Vintage Lenses for 4x5-good enough?

[gbenaim]

Thanks all for the helpful replies. I shoot mostly landscape details, often using a 2500mm in 6x6, but will also use a 50mm, and in both cases want sharpness and detail. I usually achieve this using Hassy's Zeiss glass, though some of my early (and very nice ) work was done with a 1930's Rolleiflex Tessar and a cord Xenar. So I have some sense of the difference in look between old and new glass, I just don't know how that look looks in a larger format.

[gbenaim]

Thanks all for the helpful replies. I shoot mostly landscape details, often using a 2500mm in 6x6, but will also use a 50mm, and in both cases want sharpness and detail. I usually achieve this using Hassy's Zeiss glass, though some of my early (and very nice ) work was done with a 1930's Rolleiflex Tessar and a cord Xenar. So I have some sense of the difference in look between old and new glass, I just don't know how that look looks in a larger format. I shoot 80%b&w, the rest color, but love those color shots from the Hassy glass. Anyway, that's the basic idea.

[Eric Rose]

they seemed to work just fine for Ansel and Edward among others. An arresting composition will trump an ultra-sharp contrasty boring pic any day.

[Amund]

I shoot mostly landscape details, often using a 2500mm in 6x6,

Please post a picture of this lens.

[MattCarey]

Please post a picture of this lens.

He will when he gets his 1mm wide angle, so he can fit it in the frame!

[jimgalli]

Please post a picture of this lens.

Out here at work we've got a 2975mm lens we use on half frame 35mm quite regularly. Can't afford one for home though. 117" f8

[gma]

Consider that coated lenses did not become commercially available until after WW II. Many of Adams' and Weston's best known photographs were made in the 1920s,1930s and 1940s. With proper exposure, filtration and processing the vintage lenses are capable of producing stunning images. Modern lenses are no doubt easier to use and more forgiving.

In other words a person can acquire a lot of basic LF knowledge by using some old lenses. I do not suggest that anyone should avoid new lenses.

[Ole]

... Modern lenses are no doubt easier to use and more forgiving...

"Modern" (read: Multicoated) lenses have inherently greater contrast than uncoated and (to a much lower degree) single-coated lenses. This makes "modern" lenses less forgiving than older lenses, which give "pre-flashed" shadows which are easier to get correctly exposed. Some of my high-contrast landscapes can only be fitted on film with single-coated lenses - at least all charts and analyses say that what I do is impossible, and none of the lenses I have used so far are multicoated ...

[medform-norm]

Thanks all for the helpful replies. I shoot mostly landscape details

Here's a rough scan from a 1925 Zodelar 250/4.5, taken mid day at f16 - shot was underexposed, but managed to salvage something to get an impression of what it can do. Scan was made through the plastic neg cover. We made a better shot at f45, but that one was even more underexposed (forgot the lightmeter and did the wrong headmath...).

It's not a 4x5" neg, just a 6x9, but perhaps it gives you some clue what you might expect from an oldish lens (-still a lot younger than Jim Galli is currently showing off in another thread).