

choiliefan · Sep 23, 2020

Back in 1973 my HS photo class took a field trip to the Norton Simon Museum to take in large prints by Ansel Adams. What struck me initially was the luminosity and depth of these images. Upon closer examination, every grain of the emulsion was dead sharp across print. I was a teenager at the time but still marvel at the quality of those prints.

DREW WILEY · Sep 23, 2020

Anything bigger than 20x24 was typically sheer mush. That's why AA recommended printing "mural" sized images softer and warmer than regular images, and had his own version of those printed that way too, by a pro lab better equipped to do so, under his direct supervision, of course. His earlier cameras weren't that precise, he didn't own any kind of precision film-holder, his personal darkroom equipment was somewhat primitive even for that era, and films like Super-XX were quite grainy. If you want to see contemporaneous photography that remained crisp on big scale, look at what Bradford Washburn did with big precision aerial cameras. Therefore Ansel's so-called mural prints, often around 40X60 inches, tended to have a deliberate soft poetic feel to them which people instinctively view from a relative distance, rather than the high-contrast dramatic cold look that most people associate with those same images on smaller scale, which draws them to view more closely. If those same images had been taken on later film like TMax, you wouldn't see grain at all. One distinct benefit of the discrepancy in how sizes were printed so differently is it allows one to appreciate just how much AA composed things like a visual poet rather than just as a drama orchestrator. Relatively few of his innumerable ideological clones have that same poetic sensitivity.

138S · Sep 23, 2020

DREW WILEY said:
Anything bigger than 20x24 was typically sheer mush.

Even in the case he was only able to resolve 25lp/mm, which for sure the Cooke was able, a 40" (4x) print is to be well sharp.

See again that 1885 shot...

Lachlan Young · Sep 23, 2020

138S said:
Even in the case he was only able to resolve 25lp/mm, which for sure the Cooke was able, a 40" (4x) print is to be well sharp.

See again that 1885 shot...

The nominal/ theoretical lens resolution matters little if the rest of the system cannot deliver adequate sharpness to support it. You have to consider the MTF (and overall information capacity - MTF/ RMS Granularity/ latitude) of the film used, the lens MTF at the aperture used, the flatness of the film, the stability of the camera, the precision of focus at the focal plane, the MTF of the enlarger lens at the aperture chosen, the precision/ vibration of the enlarger, the sharpness/ information capacity of the paper, the adequacy of the focus of the negative in the enlarger. Adams also liked films like Kodak Portrait Pan (in D-23 - from correspondence with Paul Strand in the early 1950's), which is characterised by Kodak's own 1956 dataguide as having 'moderately low' resolving power and sharpness, enabling only a 'low' degree of enlargement. Even Super-XX or Super Panchro Press had better resolution and performance, let alone later generations of Tri-X etc. Trying to compare the nominal resolution of a glass plate of indeterminate heritage or process to a fairly fast mid-20th century film emulsion (that was getting obsolete by the mid-50's) isn't really relevant to understanding why most film emulsions before the mid 1950's weren't as sharp or well behaved as those that rapidly followed. For a variety of good reasons, modern prints from well preserved vintage negs are likely to be notably sharper than those from the early 70's, let alone the early 50's or before.

DREW WILEY · Sep 23, 2020

The big difference is that you're hypothesizing about all this based on rote math and questionable lens lore, Pere; but I've seen a lot of those large AA prints in person, and no, they're not sharp and crisp at all, even by 1940's standards. There were no doubt cumulative reasons for that. And we have to remember that his biggest prints were basically a re-purposing of certain iconic images originally intended for more a much more modest scale of enlargement. The same could be said for his contemporary Edward Weston : people exclaim how immaculately crisp his contact prints look, but most don't hold up to any degree of enlargement very well; they weren't intended to. There's a lot of mythology to this whole topic, and especially with what people regard as cult lenses from the past.

138S · Sep 23, 2020

Lachlan Young said:
The nominal/ theoretical.

Lachlan, please don't quote me, if possible.

Lachlan Young · Sep 23, 2020

DREW WILEY said:
There's a lot of mythology to this whole topic, and especially with what people regard as cult lenses from the past.

I think it's very much the case that an awful lot of 8x10 negs/ transparencies made with 'fine art' intention, until perhaps the 1970's at least, were either intended to be contact printed or enlarged no bigger than 2x - and those that were taken to big sizes tended to have the sort of commercially financed budgets attached that ensured qualitative thresholds were a relative non-issue - and that the optics/ cameras/ enlargers etc used were going to be as good as they needed to be.

I think a lot of the childish huffing and puffing from a particular individual here is because he cannot handle the idea that Ansel Adams wasn't producing 8x10" negatives in the 1940's with the future intention of making perfectly sharp 40x50"+ prints. It also suggests a thorough lack of experience on the aforesaid individual's part with the visual impact of diffraction from the use of a small aperture on the taking lens on the subsequent image when enlarged even moderately.

DREW WILEY · Sep 23, 2020

The only time I exhibited with AA was in fact when the largest set of his mural prints ever assembled were placed one to one between my slightly smaller color Cibachromes. At that point in time I only shot 4x5, only owned a single camera lens nowhere near as acute as the ones I now use, didn't own any Apo enlarging lenses at all, and shot Ektachrome 64, considered grainy by today's standards. But every one of those prints was easily twenty times sharper than Ansels. The curator wanted a distinct counterpoint, not a stylistic clone; so I guess that's why I got selected. At that point in time I didn't even do any b&w shooting yet.

5x7shooter · Sep 24, 2020

138S said:
You overlook what a fully assembled old Cooke (both cells in this case) can do.

This is only 1885 and 5x7", before astigmatism could be corrected and shot with an inferior format

View attachment 255627
View attachment 255628

When you have to stop a click beyond f/32 (for DOF) your top notch "modern" lens is not to resolve much more than the Cooke, perhaps the same, because of diffraction.

The crappy lens AA used is the Adon for the Half Dome when he was "poor", the Cooke of the "Clearing Strom" plays in another division.

I probably had better things to do, like earn a living, but this thread and the high proportion of argument based upon postulated first principles and hypothesizing made me hungry for some experimental data.

As it happens, I have several Double Protar VIIa lenses made by both Zeiss and B&L under license, including 145mm, 165mm, 183, 254mm, and 300mm. All are double cell lenses of 8 elements i in 2 fully cemented 4-element groups, one on each side of the shutter diaphragm. Although uncoated, the minimal number of internal air-glass surfaces helps avert serious contrast loss. AA wrote using some of these Double Protars in various well-known photos in addition to his Cooke XV.

The Double Protar VIIa lenses are similar in design to the Cooke, although without the Cooke's internal air space, and are of roughly similar vintage and intended use. Protar VIIa lenses were certainly among the most sought-after triple convertible lenses and arguably better corrected than pre-WWII Dagors, due to the Protar's extra element in each cell.

I paired each Protar with its closest equivalent modern Fujinon W or equivalent lens that I had avaialable, the 145mm with a 150mm/ 5.6 Fujinon NWS, the 165mm and 183mm Protar VIIa compared with a 180mm Sironar N, a 183mm post-WWII Goerz American Dagor, and a 210mm/9 G-Claron, the 254mm Protar VIIa with a Fujinon 250mm CW-M and also with the earlier Fujinon 250mm/6.7 W (inside writing). The older 300mm B&L Protar VIIa was paired against a 305mm G-Claron.

I then shot each of the sets on 5x7 Delta 100 film at the half-stop between f/22 and f/32 against an outdoor scene of soft white pine needles and other leaves and metal fencing. I developed in XTOL diluted 1:2 used as a lightly agitated (every 3 minutes) stand developer to compensate for any overly bright highlights beyond Delta 100's comfortable capability.

No surprise, but those older Zeiss/B&L Double Protar VIIa lenses just weren't as sharp or crisp as their modern counterparts, nor were close tones/Zones as well-differentiated by Double Protars, which was important in the test scene.

While some may prefer the softer, less sharp look of older pre-WWII triple convertible lenses, that's a personal preference but we shouldn't kid ourselves that they're fully up to modern standards. Personally, I had hoped otherwise.

FWIW, the best of the older Protars was the 165mm Double Protar VIIa, the only completely symmetrical lenses as both front and back cells were both 290mm. The others were close but not fully symmetrical, being 290/220, 350/290, 19"/16", etc. Complete front and back symmetry may be helpful with these older lenses.

Lachlan Young · Sep 24, 2020

5x7shooter said:
I probably had better things to do, like earn a living, but this thread and the high proportion of argument based upon postulated first principles and hypothesizing made me hungry for some experimental data.

As it happens, I have several Double Protar VIIa lenses made by both Zeiss and B&L under license, including 145mm, 165mm, 183, 254mm, and 300mm. All are double cell lenses of 8 elements i in 2 fully cemented 4-element groups, one on each side of the shutter diaphragm. Although uncoated, the minimal number of internal air-glass surfaces helps avert serious contrast loss. AA wrote using some of these Double Protars in various well-known photos in addition to his Cooke XV.

The Double Protar VIIa lenses are similar in design to the Cooke, although without the Cooke's internal air space, and are of roughly similar vintage and intended use. Protar VIIa lenses were certainly among the most sought-after triple convertible lenses and arguably better corrected than pre-WWII Dagors, due to the Protar's extra element in each cell.

I paired each Protar with its closest equivalent modern Fujinon W or equivalent lens that I had avaialable, the 145mm with a 150mm/ 5.6 Fujinon NWS, the 165mm and 183mm Protar VIIa compared with a 180mm Sironar N, a 183mm post-WWII Goerz American Dagor, and a 210mm/9 G-Claron, the 254mm Protar VIIa with a Fujinon 250mm CW-M and also with the earlier Fujinon 250mm/6.7 W (inside writing). The older 300mm B&L Protar VIIa was paired against a 305mm G-Claron.

I then shot each of the sets on 5x7 Delta 100 film at the half-stop between f/22 and f/32 against an outdoor scene of soft white pine needles and other leaves and metal fencing. I developed in XTOL diluted 1:2 used as a lightly agitated (every 3 minutes) stand developer to compensate for any overly bright highlights beyond Delta 100's comfortable capability.

No surprise, but those older Zeiss/B&L Double Protar VIIa lenses just weren't as sharp or crisp as their modern counterparts, nor were close tones/Zones as well-differentiated by Double Protars, which was important in the test scene.

While some may prefer the softer, less sharp look of older pre-WWII triple convertible lenses, that's a personal preference but we shouldn't kid ourselves that they're fully up to modern standards. Personally, I had hoped otherwise.

FWIW, the best of the older Protars was the 165mm Double Protar VIIa, the only completely symmetrical lenses as both front and back cells were both 290mm. The others were close but not fully symmetrical, being 290/220, 350/290, 19"/16", etc. Complete front and back symmetry may be helpful with these older lenses.

Those results are not surprising to me on the basis of my own experience with the results from optics of that era - and it's also notable how much of a difference coating & post WWII optical glass seems to have made to the Plasmat/ Dagor design (to say nothing of higher precision lens assembly relative to the Protar - cementing 4 elements together is, I understand, quite tricky to do well). Your test results are further strengthened by using a wide variety of lenses of roughly similar optical design pattern, up to and including a fully air-spaced variant (the CM-W).

For the record, I happen to like the look of mid 20th century lenses (though preferably in their coated variants), but I'm under no illusions as to their contrast/ MTF performance relative to the newer designs from the 1950's on.

Ian Grant · Sep 24, 2020

Lachlan Young said:
For the record, I happen to like the look of mid 20th century lenses (though preferably in their coated variants), but I'm under no illusions as to their contrast/ MTF performance relative to the newer designs from the 1950's on.

When I bought my first 10x8 Agfa Ansco from a Photography Professor in Portland, Maine, 15 or 16 years ago it came with a 12" f6.8 Goerz Am Opt Dagor that he said was useless, had separation. If fact he'd never used it and the camera also came with the lens boards he'd had made for his 300mm f9 Nikkor M, there was no separation just accumulated dirt around the rim of the front element. I discovered the original owner a student and later lecturer at the Clarence White School of Photography had bought the kit new in 1940 and had teh Dagor coated after WWII.

Having used quite a few older lenses with most uncoated designs there's a definite shift in tones and lack of contrast and detail that I don't like and I agree with you about coated rather than uncoated particularly with Tessars and Dialytes. I acquired a 1913 120mm f6,8 CP Goerz Berlin 2 or 3 years ago and did some contrast tests (posted here) and was amazed that the contrast of the Dagor was close to a good coated lens, a similar aged Tessar was way different.

I've not tested the sharpness of the small Dagor compared to say a 120mm f6.8 Angulon (coated) , and 150mm coated Tessar or Xenar, or a modern MC plasmat but I don't expect more than average performance particularly when enlarged. The 12" though is an excellent lens and very sharp at the apertures I use it at, I have a 360mm f9 Apo Ronar CL which I should compare it to as well as a 300m f9 Nikkor M.

In the end it's the final images that count and knowing how to get the best out of a lens regardless of its age, gone are the days when I'd only shoot with modern MC lenses

Ian

138S · Sep 24, 2020

Ian Grant said:
and was amazed that the contrast of the Dagor was close to a good coated lens, a similar aged Tessar was way different.

This is easy to explain, the Dagor has only two groups totalling 4 air-glass surfaces, the Tessar has 6 air-glass surfaces, and flare effect of accumulating those uncoated surfaces is worse than linear !

An uncoated Dialyte is of course a worse case regarding flare, 8 surfaces. In fact "Dialyte" name comes fom "separated" elements with not a single cementation to save air-glass surfaces.

Anyway, of course, a compendium shade makes an impressive effect in the flare reduction, and also an strong filtration may improve contrast in practice.

DREW WILEY · Sep 24, 2020

My first Dagor was actually the last to be made (with one rare exception) - the multicoated Kern 14 inch. It had the highest contrast, best microtonality, and purest hue rendition of any lens I've ever had, in any format. It was quite sharp, but not as sharp as my equivalent focal length Fuji 360A "Super Plasmat", nowhere near as good close-up, and not anywhere near as good in terms of tangential performance with strong tilt. But that contrast level, was, frankly, over the top for practicality, especially with chrome films. I sold it and replaced it with the previous version single-coated Kern. But generally, when I need very high hue response and microtonality, I use Nikkor M's, which are the most evolved tessars for view camera use, and being multicoated with only six air/glass interfaces, still have superb microtonal contrast; but they don't have as big image circles as plasmats. My 4-element airspaced dialytes for field use are Fuji C's, and being late multicoated lenses, are nearly equal in performance. So this set of facts leaves me unqualified to comment on similar design antique lenses, prior to modern coatings and more precise methods of quality control in manufacture. I can only judge such things from looking at old negatives and prints.

138S · Sep 24, 2020

DREW WILEY said:
the multicoated Kern 14 inch.

Modern multicoatings changed that game, since the MC advenement reducing the group count for flare contention is not a priority as flare in not provocated anymore in the air-glass surfaces, most of the LF flare we have in MC glass comes from the excessive image circle (we want) partially bouncing in the bellows.

MC today is that perfect that some Pro FF lenses like the Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 accumulate 21 elements in 16 groups (!) without being a problem. MC modern LF glass is all totally contrasty.

5x7shooter · Sep 24, 2020

DREW WILEY said:
My first Dagor was actually the last to be made (with one rare exception) - the multicoated Kern 14 inch. It had the highest contrast, best microtonality, and purest hue rendition of any lens I've ever had, in any format. It was quite sharp, but not as sharp as my equivalent focal length Fuji 360A "Super Plasmat", nowhere near as good close-up, and not anywhere near as good in terms of tangential performance with strong tilt. .......... My 4-element airspaced dialytes for field use are Fuji C's, and being late multicoated lenses, are nearly equal in performance. .....

I agree with Drew about post-WWII Dagors. The 7" US-made Dagor, factory coated, is one of the best lenses that I've used - fully equivalent to my multicoated Sironar-N of the same focal length.

Both of my post-WWII Kodak 8"/7.7 factory-coated Kodak Ektars are also very good and are Dialyte designs similar to the later Fujinon C. Multicoating would have been nice on the Dialyte-design Ektars, but doesn't seem necessary for the later Dagors. T

The Cooke is, as I recall, 8 elements in four groups, two groups in each cell, with an air-space. In the broadest sense, one could consider the Cooke to be vaguely akin to the Dialyte but with each Dialyte element consisting instead of a cemented pair. Alternatively, you could consider the Cooke to be a Plasmat with the single rear element of each cell split into a cemented pair.

Ian - my late model reverse-Dagor design 120mm Angulon is decent but the multicoated 125mm/5.6 Fujinon NWS fully air-spaced Plasmat is markedly superior.

Bob S · Sep 24, 2020

5x7shooter said:
I agree with Drew about post-WWII Dagors. The 7" US-made Dagor, factory coated, is one of the best lenses that I've used - fully equivalent to my Sironar-N of the same focal length.

Both of my post-WWII Kodak 8"/7.7 factory-coated Kodak Ektars are also very good and are Dialyte designs similar to the later Fujinon C. Multicoating would have been nice on the Ektars, but doesn't seem necessary for the later Dagors. T

he Cooke is, as I recall, 8 elements in four groups, two groups in each cell, with an air-space. In the broadest sense, one could consider the Cooke to be vaguely akin to the Dialyte but with each Dialyte element consisting instead of a cemented pair.

Ian - my late moderl reverse-Dagor design 120mm Angulon is decent but the multicoated 125mm/5.6 Fujinon NWS fully air-spaced Plasmat is markedly superior.

Sironar N, Sironar N MC, Apo Sironar N?

braxus · Sep 24, 2020

Wow did this thread go off topic. Anyway the only old lens I have for large format is the Ektar 127mm for 4x5. But I can't use this lens on anything bigger. Most of my lenses are Fujinons.

Thinking of Getting an 8x10 View Camera

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