Antique lenses - what's all the fuss? 100+ year old brass lenses tested side by side

Those brass lenses always look enticing don't they? For large format, I often wonder what qualities they'll bring to my photography.

Firstly, here's the link to Mel's portfolio - https://purpleport.com/portfolio/melb

Ok, on to the lenses - I took out four lenses, and photographed with them side by side, to see what you get from them.

Ross of London Teleros 9 inch f5.5 (c. 1924)
Emil Busch Rapid Aplanat No 2, 8 inch f6 (c. 1905)
Perken, Son and Rayment Rapid Rectilinear 9x7 Optimus (c. 1895)
Oscar Simon Anastigmat Casket lens set (c. 1905)

I also did a couple of "control" shots with my Schneider Symmar S 210mm f5.6 (c. 1982)

And I learned two main things - lens designers and makers 120 years ago were pretty frikkin clever, and pretty darn good at making lenses!

And I also learned that there is a certain quality to some of these lenses, that's for sure. Sometimes it's hard to tell exactly what it is about the images that the lens produce that makes them different, or why some imperfections make a photograph more or less desirable.

But they definitely look a little different.

Actually I learned a third thing, and that is that in order to get a good idea of what the individual characteristics of a lens are, I really need to use them quite a few times.

After three or four shoots with the Emil Busch Rapid Aplanat lens, I'm starting to get a bit of a feel for it, and starting to understand what it's good at and what sort of effect it will cast on my images.

Long story short, as with almost every other aspect of my photography, medium format and large format, my inconclusive testing and inaccurate fumbling only barely scratches the surface of what there is to learn about all this.

But what I love about shooting film, and analogue photography, is that there is a limit to how much one can "learn", a limit to the specific details, that are transferrable, and a limit to one's ability to "know" everything about any sub-genre within analogue photography.

What I'm trying to say is that, especially with these old lenses, between their age, the manufacturing, the camera I'm using, the film i'm using, the processing of the film, the printing or scanning of the negatives, etc etc., every image is going to be unique.

And because there are so many variables, not least the variability that I introduce every time I pick up a camera, I feel like it's best for me to approach each shoot not only with a technical head, and a desire for technical quality, but also with a very personal approach, and a need to let the shoot, and each image, be what it will be, under the guidance of my hand, inexpert or otherwise.

Getting deep. I'll stop. Let me know what you think of the lenses!

(these were all shot on my Stenopeika Air Force 4x5, which you can find here: https://www.stenopeika.com/product/ai...