A Lens CollectionA portion of Johan Biilmann's lenses I suspect that more than a few people reading this blog have a severe case of gear accumulation syndrome or GAS for short. I have to confess to a fairly acute case myself - my Excel spreadsheet of my lens “collection” has 32 rows. It got me thinking as to how I should go about "cull the herd" - a favourite phrase in our community. So first I reasoned with myself why I should even bother doing it. Then I wondered what criteria should I use. Here are my musing. Leave a comment if you have an approach that worked for you. I'd love to hear it.

Why bother reducing your lens collection

1. What happens when/if you die?

If you head over to the Large Format Photography Forum you’ll find a post on the ages of the forum’s members. Let’s just say that average age of large format enthusiasts isn't getting any younger. I'd count as a youngun at almost 50 years of age. So if you don't have a LF loving family member to inherit your lenses, chances are they they will be got rid of at ridiculously low prices or even, heaven forbid, thrown away. This seems such a waste for lenses that are not made any more and will probably hold their value or even increase in price in the years to come. 

2. Are you lenses getting the work-out they need?

Now I'm no expert in LF shutters but my guess is that the older shutter (Ilex, Alphax, Betax, Studio etc) probably don't take well to enforced idleness. Also if you live in a damp climate you may be growing mold that you are unaware about. So maybe you lenses are wasting away without your knowledge.

3. Is lens choice stifling your creativity?

It seems counterintuitive but having more lenses may act as a block to unleashing your creativity. Many aficionados believe that it is the limitations of LF that lends itself to producing great, or at least good, art. You are forced to pare down to the basics, to work within the confines of slow speed film, slow set-up, low numbers of exposures, specific focal lengths etc etc. The very narrowing of the range of possibilities helps you find your sweet spot and steers you away from gadgets and artifice. I'm sure you have heard people advise "start with only one lens". Perhaps we should also say to old timers "stick with only four lenses"?

4. Who else could be using those lenses?

Now its not as if all lenses are unusual or rare. You can buy a very good modern, multi-coated 4x5 lens for a few hundred dollars or less. But the rarer lenses, that are older soft focus, or super-wide, or super long, or have ULF coverage could be being used instead of gathering dust on your shelf. By owning and not sharing or selling a rare "heritage lens" you are depriving someone else the opportunity. This seems a shame, and sort of goes against the ethos of many in the community.

5. What could you do with the money?

Have I sold you yet? How about unlocking some cash? I would hate to tell my wife how much money is tied up in my lenses. That cash could be put to use going to a remote location you always wanted to photograph, buying some expensive film you always wanted to try, or setting up your own darkroom. The possibilities are endless.

So how should I go about "culling the herd"?

1. Think formats

I shoot 6x17 MF on a view camera, 4x5, 8x10, 11x14 and 14x17. I'm the first to admit that this is a bit crazy and a few of these cameras have been gathering dust lately while I'm away on an extended sabbatical. So perhaps you have a format that you haven’t been using for a while. Do you really need the lenses for that format? Are the too long / too heavy / too low in coverage to be useful in other formats? How many 8x10 lenses work practically on a 4x5 anyway?

2. Think focal lengths

Within a given format I bet that you have one or two favorite lenses simply because they hit that sweet focal length spot. For me that is 110mm and 180mm in 4x5, and 210mm and 360mm in 8x10. Then there are plenty of others that never get in the bag, or are brought along "just in case" but never or very rarely get used. For me that is anything shorter than 110mm or anything longer than 300mm in 4x5. So in reality I could very easily make do with a three lens set for 4x5 that includes 110mm/5.6, 180mm/9, and 300mm/9. But instead I have 12!

3. Think speed and character

Now I can hear some people saying, I need fast lenses for portrait work, or I work in dark forests, or I need soft focus lenses with particular characteristics. That may well be true but perhaps that's one or two lenses not a cohort! For me I don't do portraits in 4x5 so I really have no excuses. Could you get rid of some of your stranger, little used lenses? I know you keep them because you are convinced that when you retire with the body of a 20 year old Arnold Schwarzenegger you will carry those four 6lb lenses up a mountain range to get the perfect shot.... but really?

4. Think filter ring size

I'm a great believer in narrowing down to a few filter ring sizes to reduce the number of filters you need, or even to help me to remember not to forget that damn 58mm adapter for the Lee filter system (that I do every time). Also I hate, step-up rings - because that means I have to buy another lens cap, and the ring invariably gets attached to my filters and not my lens when I unscrew everything, and it just looks ugly. Call me pedantic. So perhaps while you are "culling the herd" you can get away from the 40.5mm, 58mm, and so on non-standard filters ring sizes in favor of 52mm, 67mm, or 77mm?

5. Letting go

Some lenses truly are special. For example, I reckon I'll be buried with my Fujinon 360/10 or one of my Port-Land lenses. But the truth is there are few lenses that would be really hard to replace down the road, especially at the same price you sold them for. I would be very suspicious of using the "special lens card" multiple times. Perhaps I'd allow myself one or two lens in this category. Learn to let go!

Finally, if you can't cull the herd at least take the first step to recover. Recognize you have a problem and don't make it any worse. For me that means for every lens I buy I have to sell at least one!

Photo credit: Johan Biilmann

Various Shutter Options for Barrel LensesLeft to Right: (1) Cut & Mount of 35" RDA in Compound #5, (2) Sinar Copal Shutter, (3) Packard Shutter

Many desirable lenses for large format, and especially ultra large format, never came with shutters or their shutters are so old they don't function. So how can you use them? Well there are a bunch of different options that vary in terms of price and efficiency:

Option 0. Don't buy the barrel!

Many barrel lenses seem very enticing but when you add in the cost of adapting them to a shutter (usually around $400 or more) then they aren't quite such a bargain. In fact, often for a few hundred more you could get a more modern lens that might be coated, apochromatic so you can use them with color film, and shuttered. Think hard about why you want to have that barrel, what are its properties that you couldn't find with a cheaper alternative.

Option 1. No shutter - no problem

You don't need a shutter if you have slow film (like paper or wet plate) or a small aperture. Just pop a lens cap or hat over the front element and make sure to reinsert the dark slide into you film holder. Of course this might not work in very bright light, or with a wide open aperture. Photography did just fine for decades without mechanical shutters!

Cost: Free

Best when: You have a slow lens or slow paper. When you don't need to use a flash, when the subject is stationary.

Option 2. No shutter - actually you're wrong there is one

Some lenses post-WWII were designed to fit a standard shutter size and thread pitch. It may be as simple as screwing in the lens elements to an older standard shutter like an Compound or Ilex or even a Copal. The key is finding a well functioning shutter preferably with the right aperture scale. But don't worry if you can't get the same aperture scale - SK Grimes and others can make them for you.

Cost: $50-$350 depending on the shutter. Many shutters are easier to buy with damaged lens elements that you can discard. $30 for custom aperture scales from SK Grimes.

Best when: Your lens elements simple screw into a standard shutter and are designed to sandwich a shutter.

Option 3. No shutter - cut and mount it in

This tends to be the most expensive option. First you need to source the right shutter to fit your barrel. Some shutters might constrain your maximum aperture size so you can loose a stop or two. It's really a trade off between max shutter speed, accuracy/age, and max aperture - looking at the largest sized shutters, the modern Copal 3 shutter is quite a bit smaller than the older Ilex 5 and even smaller than the older and much rarer Compound 5. SK Grimes has a list of commonly mounted barrels and what is their suggested shutter and whether that shutter will result in a loss of maximum aperture.

Cost: Total $400-$700: Shutter purchase $50-$350, Lens to Shutter mounting $300, Lensboard to Shutter mounting $30, Custom Aperture Scale $30, Lensboard $5-$40.

Best when: You have a barrel that isn't huge, when you need great accuracy and faster shutter speeds, or are using artificial strobe lighting, and when the barrel has elements that can be sandwiched around a barrel or front mounted on the shutter. You may want to give up your iris (if you have one) or keep it. Old irises tend to have more leaves and give better bokeh than modern shutters.

Option 4. No shutter - get one Copal Sinar Shutter for all your barrels!

The Sinar Copal shutter fits Sinar cameras (and some others that use the Sinar standard). The shutter sits between the camera front standard and a barrel lens which must be mounted entirely on the front side of the board. The great news is if you are planning to have a whole bunch of barrel lenses you can simply mount them on a Sinar board and then use the same shutter for all of them. Downside is the maximum shutter speed in 1/60 (which actually if quite fast compared to most of the other options).

Cost: Total: $400-$550 for the first lens, $30-$100 for each subsequent one: Sinar Copal shutter approximately $300-$400 used, Lensboard to Barrel mounting $30-$60, Flange if you don't have one around $50, Sinar style lensboard $5-$40 (if you want a genuine one).

Best when: You have multiple barrels to mount, and the barrels can all be mounted on the front of the lensboard.

Option 5. No shutter and huge lens - front mount a Packard

If you have an especially large barrel lens no Copal, Ilex or Compound shutter will work. You need a Packard shutter. They are still made today and are very simple pneumatic affairs that typically give you a max shutter speed of 1/25 sec. Usually they are mounted on the front of the barrel, and you can have filter threads made to sit between the lens and the shutter. Sometimes with older view cameras a Packard shutter is part of the front standard and works sort of like a Sinar Copal shutter. There are a number of similar simple mechanical shutters from defunct manufacturers like the ILEXPO but I'd stick with the Packard given the company is still in operation and a fair number of used ones come up for sale.

Cost: Varies: Packard shutters start with an opening of 1.5" all the way up to 9" and are priced from $150 to $1400 depending on features. I would suggest going for the regular No. 6 version with the "instantaneous" option included. Then you have to figure a way to attach it to the lens or fit it behind the front standard. Which can be as cheap as some cardboard tubing and tape, to a machined metal and rubber custom fitted option from SK Grimes.

Best when: You have a giant special barrel to shutter which will fit no other shutter, when that lens has a really nice iris that you want to keep, and when the barrel cannot be cut (e.g. Apo-Germinar 750mm f9) or the lens is very special and you don't want to cut it. The shutter works really well for longer exposures in "B" and "T" as well as the approximate 1/25 instant option.

Other considerations:

Filter rings: Barrel lenses, especially the older ones, don't always come with filter threads in the front element. If you are keen on using filters you may want to have a slip on filter ring custom made or some other fancy machining done. Try to keep to a "standard" filter size like 52mm, 67mm, 77mm, 95mm, 105mm, 122mm etc. Using step-up rings is a messy compromise best avoided.

Lens caps: Many barrel lenses had leather or some other style of lens caps. Often these are missing. Far better to find one from Schneider (they make about every size imaginable) or have one custom made during the shuttering process.

Some more resources:

Reinhold Schable's fast meniscus lenses for sale with shuttering options

14x17 ULF Lens Recommendations (some ideas from me on ULF lens options, many of which are barrel lens)

The Compound 5: a big shutter for big barrel lenses (a post by me on the biggest baddest shutter on the block)

Dan Fromm's list of large format lens resources that includes information on Apo-Artars, Apo-Nikkors, Apo-Ronars and G-Clarons etc.

Allen Rumme's extensive list of process lenses

____________________________

Photo credits from top of post: Cut & Mount of 35" RDA by Angus Parker, Sinar Copal Shutter with barrel by Peter de Smidt, Front Mount Packard Shutter by Reinhold Schable