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djon43 · Joined: 16 Oct 2005 Posts: 18 Location: Albuquerque NM

Progress report:

1) My goal is/was hand held tight head-shoulders portraits with Century and 135mm.

2) I adjusted my Century's rangefinder perfectly for 135mm Xenar...& installed appropriate viewfinder mask for 135mm/6X9.

3) Film is ultra sharp at various distances, focused by rangefinder. Adequately well framed by Graflex tube viewfinder.

4) Xenar is cruelly sharp, exactly as Trouble warned. I don't want to show my test shots to my wife but the "look" might be perfect for "character" portraits of men.

5) At f8 there's not enough depth of field at this short distance (6'approx) to reliably focus where I want, handheld, given the somewhat awkward rangefinder's positioning...just checking the rangefinder results in a few inches of focus change from handling the camera...3" inches is beyond acceptable.

6) At f16 there's plenty of depth of field for tight individual portraits but my simple setup (148gn Metz shooting thru umbrella) hasn't got enough zip for f16 with Ilford Delta 100 pushed to 200. To get f16 I'd have to rate something at 800 (would be OK with Fuji NPZ) or I'd have to use my Norman (means undesirable extension cord).

7) The advantage over 35mm is smoothness, lack of grain in tight shots blown up big. The disadvantage is that Xenar may not beat superb Canon/Leica optics which would settle the depth of field issue, even with that lighting and the same f-stop, and very low grain is possible with fast 35mm, which I also scan better with Nikon than my 120 with Epson.

8 ) If a local pro lab does a good job with 120 color neg (I've not investigated) that would be an advantage over 35 color because I have limited confidence in local minilabs.

9) Xenar/6X9 would undoubtedly be kinder in color than in B&W with "mature" women...I need to test.

10) I need to test Xenar with a Softar...that's been my intention anyway.

11) I'd hoped the separate rangefinder/viewfinder windows wouldn't be a problem, as they aren't in Leica, but that's wrong with mid apertures (f

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[ This Message was edited by: djon43 on 2006-01-27 11:29 ]

[ This Message was edited by: djon43 on 2006-01-27 11:30 ]

45PSS · Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2006 2:02 am Post subject:

djon · Joined: 05 Nov 2004 Posts: 174 Location: New Mexico

45, thanks for the links. The tables seem over optimistic... or perhaps that's just their casual idea of of "in focus."

I think that at 6' I'm looking at a credible 4" of sharpness at f8. I've probably seen too much 35mm to be a reliable witness...used to too much DOF.

My goal has been a hand-held rangefinder camera with an approx 135 focal length on 6X7 or 6X9 or 6X6 without spending thousands on Mamiya 6 or 7...

I like rangefinders because I've had grief with SLRs recently (age/eyes), have been enjoying Canon rfdrs more than my F1s.

Maybe I should surrender the hand-held concept and go with a tripod. If so, maybe I should go with 4X5. Same lens questions, of course. Know of a Verito
for the purpose? My experience (long ago) with Paragons was that they were simply unsharp, nothing more subtle than that...was I wrong? Are Paragons capable of sharp/soft like Softars?

45PSS · Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2006 5:20 am Post subject:

I have only one Paragon, a 12" vairable soft focus, seems to get fairly sharp around f11-f16 and is nice at f5.6-f8 at 8-10 feet .
I think with the older lens its just try until you find one you like. This person/company regularly sell soft focus lens on ebay, possibally ones he does not want on his shop web site.
http://www.jay-tepper.com/

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