Cheap alternatives for very looooong lenses

Hi everyone! I've always gotten by with 600mm as the longest lens

for my 8x10. Recently my photography has required me to acquire a

lens that is at least double this length. What's out there? Any

suggestions? Old lenses? Convertibles? Like many of us I'm on a

tight budget. Thanks for your advice....AND VANCOUVER IS GETTING THE

2010 WINTER OLYMPICS!!!...sorry, couldn't resist! Cheers!

If you are not limited to contact printing, then perhaps you should consider a 4x5 or 5x7 reducing back. Your 600mm lens automatically becomes the equivalent of a 1200mm lens on 4x5, and the price of each sheet of film (and holder) is less.

sorry Ken its still a 600mm lens. on a 4 x 5 it covers 1/4 the area of the 8 x 10 image.

Move closer.

Sorry Phillip, Ken is right. Do the math:

 

view_angle = 2*arctan((format_dimension/2)/focal_length)

 

Using a 1200mm lens on 8x10 gives you the same view_angle as using a 600mm lens on 4x5. Simple physics.

 

As Ken says, the low cost alternative is to use a 4x5 reducing back.

Longer lenses than 600mm - for the most part, the only modern offerings are the Nikkor tele lenses. Among older lenses which do work very well are the process lenses. There are 30" Ronars and Nikkors - they tend to be large and heavy. The Artars (30" and 35") are probably the best bet for field use - much lighter and can be front mounted to large shutters by places like S K Grimes. Downsides are you need a long bellows and will have to deal with issues of stability and wind. The tele lenses will probably be the better bet there but they are expensive and tele lenses have a bunch of other hassles - wierd tilts (since the nodal point is out in front) and lower coverage. There are some lesser known and rarer tele lenses (I think for the aeriel cameras). A really off-the-wall option is something like the Dallmeyer Adon - a sort of Galilean telescope (but this is pre-anastigmat and not too sharp). A 4x5 back will double the reach of your lenses.

Cheers, DJ

Hi Andrew,

You might try making your own by buying an acromat from Edmund Scientific. You could attatch it to the front of your shutter.

Peter

Andrew, I have the 760mm Nikon Process lenses (mounted in shutter) and it can be extrememly sharp. But I've found the wind is the limiting factor. With the 760 onboard, my camera (Calumet C-1 8X10) is racked out to near maximum and the bellows aproach their limit. I also have the 610mm Nikon which seems to do a little better. I think the bellows extension for your camera will probably be the deciding factor. I do like the idea of the reducing back, and I do sometimes put the 4X5 or the 5X7 back and enlarge them.

You have a four foot (1200mm) or longer bellows on your 8x10 camera? Which camera is it?

Ken suggested:

 

"Your 600mm lens automatically becomes the equivalent of a 1200mm lens on a 4x5."

 

Hogarth:

I thought that a 600mm lens had the same magnification and perspective on a 35mm camera to an 11x14 LF. If I follow your answer, I should take a picture with my 8x10 using a 600mm lens and cut the negative to 4x5, will I have automatically a 1200 lens?

 

Or, if I cut my 6x6 negative to a 24x36mm size, do I have a 35mm camera with an 80/f2.8 Planar?.

No, your focal length does not change. A 600mm lens used from the same spot gives you the same perspective on 4x5 and 8x10. However, the angle of view is a function of the focal length of the lens as well as the format. In other words, since the perspective is the same, but the 8x10 has a lot more film space, it is going to record a lot of extra material on the film. Whereas the same lens subtends a much smaller angle to reach the corners of a 4x5 sheet of film. And it is the narrow angle that people are typically looking for when they use long lenses - the narrow angle allows them to crop out stuff 'in camera'. Thus, using a reducing back on the camera does help to crop out things you want to avoid in the composition. Obviously, when using a 600mm lens on 4x5 film, magnification is lower than using a 1200mm lens on 8x10 film. But if you can't get close enough to achieve the angle of view required for the composition you have in mind (can't get close, or you prefer the perspective of where you stand etc), then cropping the negative gets you the composition you want with an attendant loss of magnification. Think of it this way, a normal lens on 4x5 is 150mm while the normal lens for 8x10 is 300mm. Now if you used a 300mm lens on an 8x10 camera but used a 4x5 reducing back, functionally you are using a 300mm lens on a 4x5 camera. Using a larger format camera with a reducing back is preferable because they have longer bellows to accomodate longer focal length lenses. Cheers, DJ

I recently bought a 36" f6.8 telephoto lens for about $130, so

there are good deals out there. It's an ex-RAF aerial lens and is

enormous in a way that it hard to comprehend unless you hold it

in your hands. Perfectly usable though.

 

Had this not been so cheap, I would have gone for a long

process lens. You need a longer bellows, but there's less glass

to lug about (though still plenty), and they are a little easier to

mount in front of a large shutter. They also stop down past f16,

which the aerial lenses often don't, so you have some hope of

getting depth of field anywhere closer than infinity.

Hogarth: thanks for getting me straight on that, I guess I understand film area better than angles. phil

DJ: I am glad you agreed with my response by writing - "No your focal lenght does not change" and disagreed with your own response above: "A 4x5 back will double the reach of your lenses"

 

The rest of your dissertation is well known by me.