!50mm large format lens

Very new to LF cameras so please bear with me. I'm picking up my 4x5 on sat. It includes a 150mm lens. What kind of portrait work can I expect to do with this lens? Full length, waist up etc?? A 210 is not in the budget for another month or so.

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Thanks a million

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Joe

Joe: The 150mm is considered a normal lens for the 4x5, like the 50mm

on 35mm format. I would recommend waist up shots for portraits if you

want the perspective to look normal. You will have to get too close

with the 150 to fill the frame with a head shot. However, with the

4x5, you have a big enough negative to crop to head and shoulders in

the enlarger and still keep the quality. Crop to about a 6x7 format

or slightly larger and the perspective is fine. Perspective is

controlled by the distance from the subject to the camera. Your 150

will work until you can add a longer lens. The 210 you mentioned

makes a pretty good portrait lens, but a 250 would work better. You

can get one used without wrecking the budget. You don't need blazing

sharpness for portraits on LF. You will spend all your time

retouching.

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Regards,

Thanks for that answer Doug...That's what I was looking for

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Joe

Joe

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Just stand back further than you would for a head-and-shoulders

portrait with your 150 and then crop down to a head shot if that is

what you want. Since you now have so much film available with 4x5, you

can crop quite a bit and still make reasonable enlargements. A tight

head shot with a 210 is too close anyway in my opinion.

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The point is that the issue is perpsective not focal length; and

perspective is determined by film-to-subject distance. Once you decide

on perspective, (where do you place the tripod,) you pick focal length

to fill the film with as much or as little image as you want. If you

don't happen to have such a focal length---no one has all possible

lenses---use the next one shorter that you do have and plan on

cropping. This is one of the prime reasons for large format and why

35mm users have so many lenses while LF users may be perfectly content

with a few.

try taking off the front element off your 150 and see if you have an instant

long focus soft portrait lens.

have fun!

rich

One more thing to remember. In 35mm, moving from 150 to 210mm is

quite a large change, but while it _does_ make a difference in LF,

it's a much more subtle difference. 210mm is more or less equivalent

to a 70mm lens on 35mm film (too much mixing of mm here!).

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I would suggest taking a few months to do all you can with the 150

before moving to something longer. You may find you're happy with the

one lens. You may find that you want something more like a 240 or 270

to pair with the 150.

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125mm, 210mm, 360mm is my lens set. I find it to be a good spread of

focal lengths. The steps between focal lengths are not too small, not

too big.