Old or Modern Lenses? Linhof or not?

[dan_nougue]

Hi,

 

I plan to buy a 150mm or a 135mm, but I don't know which one to

choose...and I become very confused about all the reviews I read

about it...an old one (single coated Symmar S 150mm, or a Planar

135mm...) or a modern one (apo symmar), with the label Linhof since

we are sure the lense as checked by Linhof will be sharper...

I watched an interview of Helmut Newton who said that the 70's lense

were far better and sharper than the new one.

 

What do you think? Old or Modern? With Linhof Label?

 

Thx

[michael_briggs2]

I much doubt the assertion that, in general, that lenses from the 1970s are far better and sharper than new ones. You could make a plausible claim that most LF lenses from the 1970s are equally sharp as current lenses, but LF lens technology and manufacturing hasn't regressed. Some LF lens designs have been in use for many decades -- at least for normal coverage, excellent sharpness was achieved many decades ago.

 

If Helmut Newton said this, perhaps he was referring to sharpness near wide-open, which was probably a design goal of some lens types that are no longer made as LF lenses. Few LF photographers today use their cameras hand-held and many use LF cameras at least in part from a concern for sharpness.

 

LF lenses have improved since the 1970s with the use of multicoating, better designs for wide-coverage lenses, and the use of ED glass and aspheric surfaces.

Probably the largest improvements have been in wide-coverage designs and the smallest in plasmat types, such as comparing a Symmar-S to an Apo-Symmar-L.

 

If you are looking to save money by buying an older lens, don't bother with a 135 mm Planar. If coverage is important to you, don't look for a Planar.

 

In the past several decades the big four manufacturers have had excellent quality control, so the extra quality checks made by Linhof are less important than they used to be.

 

For a general purpose LF lens, I suggest any multicoated 150 mm plasmat-design lens from the big four (Fuji, Nikon, Rodenstock, and Schneider). If you want to save money, then go a bit earlier and get a single-coated version.

[ronald_moravec1]

You will need an optical bench to tell the last generation from the apo ones. If you go older though, the tonality and brillance are not there. I sold all my older stuff and will never go back.

 

Linhof label ones did not impress me, then again they were not recent vintage either. They are gone too.

 

Any multi coated ones are good. It seems to go back to better tones and brilliance again, not just reflection control. LOVE my 110 XL. My 135 is not the newest apo, but one generation back. Nice and sharp, but limited coverage for movement. In general, the 150 has more and the latest 150 XL has a hugh coverage, but so is the lens.

 

Everything in photography is a compromise.

[troyammons]

The sharpest 150mm lens I have used so far is the Rodenstock Sironar-N 150mm, F5.6. The fuji 150mm nsw lens looks quite a bit sharper at the edges according to this list.

 

http://www.hevanet.com/cperez/testing.html

[jonathan_bundick]

" If you go older though, the tonality and brillance are not there."

 

This statement is pure BS of the worst kind. I've seen side by side, same film, same light, same scene, done with a modern multi coated lens, and a single coated older design, and no one has ever been able to pick which photo was taken with which lens. Only when you are shooting at the extremens, i.e. wide open, directly into the sun, will you see identifiable differences.

 

If you can afford a modern multi coated lens, then by all means do so. You won't be dissapointed. But you wouldn't be dissapointed with a post WW II single coated lens either.

[dr5 examples]

If you can afford a modern multi coated lens, then by all means do so. You won't be

disappointed. But you wouldn't be disappointed with a post WW II single coated lens

either.

 

Actually, you could be very disappointed. The most obvious thing is that with dealing with

older lenses, they're, well, older. There are all sorts of things that could be wrong with

them. There are even things that aren't apparent to the eye that could cause you to not be

happy with the performance. In addition, there was far greater variability in lens

manufacture and manufacturers years ago than now. As was mentioned earlier, any fairly

recent lens from the big 4 will be nigh well impossible to tell apart when looking at the

image. That certainly isn't the case with older lenses. The older lenses that are known to

be very good generally command a premium due to the "magic" they possess, despite the

fact that you can sometimes pick up a more recent lens for the same price and have far

less worries about image quality.

If you shoot color transparency film with wide angle lenses, you will probably see a

sharpness and contrast difference between a modern lens and an older WWII vintage lens.

This can be exaggerated by really contrasty light or light shining directly into the lens. If

you are making large enlargements (vs. contact printing) and shooting at less than

optimum apertures, you may prefer the newer lenses. If you want larger coverage and still

maintain high sharpness for large enlargements, you might prefer the more modern lens.

These are the things I use to determine which I am shooting, my older lenses (Old B&L

tessars, wray lustrar, etc) and my more modern Schneiders (150mm APO symmar and

210mm symmar-s). If in doubt, get the new lenses, they are wonderful and have amazing

quality control. Older lenses can be a lot of fun, but it is much more of a crap shoot trying

to find great performance.

 

Isaac

[william_littman]

Both Michael Briggs and Helmut are correct;

Michael is talking about true sharpness and Helmut is talking about apparent sharpness.

 

From earliest to latest there has been an evolution in lens design and the earliest lenses showed a more selective focus and had more bokeh because they didn't have peripheral distortion correction therefore a 1940s Xenar will appear to be sharper at focus point in relationship with the background but is neither sharper nor more resolved than a modern lens yet as quality improved overall the difference in sharpness ( apparent) became less visible and therefore apparently less .

 

Helmut was not really a 4x5 photographer anyway and the lenses in smaller formats are much more sophisticated and compensated to and of higher quality because they must do a better job as the film is smaller, In a way Helmut is correct in that sense.

 

One day I was shooting a spread for Hamptons magazine and he took My portrait for Conde Nast Traveler with a Fuji panorama, the next day I saw him shooting with a Leica and then another day he was using a Polaroid , always with a camera strapped around his neck but a different one.

 

 

 

My favorite Nikon lenses were the old ones from the Nikkormat days and when the F 3 came out I modified the aperture rings and they always gave me better results than the newer lenses .

 

I think in 4x5 older lenses are more pastel/ editorial neither sharper nor more resolved but pleasing for portraiture because they aren't as sharp as a modern lens.

 

On the other hand a modern lens is so sharp all around that apparent sharpness is diminished and when you have such a tremendous gain in resolution this also diminishes the appearance of sharpness even though in reality it is the exact opposite.

 

Sharpness is something which is highly noticeable by comparison I.a. if you take a picture with a Nikon 300 2.8 wide open the subject appears to be really sharp because the background is not if you stop down the lens to F22 all will be sharper but sharpness gets shuffled with resolution becomes less selective and less apparent , whether it is focus, smell or palate the shortcoming of sensory perception is that after a few tries you cant really tell as well, sort of when one goes to the eye doctor and he switches loupes and asks you if its better or worse.

 

Linhoff lenses are really great and all other ones discussed are great too but I would say that you are better off renting a lens and taking a picture and seeing if it is representative of the flavor you want to give your pictures rather than buying a brand buy the quality that suits you.

 

Sometimes less is more I.a. Old Schneider Xenar for a gentler portrait. or the opposite would be A Apo Symmar type which is apo corrected and certain degree of peripheral distortion is also addressed and finally you get to the super Symmar Xl type which addresses all aspects , color by the apo correction, sharpness by design and finally distortion by being aspheric.

 

Resolution is sometimes mistaken for sharpness and so it is true that sharpness in 70's lenses is more apparent because of lower resolution resulting in an image which looks more like a line drawing with sharper outer lines and the rest are somewhat slightly softer areas as time went on and the softer areas became more and more resolved the look of sharpness was lost by comparison but this is only a perceptual thing, not a bad one its sort of liking ketchup with your fries or fries with your ketchup, Sharpness is only noticed by photographers , the audience looks at overall results and a good balance between resolution and sharpness is better than sharpness alone.

 

If the sharpness stands out too much in a lens that means that its resolution is not the greatest and that is why the outer lines are so noticeable..

 

 

 

If you feel that the more the better you will probably preffer a modern lens and if you feel less is more you will choose an older one, I like both for differnt reasons.

 

 

 

 

Cheers.

 

 

 

 

[c_p_goerz]

I would put a red dot or LD up against any lens whether modern or old. Just my 2 cents worth. The compromise is the slower starting aperture but you gain in compactability and weight.

 

 

I agree about the Planar, totally useless lens that was a waste of glass even in its own day. Thankfully Zeiss realized they were bad at making LF lenses and got out the business of making them. The Planar is great if you love 'bokeh' which I believe is Japanese for bu!!$hit ;-)

 

CP Goerz

[brian_ellis16]

The fact that the lens is a "Linhof Select" lens doesn't necessarily mean it will be any "sharper." Linhof selected lenses from other manufacturers, reportedly using tighter criteria for deviation from specs than the original manufacturer allowed. Then Linhof tested the lenses and shutters for optical and mechanical performance, reassembled the lenses, coupled them to the rangefinder, and put the Linhof name on them. Since Linhof performed more tests than the original manufacturer, and reportedly applied higher standards, the theory is that the buyer had greater assurances that the lenses would perform as they should.

 

"Linhof Select" lenses do sometimes command about a 10% premium in the used market. But IMHO the fact that Linhof tested them 20 or 30 years ago and found that they met Linhof's standards back then may not mean much today. It's been a long time since those lenses left the factory and who knows what happened to them in the interim.

[steve_hamley]

Well, my 2 cents worth says that older lenses, as Dagor77 points out, can and frequently are as sharp as new ones. Certainly the resolution between really good vintage lenses like Artars and Dagors, even uncoated ones are insignificant at the image circle and apertures for which they were intended to be used. Coating will not make a lens sharper.

 

However, I don't think anyone's under the impression that the old glass has the contrast of the new lenses, and especially in color, higher contrast leads to an impression of greater apparent sharpness. You can easily confirm this in about 5 minutes in Photoshop.

 

Also, if you think your vintage glass is soft, shine a light through it. Nearly all older lenses have internal haze which is remarkably efficient at reducing image quality. If you can see any haze at all, clean the glass. A visibly hazy lens (any haze) can't be compared to a clean one. I just sent a G-Claron off to the cleaners that was mounted in a late black Copal - it had quite a bit of haze, but many people (including me) would not initially question the cleanliness of the glass in such a late lens.

 

So one isn't better than the other. I like the look of vintage glass, especially the Heliars, and enjoy using both modern and vintage glass. It's just a bit different different.

 

Steve

[ole_tjugen]

By a staggering coincidence, I happen to have a 135/3.5 Planar... It's a good lens. Coverage is good only for straight on, forget about movements. It is VERY sharp, even at full opening. But is it worth the price they tend to fetch? I don't think so - and I own one!

 

I just got back a 5x7" slide shoot with a 165/6.8 Angulon, an "elderly" lens that is reputed to be less sharp than just about all modern lenses, and certainly less sharp than most contemporaneous 150mm lenses. Looking at the slide with a good loupe, all I can say is that I would be satisfied with that sharpness - in a 165mm lens for 35mm film.

 

All old lenses are NOT bad, but not all are good. Some are great, some are dogs. Nearly all of them are cheaper than nearly all new lenses. The only really expensive older "normal" lenses are the Planar and the Voigtländer APO-Lanthar. In most other cases you can get at least two old lenses for the price of one newer one.

 

Single coating is more prone to flare, if you're shooting directly into the sun. I do that surprisingly often, and can't say I'm bothered by flare from my old lenses.

[jim_galli4]

Helmut's eyes and mind were sharper in 1970 and so were mine. Do yourself a favor and get a Caltar SII or Caltar IIN on ebay in either focal length and you will have a lens 98% as sharp as anything that costs 8 times as much. The SII is a modern multi-coated Symmar, and the IIN is same but Rodenstock. On a good day you can get either one for $225 - $265.

 

That said, my favorite 150mm lens is a 1960's coated American Optical Co. Dagor in Rapax shutter.

[benjamin_lineberry]

I agree with Isaac. Often, that "magic" that the older lenses posess is call chromatic and spherical aberations by today's standards.

It's sort of like those that argue the holga is a great camera for the "effect" it gives.

[pvp]

I have a Caltar II-N 150/5.6; it is guite sharp plus, as mentioned, affordable.

 

I don't know if 70's lenses are sharper, but a friend of mine has an original Optar 165mm lens that came with his Speed Graphic when it was new (he's the 2nd owner.) THAT lens is painfully sharp, maybe sharper than my Caltar. Judging from comments I've heard, his may be the exception. I guess the point is, there are going to be some really stunning performers in just about any line.