anthonymarsh Posted May 21, 2021 Share Posted May 21, 2021 I'm new to LF and have questions.What is the quality of this lens? I plan to use it on 4 x 5 landscapes, is it useful for this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niels - NHSN Posted May 21, 2021 Share Posted May 21, 2021 You are cross posting to several forums. That is not good forum practice for more reasons than I care to list here. Niels Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJG Posted May 21, 2021 Share Posted May 21, 2021 It's a Tessar type lens and should be reasonably sharp, but without a lot of covering power at infinity. If you aren't using a lot of movements it should be fine, but if you start to use a lot of front tilt or shifts you may run out of image. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthonymarsh Posted May 22, 2021 Author Share Posted May 22, 2021 You are cross posting to several forums. That is not good forum practice for more reasons than I care to list here. I am new to the forum and was not aware of the term cross posting. I will delete one. Thank you for alerting me to the error. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodeo_joe1 Posted May 22, 2021 Share Posted May 22, 2021 (edited) It's a sharp-enough lens with good contrast if properly coated. As previously stated, a Tessar copy. The image circle is slightly more than is needed to cover 5"x4" - its shorter sibling, the 135mm Xenar, was standard issue on many 5x4 press cameras. Not so wide as to allow much rise/fall or shift though. Perhaps you could squeeze an inch or so of movement at f/22... provided you didn't look too closely at the corner image quality. Swing/tilt shouldn't be too limited as long as you shift the optical centre of the lens back to align with the centre of the frame. IME the coating and glass of the front and rear element are quite soft. It's common to find Xenars with fine cleaning scratches, where some ham-fisted owner has scrubbed away at the glass with a dirty handkerchief or similar. This will obviously take the edge off the contrast. As with all lenses, condition is everything. Oh, BTW. The little tab sticking out from the shutter at the bottom of your picture is the 'preview' button. This allows the shutter to be opened for focussing and composition. Don't forget to close it before pulling the darkslide! Edited May 22, 2021 by rodeo_joe|1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthonymarsh Posted May 22, 2021 Author Share Posted May 22, 2021 It's a sharp-enough lens with good contrast if properly coated. As previously stated, a Tessar copy. The image circle is slightly more than is needed to cover 5"x4" - its shorter sibling, the 135mm Xenar, was standard issue on many 5x4 press cameras. Not so wide as to allow much rise/fall or shift though. Perhaps you could squeeze an inch or so of movement at f/22... provided you didn't look too closely at the corner image quality. Swing/tilt shouldn't be too limited as long as you shift the optical centre of the lens back to align with the centre of the frame. IME the coating and glass of the front and rear element are quite soft. It's common to find Xenars with fine cleaning scratches, where some ham-fisted owner has scrubbed away at the glass with a dirty handkerchief or similar. This will obviously take the edge off the contrast. As with all lenses, condition is everything. Oh, BTW. The little tab sticking out from the shutter at the bottom of your picture is the 'preview' button. This allows the shutter to be opened for focussing and composition. Don't forget to close it before pulling the darkslide![/quote How does the preview lever work? I tried to move it but it seems stuck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanKlein Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 Why is it impolite to cross post? Flickr gallery: https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanklein2000/albums Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthonymarsh Posted May 25, 2021 Author Share Posted May 25, 2021 You are cross posting to several forums. That is not good forum practice for more reasons than I care to list here. I cross posted to 2 forums in error.as a new member, 2 does not equate to "several". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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