Tim Parkin - Landscape Photographer

When I started looking into the range of lenses to purchase for large format work (…and which lenses) I decided on a core of 80/110/150 (two Schneider Symmar XL’s and a Rodenstock Sironar S).

At the time I said that three lenses was more than enough to think about. Well it was but was still finding myself using the 24-105 as a finder and spotting shots at the top end (equivelent of 300-420mm large format). I acquired a Fujinon 240A which was recommended to me by many people (and seen online in the excellent Future Classics by Kerry Thalmann in which he reviews many modern lenses, some of which are now discontinued. One of the discontinued lenses that repeatedly gets attention, and more importantly that would work perfectly on my Ebony 45SU is the Nikkor 360 T-ED. This is a telephoto lens that has a Flange Focus (i.e. extension length for infinity focus) of 261mm (see the Lens Table on the Ebony site for details). This means that I can get reasonable near focus without maximum extension (about 2m close focus).

The 360 can also be adapted to a 500 with the replacement of the rear element. Even better for me, the rear element can be focused as close as 10m with the range of extension available on the Ebony.

The bad news is that they don’t come up for sale very often (especially not with the rear element). The good news is that one came up for sale on Ebay America for a reasonable price and I won the bid! The lens is in mint condition and although is f8/f11, is OK to focus in reasonable light.

I’ll be trying the lens out for the first time this weekend so it should be interesting. I think I’ll have to stop now as my bag is getting a bit heavy (although a super trekker does sound appealing – I’ll have to try David’s out next time I see him).