[LargeFormat] Process lenses... which one should I get?

[Jim Hemenway]

Hi Folks:

Thanks for the replies, I've decided on the 600mm.  It's free and a
Symmar and/or Sironar are not.  I broke the bank when I bought the
Symmar-S 360mm. It is clearly the best lens in my 11x14 kit.

I spent some time the last several days making more 11x14 paper
negatives with various lenses and developing them in the kitchen sink at
night with all lights out except the safe light. Did you know that just
a little bit of moonlight will fog the paper?  I ended up taping
newspapers over the kitchen windows above the sink for a few days... I
wonder what my fancy suburban Winchester neighbors thought of that.

The 210mm Apo-Gerogon and the 300mm APO Ronar will cover 8x10 well.  The
420mm APO Ronar covers 11x14 okay but the corners are blurry... it is
marginally acceptable for 11x14 at tiny apertures.

I also tried the Protarlinse 300mm which came with my 8x10 Kodak Master
camera, clearly not enough coverage for 11x14.  

The other Protar, the shutter of which was fixed by SK Grimes, turns out
to have a lot of coverage for the 11x14.  This lens has two aperture
scales, (23 1/4 and 13 inches) and is the one which gave me severe
overexposure on the first try... I was probably using the wrong aperture
scale.  This afternoon, I'm now wondering if it isn't a convertible. 
The front element is marked 23 1/4 inches and the rear has no focal
length marked on it at all. Together they appear to focus on infinity at
300mm+ or about 13 inches. Would it make sense that the front element
can be used alone as a 23 1/4 lens?

I've scanned all of the 11x14 paper negatives and plan to put together a
web page of/with them this week.
-- 

Jim - http://www.hemenway.com