What focal length barrel lens for 8x10 BW Portraits 360-420-450 ?

Finished repairs on my 8x10 Calumet camera. I see some lenses in copal 3 shutters all over the place price wise 750-1k for modern lens in good condition which is why a barrel lens caught my eye for 2-300$ for name brand lenses.

A) would 360 420 or 450mm be best for portrait images?
B) I use hp5 Ilford so exposure times would be less with faster films
C) some barrel lenses are apo does that make a big difference?
D) I know the black hat trick is not the best but under daylight plus led softbox should have enough light
OR
I could use strobes like alien bees beauty dish diffused set everything up darken room remove dark slide and black hat then manually pop the shutter?

What say you?

Harlequin

Whether it's a barrel lens or not, makes no difference in results. Focal lengh is a personal preference. For me, 450mm for 8x10 is too short, but long lenses are an obstacle in 8x10. That's why I like 250mm in 4x5. Just my preference. But maybe you define "portrait" differently.

I don't have a large studio so I usually prefer a 300mm lens. I use a front mounted packard shutter that triggers the strobes.

A hat and manual flash could work too. But I probably would mess up the shot trying to focus on the model, the hat and the flash all at once.

For portraits using barrel lenses with my 5x7 I have a packard shutter behind the lens, and manually trigger the flash. In that format I use a 12 inch lens for most portraits, but for groups an 8-1/2" lens. For 8x10 it's a 12 inch Dagor that's convertible to almost twice that. It has a shutter, but I still manually trigger the flash.

I’ve never shot portraits, but is the very slow shutter speed of the “black hat” approach to manual shuttering the lens effective with portraits? Or are you going to lose a lot of shots due to slight movements of the subject?

My method would be the following

A) all lights on to focus and compose on ground glass.
B) carefully put in 8x10 film holder
C) put on black hat and dim lights remove slide
D) remove black hat
E) trigger strobe via test burron
F) place black cap on lens slide back in holder
G) refresh studio lighting and main lights
H) repeat for each shot

No movement cause the strobe freezes at 1/250 second in darkened room the black hat strikes again.

Harlequin

Worth a look;



I have the 14" f3.5 Wolly mounted up and a curtain shutter form an old 3X4 speed graphic out in front of it, but haven't had time for a "play" yet. Pretty spectacular on the ground glass though. I seem to like 14 and longer. Just finished restoring a 14 1/2" Verito and a 14 3/4" Eidoscop found it's way to me last fall also. 15" Cooke Series VI is beyond grand but you need to rob a bank first. So many lenses, so little time (or is it talent?) Don't "settle" for old slow graphic arts lenses. Artar's et al are fabulous for some things but lack soul with portraiture.

harlequin said:

A) would 360 420 or 450mm be best for portrait images?

Click to expand...

Personally, I'd lean towards the longer end. 360 is a little short for regular head-shot portraits on 8x10" IMO. It can be great for environmental portraits that show a lot of context. So it depends on your shooting style as well.

harlequin said:

D) I know the black hat trick is not the best but under daylight plus led softbox should have enough light
OR
I could use strobes like alien bees beauty dish diffused set everything up darken room remove dark slide and black hat then manually pop the shutter?

Click to expand...

What shutter if you're talking barrel lenses? Either way, shooting portraits on regular film without a shutter isn't my idea of a fun time. I don't see how you'd prevent at least gross inconsistencies in exposure (due to ambient light exposure before and after the flash pop), motion blur, etc. Yes, I read your subsequent 'my method' in post #6. Been there, done that - not going back there again! The process is prone to errors and you'll waste a sheet from time to time. Fine on 4x5, but on 8x10 that gets annoying pretty fast.

Another option that's equally debatable (but hey, 8x10 on a shoestring budget will always be a compromised situation) would be to take something like a 360/5.6 Symmar in a shutter (which can sometimes be found relatively cheaply) and then unscrew either the front or the back element. This will turn it into a poorly corrected 720/11, but at least it'll have a shutter. The longer focal length will allow for some nice compression - if you're into it; IMO it works well for tightly cropped portraits.

Playing advocate for the devil a bit - if costs are an objection and it really needs to be shot on sheet film, why not shoot it at a much more sensible 4x5 format? It'll be sufficiently cumbersome to still earn the "I shot it on large format" badge, but at least it won't get you as quickly to the point where you're holding a gun to the chiropractor's head because you're penniless with a broken back.

harlequin said:

My method would be the following

A) all lights on to focus and compose on ground glass.
B) carefully put in 8x10 film holder
C) put on black hat and dim lights remove slide
D) remove black hat
E) trigger strobe via test burron
F) place black cap on lens slide back in holder
G) refresh studio lighting and main lights
H) repeat for each shot

No movement cause the strobe freezes at 1/250 second in darkened room the black hat strikes again.

Harlequin

Click to expand...

Or use enough strobe with a small enough aperture where ambient/modeling lights don't matter much.

koraks said:

Personally, I'd lean towards the longer end. 360 is a little short for regular head-shot portraits on 8x10" IMO. It can be great for environmental portraits that show a lot of context. So it depends on your shooting style as well.

Click to expand...

Exactly.

Regarding point C, many of the APO lenses are process lenses designed for copying at 1:1 ratios, so their coverage is much less than typical taking lenses. You're probably fine in a studio for portraits, but they wouldn't work for landscapes or anything focused at a longer distance.

When I had an 8x10 and did portraits, I found the 450mm the most useful, although I also had a 300mm and a 120mm. None were in a barrel. You need series bellows for the 450mm though.

I've used a 360mm (14") Kodak Commercial Ektar on my field 8x10 for portraits, and I also have a Kodak 405 portrait lens on my Century Master studio camera. The 405 is an absolute beast of a lens - 405mm f4.5 means if I wanted to use a filter on it, it's something in the 120mm diameter range. Bear in mind that you don't need as long a lens for portraits with larger cameras because at 11x14 and longer, a tight head shot is a 1:1 macro if not greater magnification. On an 8x10 it's not quite that close, maybe a 1:1.5- 1:2 magnification, so you still want a lens that's longer than "normal" but it doesn't need to be as long as you would on 35mm or medium format.

For full body portraits, 300mm. For upper body, 360mm. For head & shoulders, 420mm. You didn't really specify.


Kent in SD

For old barrel lenses, I mounted a sinar auto shutter onto a lens board along with a universal iris lens holder. This allows me to use multiple barrel lenses on one lens board setup. Flash is easy too as the sinar shutter has a sync port. Those universal iris lens holders are ridiculously priced right now so that can be omitted and just mount the lenses onto their own lens board.