The Emperor's Lens
According to legend, Hirohito insisted on it.
I have favorite lenses, most of which are antique. They are imperfect, they have character, strengths and flaws. My all around favorite, especially for portraits, is my 210mm f/4.5 Voightlander Heliar. I use it on 4x5 film, but it is also useful on 5x7 and even 8x10 under certain conditions. Large format film has depth and a thin focus depth of field. f/4.5 on a large format lens is very fast, on par with <f/2.0 on a 35mm camera.
I’m not going to dwell on the technical side of things here, but instead show you some examples. The imperfections are many with this lens and of course with film in general. Dust, scratches and grain appear on the film; and this older uncoated lens is not always sharp from center to corner and in fact isn’t the sharpest lens by far. It is also somewhat prone to flare and is a bit lower in contrast without coating. But let’s take a look at some resulting photos.
Though the Heliar is a legendary lens, I recently read where someone said it was difficult to find examples of the lens in use. Interesting, because a search on Flickr for “Heliar” brought up over 100,000 examples, including over 300 on my Flickr photo stream. But, I’ll be happy to share a few more right here.
First up is one of my favorite portraits of Monique, featuring simple natural light, a moderately narrow depth of field and the 210mm Heliar lens:
I used a tiny bit of camera swing and tilt to orient the focal plane from the rings on her right hand past her eyes to the hair behind her left forearm. Notice the left leg is not in focus while her shoulder and face is in focus. There is both softness and detail, and a large format sense of depth to the image.
The next image below has the Heliar performing a portrait in nature. Early morning light illuminates the subject, Dulce, as she appears to be standing on water. The softness of the background in both of these first two images make the focused areas even more prominent.
One more portrait, an informal one, of an artist from Poland, Martyna. Natural window light and again a narrow depth of field isolate Martyna from the foreground and background, yet the detail in her face, hair and clothing are deep and intricate.
Finally, a closeup landscape from the lens, proving this antique glass versatile and more than capable of landscapes in nature.
As I get older myself, it is reassuring that old can sometimes be a good thing. This lens dates from the 1940’s but its lineage started around 1900, and versions are still made today for digital cameras. They are coated of course, and come with all the technological refinements of the past 125 years, but the basic design is the same.
