I acquired recently a Fujinon T300mm lens at a nice price and found this tele-designed lens is really better choice over my existing Nikkor M300 (do not flame me please if you are the M300 lovers, I know this is a nice lens but I can not keep both same focal length lenses). I am using Horseman VH at moment and may think of upgoing to 4X5 in further, but unlikely to any bigger. So, if I must keep one, which one should I keep.

In addition, I have a good line of lens from wide through 300mm. I am thinking of fill up the gap between 150mm and 300mm and I have a Fujinon A240mm in mind. Other may be a Nikkor M200. I am doing mainly portraiture indoor and landscape with tele-lenses. If you were to make a choice, which lens you would.

Thanks very much in advance!

Ewen

-- Ewen Howe (ewenhowe@hotmail.com), March 05, 2001

Answers

Definitely the Fujinon. They are great lens!

-- Scott Walton (scotlynn@shore.net), March 05, 2001.

I had trouble finding a 240mm Fujinon A but came across a 240mm f/9 Aro-Ronar in a Copal #1 that turns out to be excellent. Small and light too.

-- Jim Colburn (timepixdc@aol.com), March 05, 2001.

I bought a pristine G Claron 240 on Ebay and it's great. Small size and very sharp. They can be a good value.

-- Kevin Crisp (KRCrisp@aol.com), March 05, 2001.

Are you thinking of getting a 240 Tele? It won't hardly cover a 4x5 so maybe test it -- unless it has a great circle -- my old Schnider won't allow any movements but maybe this one does. Dean

-- Dean Lastoria (dvlastor@sfu.ca), March 05, 2001.

As to your question of whether to keep the Nikon 300M or the Fuji T300, usually the principal reason for using a telephoto lens is lack of sufficient bellows draw for a normal lens of the same focal length. So if your eventual 4x5 camera will have a bellows draw of something in the range of 350mm or more, you would have plenty of extension for the 300M so I'd be inclined to keep it unless the telephoto has a much wider maximum aperture than the Nikon's F 9 or is a lot smaller than the Nikon (which seems unlikely since the 300M is a very small lens).

With respect to your other question, 240 mm is very close to 300 mm. If you think of it in terms of 35 mm photography, it's like having an 80 mm and a 100 mm lens. Personally I would go with the 210 mm although if you have a 150 mm lens, as it sounds like you do, I'd actually question the need to having anything in between 150 and 300. I have a 150, 210, and 300 but the 150 is a G Claron optimized for close ups. If not for that I would probably not bother with the 210 and just use the 150 for general purposes, but obviously all of this is a matter of personal preference.

-- Brian Ellis (bellis60@earthlink.net), March 06, 2001.

Ewen,

If you have not done so already, you might want to look at large format lenses tests done by Christopher M. Perez and Kerry L. Thalmann at http://www.hevanet.com/cperez/testing.html All the lenses you mention in your posting will be found there along with some valuable review and comments. P.S. I'm very happy with my Nikkor 300M, which I use for 8x10 and 5x7. Good luck, Nick.

-- Nick Jones (nfjones@pitt.edu), March 06, 2001.