photo_color

Yes it's true, and sad - these cameras have been discontinued - not

just in the USA but everywhere. This info is from Fuji USA, Calumet,

and Robert White co. in the UK. (The 617 and 680 cameras will

continue). I asked Fuji USA if there were replacements and they said

no.

 

So,let's all buy the 680 (after taking out a second mortgage) and

plan on carting around 10 pounds+ of camera and necessary tripod, and

maybe a digital back and memory cards. Or, maybe the Mamiya 7 with

it's fussy usually non-properly calibrated rangefinder and marginal

light meter (also costing thousands). If you prefer 6x9 format like I

do, using modern glass, I guess it's a view camera or nothing.

Isn't 'progress' wonderful?

My experience has been the same as Sandy's and John's. The 300mm M f/9 Nikkor is not sharp outside of the central area. It's a great lens for 4x5, but not optimal for 8x10; ok for contact to maybe 2x prints, but that's about it. I found the 305 G-claron to be much better outside of the central 5x5 area than the Nikkor. The 305 is xlnt for 8x10. Now, if you want to get a longer lens, the 450mm Nikkor is another story - it is great on 8x10, and perhaps even larger.

Besides the hassle and shipping expense of you trying mail order for rental lenses, you have to hope that the lens you get has been treated properly. Then you have a limited amount of time to try it out. What if you want to do outdoor tests shots and the weather is bad for a week? You can't do better than the Apo-Sironar S in my opinion, so if you don't like your current lens, just buy the new one. Do some comparisons and sell the old one. However, you may find that there is not a lot of difference (unless yours is defective), so whether it's worth the money or not will be how picky you are and what aperatures you shoot (as a previous poster indicated). Unlike some, I find Nikkors preferable to most Fujis - I find Fujis to be ultra contrasty (most color shooters seem to like that - yeah, shoot Velvia at 80, push it, and use the most contrasty lens available. Then scan into Photoshop and increase color saturation and contrast... ok sorry for the off target rant; I've just put on my flack jacket : -). For Fuji's 4-element lenses I have found by trying a 300mm f8.5 and a 450mm f12.5 (and maybe it's just me and my testing methods were off) that the marked f-stops gave darker results than Nikkor, Schneider, or Rodenstock - beyond what increased contrast would show. I think Schneider has some upgraded lenses that may compete with the Apo Rodenstock Sironar S. But I don't think you will be sorry you got the Rodenstock.

I have tried several 4x5 and 8x10 cameras. With 4x5 I've used various sheet film holders and the Fuji Quickload holder. If you are doing contact printing or very low enlargements, like up to 11x14 from 4x5, then none of this matter too much. Otherwise, I have found that the most important factor (at least for me) was the alignment of the front and rear camera standards. It's not that easy to get a wood field camera to be in precise alignment - you need to be carefull. I had better luck with metal cameras - like the Arca Swiss monorail, or Toyo AII. When you insert the film holder you need to make sure that the rear standard comes back to exactly where it was when you focused, and the camera doesn't rotate on the tripod head. And, of course you have to focus carefully with enough magnification so that you really know what's in exact focus and what's not quite. And focus check all areas of the image. As far as holders go, as you've seen from other postings here, they do vary, even within brands. I thought Toyo holders may be the best, but recently it seems they changed the way they manufacture them and seem to be not as high quality. Taking into account cost, I'd probably get the plain vanilla Fidelity holders (probably as good as Toyo and cheaper; and one person on this forum found the Fidelity to be better on average than the Toyo).

You might try to rent a 4x5 camera outfit(camera, lens 210-300mm, film holders), and then a medium format outfit - say a Pentax 6x7 or Mamiya RB/RZ with 165-200m lens. Take shots of what you are mostly interested in - portraits or whatever. Compare the on-film results and your experience in using the equipment. Also, unless you are into environmental portraits you may find the Fuji GW lens to be a bit too wide. There is nothing like actually using equipment yourself in order to see what works for you.

I have tried several lenses mentioned on this thread with 8x10 color transparency film. For me ( results for others may differ) I found the Nikkor 300 f9 M to have poor sharpness (as seen with 10x, 20x loupes) outside of the central 5 inches of the picture (for contact prints it would be irrlevant, and perhaps even for 2-3x enlargements).

Both the 270mm G-claron and the 305mm G-claron gave better sharpness than the Nikkor outside of the 5" central area (this is at inifnity - landscapes - the same subject, shot within 5 minutes of each other).

 

Also, even though the g-claron is single coated, if the lens was shaded from direct sun (with the dark slide), there was little difference in apparent contrast, although the Nikkor was higher. You may or may not prefer this, as others have mentioned. I also tried a 12" commercial ektar, and with the sample I had, the g-clarons had better color rendition and contrast. I m not sure about the sharpness difference (I screwed up the alignment when I took the test shots with that lens). Also, the g-clarons will do better close-up than the others. Alternately you could try one of the big plasmats like the Rodenstock apo sironar S, etc. - but they are very heavy and expensive.

 

So, I would recommend the g-clarons (270 or 305; or 355 for that matter) for 8x10. You can buy new at Robert White (the 270 and 305 sell for about $650 once shipping is taken into account), or try eBay.

I believe Joel Sternfeld uses an 8x10 Deardorf, and I would like to

know what equipment he is using recently - lens(es) & film.

 

Also, does anyone know whether he shoots straigt on and stops down to

small aperatures like f64/f90, or whether he sometimes uses movements?

 

Thank you.