Ross Xpress f4.5 8.5 inch

[iangreenhalgh1]

Hi folks

I know nothing about this lens, bought it with a set of bellows for 6.99 inc shipping and both lens and bellows are like new.



I think it has really bright colours, good contrast and is quite sharp, focussing can be tricky though with the crappy EOS 10D VF.

Still, a lot of fun to use and one of my favourite lenses.

These were all handheld, I think all at f5.6 although the flower shot might be wide open.



100% crop:



Bokeh test, wide open, nice and smooth, slightly front focussed hence the softness:



Contrast test in very harsh light, did well, no PP on any of these shots besides resizing.



Infinity test, focus might have been off a bit as it doesn't seem very sharp:



100% crop:

[martyn_bannister]

Seems very good, if a little unwieldy as a walkabout lens

[iangreenhalgh1]

Considering it's a 1950's barrel mount large format lens I am surprised how nice it is. I'm only using a small fraction of it's image circle so the edges could be much less nice.

It is not too bad to carry around, not that heavy but not that light either, weighs less than my Tair-3C and I can carry that around fine. In use it depends what camera it's used on. On my EOS 10D it's not that easy to get it focussed, but that's the 10D's fault. On my Carena M42 SLR it's really easy to use and get focussed. DOF is quite shallow unless stopped down beyond f8, gonna take me a while to really learn how this lens works best I think.

I also shot a roll of 35mm film with this lens, I'll get em deved and scanned soon, I did a real variety of shots and I'm hoping the wild flower closeups come out as nice as I hope. Min focussing distance on these bellows is about 3m, which isn't bad for a long lens, a short tube on the back of the bellows would of course reduce this further.

This shot is backfocussed but I still like the overall rendering, the aperture ha a ton of blades hence the lovely round bokeh:



It's not that sharp wide open:




But stopped down it gets quite sharp:



Both of those are 100% crops.

I think the strength of this lens is it's colours and bokeh, I need to use it more and find the right subjects to bring out it's special character to the full.

I'm finding myself using my oldest and most unusual lenses more and more and the slr lenses less and less, I just find the old stuff more fun and to have more character.

[martinsmith99]

It would probably make a good portrait lens. The bokeh is good and colours are very good, considering it wasn't designed for colour.

[iangreenhalgh1]

I have shot some portraits on film with it.

What amazes me about it is the lack of CA:

[iangreenhalgh1]

Let's try this new auto resizing thing, this pic is at the original full size, just loaded it into photoshop as a RAW file and saved it as a JPG at 80%.

Looks pretty sharp to me, what do others think?



Click on the picture to view it in the full res to judge the sharpness.

[iangreenhalgh1]

Well that works nicely now, cheers Attila. Here is the same pic after being sharpened in PS:

[martinsmith99]

Give it a contrast boos too. Older lenses lack that.

[iangreenhalgh1]

I doubt I'll manage sharper than that by much with my 10D and this lens.

My 5 inch Ross is a fair bit sharper, it is sharp even wide open. However it has much lower contrast than the 8.5 inch as it lacks any coatings.

This is as it came out of the camera, I think f5.6:



After sharpening and increasing contrast:

[luisalegria]

"normal" lens for 5x7 format
Probably very nice in a Graflex SLR or the equivalent, for 4x5 or even a long lens for medium format portraits.

[iangreenhalgh1]

Thanks for that info Luis. I would love a large format reflex, even an ancient one like a soho reflex or a thornton-pickard.

What camera do you think this lens might have been produced for originally? Given that it's probably a late 50s or early 60s piece?

I never found a shutter large enough to fit the 5 inch Ross so I've fitted the Laack Regulyt in Compur shutter I bought to the highly modified Ensign box camera I'm going to shoot 120 film in. The actual frame size isn't 7x12 as I though, it's 62mm x 107mm so in the end I'm not gaining much over a 6x9 folder. I am going to cut away about 3mm of wood from either side to make it 113-115mm wide and add some wood to top and bottom to make it 56mm tall so the negs will be roughly 56x115 and that is good enough for the cost of this project (under 30ukp)

[luisalegria]

Any British camera with a focal plane shutter would be a suspect, this would include both reflex and "Press" cameras.

Thornton-Pickard
MPP
Van Neck
etc.

It could also have been made for studio use on a 5x7 camera as these often did not have shutters at all, or used Packard shutters.

And there is the possibility that this was intended as a process lens.

If you can make out the serial number it may be possible to work out the date of manufacture.

[iangreenhalgh1]

Serial number is 192647.

Is there a database of Ross Serials?

Is this lens a Tessar type or is that an awkward question as different Xpress lenses had different formulas and not all were Tessars?

How did they use a studio camera without a shutter - remove lens cap and count 1, 2, 3 etc??

[pat donnelly]

What a fabulous bargain!

I just bought a Cooke 320mm f5.6. My first LF lens. Like yours, I expect a compromised performance used on m4/3 sensor, but I also have a LF set up packed away somewhere. This lens comes apart, with the iris and a glass in one part, and a smaller image is formed by the main lens. Maybe a twofer?
I shall need to fish out my bellows to take a shot.

Is yours meant to be halved?

[luisalegria]

Not a very detailed one -

http://motamedi.info/serial.htm

According to this yours seems to date from maybe 1946?

Yes, a lens cap would have served as the shutter for a timed exposure.
One would normally have used slow film, a small stop and probably filters, under studio lighting.

[iangreenhalgh1]

Hiya Pat, that Cooke sounds like a beauty. Mine doesn't want to screw in half, sounds like yours might be one that can be halved to mount on a shutter perhaps? Have fun with it, you might need a lot of extension with that lens.

Thanks for the info Luis. 1946 eh, right after the war, I wonder how many they made as they still had rationing until the 50s and I don't see many having much money after the war for buying such things.