Steve Spencer
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 p.63 #8 · Pre-order: Fujifilm GFX 50S Medium Format body ($6,499) | |
Lee Saxon wrote:
I'm glad you brought up the coverage of these lenses, that was going to be my next question. I thought the point of $3-6k f/5.6 lenses was that they covered 4x5", giving tons of movement on a little 33x44 sensor. I was shocked that the Digaron-S are only 645 and the Digaron-W only 6x7. There are very good (and much faster) (edit: and have more than 5 aperture blades!!) medium format lenses that cost *thousands* less and might solve the infinity focus issue since they wouldn't project behind the Cambo adapter. Are these lenses really *that* much better?
Also, wow, seeing the prices of these lenses you guys are talking about buying several of, you are *lots* richer than me :P...Show more →
Lee,
The Digaron-S lenses are made for a 44 X 33 sensor and they have about the same tilt and shift capabilities as the Canon TS lenses have on full frame. That still provides quite a bit of movement. The advantage of the Digaron-S lenses is that they are very high resolving lenses. If you look at the MTF graphs for example of the 100 f/4 that I just ordered you might be deceived at first. Those graphs are at 10, 20, 40 and 80 lp/mm, instead of the 10, 20, 40 and 5, 10, 20, 40 lp/mm we are used to seeing at Zeiss and Leica. The Rodenstock 100 f/4 Digaron has above 80% contrast at f/8 and 40 lp/mm across the whole 70mm image circle and between 65 and 55% at 80 lp/mm. This is better than any full frame lens I have seen and does it with a 70mm image circle, zero distortion, basically zero CA, and very low vignetting--again across the whole 70mm image circle. Oh, and it weighs 370g. You can see those MTF, distortion, CA, and vignetting graphs here:
http://www.arca-swiss-magasin.com/contents/fr/e_rodenstock_digital_lenses.pdf
The 60mm f/4 Digaron-S is almost as good and weighs just 240g. I would like to see the medium format lenses that match this performance. The Leica S 125 f/2.5 APO Macro comes somewhat close but it performance drops off from about a 40mm image circle and even the centre never matches the Rodenstock. So the Rodenstock covers much larger image circle at a higher level of performance and is a lot smaller. If there are other MF lenses that match this performance I would love to know about them.
Let's talk price. As Rich mentioned you can get the Rodenstock lenses used for considerably less money than the list price. You can even get the 100 f/4 Digaron-S brand new for just under $2,600 from Badger Graphics. Used you can find this lens for $1,500. So, I don't find the prices that unreasonable for what you are getting.
Let's talk image circle. If you want to cover 4 X 5, then you should get the Rodenstock APO Grandagons (they come in 35, 45, and 55 varieties all at f/4.5) or the Grandagons (they come in 65, 75, 90, 115, 155, and 200 varieties with 65, 75, & 90 at f/4.5 and 75, 90, 115, 155, & 200 at f/6.8). These are all good lenses, but they are made for film and have resolution for that medium (i.e., a lot less than I would want for digital). Note their MTFs are shown for 2.5, 5, 10, & 20 lp/mm and fade considerably as the image circle moves out. Again these are great for film, but for something like the Fuji camera, I don't think the quality of resolution is really there. They are relatively cheap used ($300-$1,200 or so depending on the lens and your patience).
In between are the Rodenstock APO Sironar Digital lenses and the APO Sironar-S lenses for analog. These have much bigger image circles and although they don't have the top level performance of the Digaron-S series, they likely will be quite good with big image circles.
So, there are lots of options. You won't get the nice 10 blade apertures that you get from Zeiss (although you can get nearly round apertures with an electronic shutter but this is requires a lot of hardware) but everything else is there in a very small package and keep in mind even the 5 blade apertures should make pretty nice 10 point sunstars they will just be challenged with out of focus highlights, and the seven bladed apertures are not bad compromises with ok out of focus highlights and fairly nice 14 pointed sunstars.
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