Does anyone have any comments on the Schneider Super-Symmar 150mm XL ? The Schneider literature says that it has a high tolerance for different magnification ratios. Combine that with the big image circle and it sounds like a neat close up / studio lens and being reasonably light and small, perhaps a good general purpose lens too. Although it's a bit expensive.

-- Chris Bitmead (chrisb@ans.com.au), August 10, 1998

Answers

Chris, Almost any lens when used for closeup work has a bigger image circle than the charts show. It is simple geometry: the farther away the film is from the nodal point of the lens the bigger the diameter of the cone of light projected by that is at that focal point. The image circles you see in the lens charts or information packets are calculated (generally) for infinity focus. Since you either move the lens or the film plane or both away from each other for focusing on distances closer than infinity then it stands to reason that the image circle will be bigger when you focus on near objects. I don't doubt that the 150XL is a wonderful lens, but I think you may be better served by spending the difference in price between a standard design 150 (from Schneider, Rodenstock, Nikon or Fuji) and the 150XL (plus CWF!) on film and Polaroid as you start your LF adventure. Cheers!

-- Ellis Vener (evphoto@insync.net), August 10, 1998.

This is really a very wide angle lens for 8x10, comparable in purpose to the huge super-angulon of approximatively same focal length. For 4x5 the modern normal lenses such as the apo-symmar, apo-sironar, nikkor w, etc... work sufficiently well as general purpose lenses.

-- Quang-Tuan Luong (luong@ai.sri.com), August 10, 1998.