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The more I use the Pentax 67 SMC 300mm f 4 lens, the more i realize that it is much better than its reputation or what I thought first. Chromatic fringing is not really an issue when you stop down, and as long you avoid high contrast areas. In the image above, i stopped down to aperture ƒ16 - where I couldn't see any color fringing - so there was nothing to correct in Photoshop.
Sharpness is very good
Of course, when I run it gently through Topaz Sharpen AI - everything crispens up even further, down into the finest micro details.
What is there not to like ?
This lens is absolutely fine for what I am doing. It works. It works excellent !
Neighborhood house
The photo was taken on my balcony, directed towards the new houses they built. Some kind of "student" apartment, but apparently all kinds of people live there.
Can read the names plates
In the 75 MP original, and with some slight/gentle sharpening (Topaz Sharpen AI), I can read the name plates on every door ! So, yes. The lens has sharpness enough to qualify, if / when handled correctly. So this lens definitely suits my standards and purposes. There are sharper lenses by default - but it is good enough to pull out a lot of resolution.
Not bad for a 50 € 6x7 medium format lens.
Some lenses got ridiculously cheap
while
others exorbitantly expensive
Kind of strange to think, that some medium format lenses have sunken so extremly in price. I remember a time when these lenses cost a little fortune / where expensive. While other lenses propelled through the roof beyond recogniztion.
Pentax 67 SMC 75mm f 2.8 AL
One of those is the Pentax 67 SMC 75mm f 2.8 AL - which in the 6x7 format is a light wide angle, bright aperture - but with price tags around 33.000 SEK or 2900+ €. Which is beyond nuts. It was a lens introduced as late as 2001 and well optically corrected. If it cost around 1000 € in the year of 2016, it is now three times as expensive.
I don't consider it to be that special (albeit it is exellent nevertheless - but not 3000+ € excllent). I bought the Pentax 67 SMC 90mm f 2.8 instead. Back in 2017 that was a sleeper lens close related the 75mm, and for a fraction of the price.
There are other lens brands where some lenses have become extremly expensive beyond any reason or substance.
Analog Medium Format photography
= you stop downthe aperture !
Regardless bright aperture... when you deal with medium format - and you do want sharp images - you have to stop down to at least ƒ8. So, you don't need necessarily a bright lens in medium format. Bright lenses haveb become "populair" only because of digital photography. Back in the days, we did not use them very often at wide open aperture.
I remember the Hasselblad 110 mm f 2.0 Planar T* lens which I once used, at a well known photographer studio back in 1994 (Johan Westin). When I used wide open, it was sort of OK. Sure it had "character"... Today the price of the Hasselblad Carl Zeiss 110mm ƒ 2 Planar goes for around 3000-3700 €.
Hasselblad Carl-Zeiss Planar T* 110 mm f 2.0
Here is a photo of recenty deceased Olof Tyche, from the time of 1994 made with that Planar 110 lens wide open at ƒ2. It is an old scan - apparently I have not yet scanned those negative anew... Strange, I thought I did... but no, i haven't.
Speaking of that photo studio...
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