<p>There is very little information on this lens around, so I figured I would share a few of my initial experiences with it.<br> <br> I managed to pick up one of these for a steal over the Christmas season on the auction site - they don't seem to turn up often, and are often quite pricey when they do - much more so than most of the other SQ lenses (although since then a few have popped up for somewhat reasonable prices). Anyway I managed to score one in exquisite shape from a Japanese seller, and with the warmer weather I finally had a chance to try it out.</p> <p>The lens design interests me - there is a lot of glass inside this thing; much more than most of the other lenses in the SQ lineup. Moreover, it has a rear plano-convex lens (I think) which stays stationary while the rest of the elements appear to move as a unit when focusing. Its Hasselblad counterpart is half a stop faster, but only focuses to 1.55 meters and only has 5 elements as opposed to 9 (and lacks the stationary rear element).<br> <br> <img src="http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i52/jonesr101/180mm_zpsmievtkpg.png" alt="" width="571" height="294" /><br> <br> I've never had the chance to try the Hasselblad lens, but it strikes me that the extra 55cm of close focusing would be pretty handy for portraiture (which is why I bought this lens, but have not had a chance to use it for yet). Yet its closest PS counterpart, the 135mm, also focuses to 1 meter but lacks the stationary rear element and simply focuses as a unit. I've never really seen a lens design like this before. Perhaps some form of close focusing correction? Interestingly, looking at one of the last Bronica price lists from Tamron, the 180 was the most expensive lens in the entire lineup other than the fisheye and the 500mm with fluorite elements.<br> <br> There is one post on another forum stating that the PS 180mm was actually made by Schneider for Bronica, but I find this hard to believe as the other lenses Schneider made for Bronica were still branded as Schneider.</p> <p>Anyway enough with lens design, here are some obligatory boring shots to show off sharpness and other stuff. They are Coolscan 9000 files from my local lab at max output 16 bit TIFF, converted to JPG in Lightroom; hopefully the google drive links work if anybody wants to download the files and have a closer look (warning: they are large). All were shot on Velvia 50; the shot of Parliament was with a B+W UV MRC filter and the tulips were with a B+W KR 1.5 MRC filter (it was quite overcast that day).<br> <br> At infinity:<br> <br> https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwumg4QW6jZrUkZjSzVWek5HeEk/view?usp=sharing<br> <br> 100% crop:<br> <br> <img src="http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i52/jonesr101/infinity%20100_zpshihhcw5o.png" alt="" /><br> <br> At close focusing distances:<br> <br> https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwumg4QW6jZrWk0tRmZ6eHdjNFE/view?usp=sharing<br> <br> 100% crop:<br> <br> <img src="http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i52/jonesr101/closeup%20100%201_zps67j7vdho.png" alt="" /></p> <p>https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwumg4QW6jZrNnl4eFZXQVp2QlU/view?usp=sharing</p> <p>100% crop:</p> <p><img src="http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i52/jonesr101/closeup%20100%202_zpsnuoiq4bu.png" alt="" /></p> <p>The shot of the clock tower was at F/8; the first tulip shot was between F/16-F/22 and the second tulip shot was at F/22. It's possible diffraction is taking away from sharpness by this point, but both shots needed as much depth of field as possible. For portraiture I would not be as close (the first tulip was literally at 1 meter distance) and would figure around F/8-F/11 would give good results while still giving pleasant out of focus effects to the background.</p> <p>There is noticeable vignetting going on with the clock tower shot which is interesting, considering it was shot stopped down to what I would think would be a normal working aperture. Perhaps this lens is optimized for close focusing work? It certainly seems geared towards that; the PS 150 and PS 200 both have way simpler designs, and do not focus nearly as closely as this lens.</p> <p>Anyway I would love to hear any input from others who have used this lens; I have only had time to use this thing twice so far but I'm pretty excited to use it more in the future!</p>
