Hi, does anyone have any experience with a 90mm Caltar II in Copal? Is this a good lens? Thanks, David

-- david clark (doclark@yorku.ca), February 27, 2001

Answers

Minimum aperture? 6.8? 4.5? I have the 4.5 and it's awesome.

-- Jim Galli (jimgalli@sierra.net), February 27, 2001.

David,

I have the f6.8 and I works fine. Mine came in a Rodenstock box BTW. Some say that a center filter may be needed to correct for light falloff in the corners but I have never found the need for one. I use it mostly for landscapes.

-- Allan Fontanilla (allan@fontanilla.com), February 28, 2001.

We use a Caltar II N 90mm f/6.3 one of these lenses at work and we hate to use it. It seems like you can only do limited movements before you have some major fall-off occuring. We use this lense mainly for architecture or interiors so limiting the amount of movements that can be made is a problem for us. When using this lense in the studio (shooting evenly lit flat textiles) we have noticed a "hot spot" in the middle of our film. I'm sure a center filter would help this out, but when we bought this lense new from Calumet, no center filter was recommended. I have no experience with the Caltar 90mm 4.5, so it may not suffer these drawbacks.

-- Eric Blevins (eblevins@moh.dcr.state.nc.us), February 28, 2001.

The 90mm f/4.5 Caltar II is a great lens, massive coverage sharp, even. I do use a center weighted filter -- A Heliopan 0.45 -- when I use it for my 6x17cm camera. No experience with the slow version.

-- Ellis Vener (evphoto@insync.net), February 28, 2001.

I use an older Calter II 90mm f8 and love it for outdoor use. I haven't run into a problem with light fall off yet, and I do use quite a bit of movement with it. The only drawback is the dark groundglass image.

-- Harry Pluta (hspluta@msn.com), March 01, 2001.