Now that I have a Grover

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Now that I have a Grover, I am interested in finding a good used 80-110 mm Wide angle lens for same. Where should I look and what should I expect to pay for it? The grover is in excellent condition, New case, New polaroid 545i back, and so-so Polaroid land Pathfinder lens.

I am currently doing landscape photography with a medium format camera and want to expand my horizons with a limited budget.

Thanks for any help

Bill

-- William E. Lindsay (rocknl@aol.com), August 25, 1999

Answers

It depends on your budget, really, but check Shutterbug, E-bay and the advertisements and websites of all the retail establishments that deal in large format to get a feel for price range and the more common occuring optics. Midwest Camera, Lens & Repro, Columbus Camera Group, Steve Shuart, The F Stops Here, etc. etc. Take a look at McBroom's Price Guide to see year old data for actual selling prices of used l.f. gear.

A 90mm 6.8 Angulon or F/8 Super Angulon, depending on just how tight your budget, would be a good place to start. I'm assuming the Angulon, an older design, would fill the $bill$ a little better. There are reviews of the older wide angle lenses on the page associated with this forum:

http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~qtluong/photography/lf

Always ask about the return policy and make sure you have a test period. Does the lens come with a retaining ring or flange? Do you have a board drilled for that size shutter at present? How fast could you get one? You need some way to check the lens and shutter out if you are buying long distance.

Check out

http://www.grafles.org as well.

-- Sean yates (yatescats@yahoo.com), August 25, 1999.


www.graflex.org

Sorry Sean, couldn't help correcting you.

Your press lens might do better than you think. For a cheap wide angle, the ubiquitous 90mm Angulons and the 100mm Kodak Wide Field Ektars shouldn't be bad. I've also seen deals on used Caltar II's (Rodenstock) in the 90mm range.

-- John O'Connell (joconnell@adelphia.net), August 26, 1999.


D'ox! er, I mean D'oh!

-- Sean yates (yatescats@yahoo.com), August 26, 1999.

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