What is the Holy Trinity for 5x7?

90mm f6.8 Rodenstock Grandagon will cover 5x7 with limited movements. Any 210-240mm will make a nice "normal" lens for 5x7. I have a Sinar Sinaron 210 f5.6 plasmat, and I also have a 240mm Heliar f4.5 for when I want to do portraiture. A 12" Commercial Ektar makes a good longer lens for 5x7 - the 14", while beautiful, is in an Ilex #5 shutter and is just too big for the front standard of most 5x7 field cameras.

regarding Vaughn's comments on the 159mm f12.5 Wollensak - I think there was significant sample-to-sample variation in those lenses - I have one with the purple "WoCoated" mark on the front ring, and it covers 5x12 with perceptible but not objectionable sharpness loss at the corners stopped down to f22.

TheFlyingCamera said:

...regarding Vaughn's comments on the 159mm f12.5 Wollensak - I think there was significant sample-to-sample variation in those lenses - I have one with the purple "WoCoated" mark on the front ring, and it covers 5x12 with perceptible but not objectionable sharpness loss at the corners stopped down to f22.

Click to expand...

I think I got one of the lazy Wollensaks (with the "WoCoated" symbol, also)...it just does not want to do the heavy lifting.

But I do like an image I got from it:

Scanned 8x10 platinum print