The Best Lenses for MF Technical Cameras

Rodenstock lenses are widely regarded as among the best available for medium-format technical cameras. Their resolving power is in a league of its own. However, there are many excellent Rodenstock lenses, and I do not own all of them. In addition, lenses from other manufacturers can be excellent complements to the Rodenstock lineup.

After careful research I picked the following six lenses that I put in my backpack on almost every single trip (the exception is 40-80mm, which is too big and heavy, and I only bring it if I plan to do aerial photography). I believe they are the best for landscape photography. My type of work requires me to shoot from ultra-wide to long lenses. You can adjust according to your own style or budget. For example, if ultra-wide angle is not your thing, then skip the TSE-17 and/or HR 23, and replace with something such as HR 70 or HR 138.

Most modern "digital" medium format lenses designed for tech cameras are of extremely high quality. They are typically much better than their 35mm counterparts or the MF DSLR lenses, especially in the edges and corner areas. Designers of lenses for 35mm or MF DSLR are constrained by many factors such as cost. Medium format tech camera users simply want the best that money can buy. It is not uncommon for modern digital MF lenses to be 5-10 times more expensive than 35mm lenses. However, you get what you pay for. The extremely high image quality of MF tech cameras come from both large sensors and top-notch glass.

I provided sample images made by each lens. Click the thumbnails to see large images, and click the back button of your browser to go back to this page.

CANON TS-E 17MM F/4L TILT-SHIFT LENS

Sample Images Made with This Lens

No, this is not listed here by mistake. Sure, it’s not a Rodenstock or Schneider, it’s a Canon designed for 35mm sensors. However, this tilt-shift lens offers an image circle that is big enough to cover much of the full-frame 645 sensor! Digital Transitions provides an excellent tool to visualize image circles and focal lengths of various lenses. Check it out.

The lens offers an unprecedented 10.5mm focal length (35mm-equivalent) on a 54X40mm sensor. Wow! If you like ultra-wide-angle views this is a godsend.

The Image quality is surprisingly good. Very sharp in the middle. Unlike the much more expensive Rodenstock wide-angle lenses, there is no horrible color cast or vignetting in corners. You will notice softness in the extreme corners, but that’s expected, and the image is completely usable, IMO. Moreover, there is simply no replacement anywhere on this planet for the punch of 10.5mm view on a MF camera, so hair-splitting does not serve us well. In fact, I showed two 1.5X2m prints made with this lens in two high-end gallery exhibitions, and the results were more than satisfactory. No one complained. Also, if you are careful with your composition and place stuff such as running water/snow/ice/sky/clay on the corners (a very common composition in landscape), you won’t see any softness at all, because there isn't much detail to begin with.

If you do any shift or tilt, you will get a visible vignette. Nevertheless, I sometimes tilt it, and deal with the resulting vignette in the post.

You can use a simple and inexpensive adapter to mount this lens on an ALPA body. The adapter is very small and contains no electronics whatsoever. I used an adapter, a gift from a friend, made by a small shop in Shanghai.

Please note: Canon EF lenses do not have manual aperture control. To use this lens on a purely mechanical ALPA body, you first need to mount it on a Canon or Sony body; set the camera to manual mode, choose the aperture you plan to use, such as f/11, set a long exposure time, and press the shutter. The camera will stop the lens down to the selected aperture and start the exposure. You must then remove the lens while the aperture is still stopped down. The aperture will remain at that setting, and you can mount the lens on the ALPA adapter.

This is obviously not the easiest workflow, but it works. Solutions such as the ALPA FPS can provide electronic control, but they add cost, weight, and complexity.

At one point, I was also told by the ALPA / Phase One representative in Shanghai that someone was trying to develop an electronic adapter for mounting Canon EF lenses on ALPA bodies, with aperture control. I received and tested a sample, but it did not work well enough for serious field use, and the project apparently did not continue. If a reliable electronic adapter becomes available in the future, I will update this page.

If you are a Phase One XT user, the situation is somewhat better. There is an electronic lens adapter that allows aperture control for Canon EF lenses. The original version, however, was based on an older Cambo design. Once it was installed on the body, removing it was awkward and sometimes required using a small tool to pry it out. It was a strange design, but it did get the job done. I was later told that the product had been redesigned. If the newer version solves the mechanical removal problem, it would be a much more practical solution.

RODENSTOCK / ALPA HR ALPAGON 5.6/23 MM

Sample Images Made with This Lens

With an equivalent 35mm focal length of 14.8mm (on 54x40 sensor), this is the widest native medium-format lens, with an extremely wide field of view of 115 degrees. It is very sharp. This is the gold-standard of medium-format wide-angle lenses, a must have for any serious digital medium-format landscape photographer.

The lens has some limitations. The manufacturer recommends using it with a 44x33 sensor, although most people, myself included, are happily using it on a 54X40mm sensor. With an image circle of 70mm at f/11, there’s not a whole lot of room for perspective control movements. You can shift 2-3 millimeters before dark corners appear in images. The lens also suffers from extreme vignetting and color casts (red-shift). On an IQ 3100, the color casts are difficult to completely remove even with LCC. The situation is even worse on an IQ 3100T. Luckily, on an IQ 4150, the color casts are almost completely eliminated, thanks to the BSI sensor. The vignetting is easy to deal with in Capture One. See discussion in the digital back section.

Earlier ALPA-mounted versions of the Rodenstock HR 23mm were not supplied as SB17 lenses. In practical terms, this meant that there was no removable 17 mm spacer between the lens and the camera body that could be replaced by ALPA’s tilt/swing adapter.

This is no longer universally true. ALPA now offers the HR Alpagon 23mm in an SB17 Aperture Unit version. With this short-barrel configuration, the required 17 mm spacer can be replaced by ALPA’s 17 mm tilt/swing adapter, making tilt or swing possible on a traditional ALPA body. However, the X-Shutter version of the ALPA HR 23mm is still listed as an LB version, so the older limitation still applies to that configuration.

I should also add a personal note here. Before this change, the late Mr. Fred Zhou, ALPA’s highly respected long-time representative in China, had been following this issue closely. He played a pivotal role in establishing and developing ALPA’s presence in China, which became one of ALPA’s most important markets. I had a close professional and personal relationship with Fred, and he had long valued my views on technical-camera work.

Most photographers he consulted felt that the HR 23mm did not need tilt, but when he asked for my opinion, I strongly recommended making tilt or swing possible. My view was that even on an ultra-wide lens, this capability could still matter for high-end landscape work. He later conveyed this feedback to ALPA and helped push for a practical solution.

The subsequent SB17 version of the HR Alpagon 23mm resolved the limitation described above. According to ALPA, this short-barrel version with a recessed lens board was one of Fred Zhou’s last wishes. In his memory, ALPA first offered this version exclusively for its partners in Beijing, and later made it available to all partners and customers.

Finally, all Rodenstock HR lenses have super impressive resolutions. However, their complex optical designs can exhibit noticeable flare in high-contrast scenes. If there is a bright area in your image, such as an opening of a sky above a deep canyon, it might flare. Watch out. You may have to shade the highlight area with your palm, a hat, or some type of flare hood/flag/shade.

RODENSTOCK / ALPA HR ALPAGON 4.0/32 MM, SB17

Sample Images Made with This Lens

This is another fantastic wide-angle lens, presenting a 35mm equivalent focal length of 20.6mm. It has got a large image circle (90mm), allowing +/- 13mm of horizontal shift (if the digital back is in landscape mode) without much resolution degradation near the corners. Of course, you can shift a little bit more, but the resolutions drop quickly near the edges. If the digital back is in the portrait mode, then you can safely shift +/- 15-16mm.

You can capture a much wider view by shifting and stitching, though. For example, on 12 STC, you can put the digital back in portrait mode, and shift +/- 18mm to take two vertical images. When you stitch the two vertical images together, you will get a horizontal image very close to the view of a 22mm lens! The edges are a tad bit soft if you’re pixel peeping, however the edges of HR 23 are not as stellar as the center either. Even when cropping out the slightly soft portion, you will get something very close to 24-25mm views. In other words, if you don't want to buy the expensive HR 23, there is a very easy way to reproduce the view of it, with significantly more pixels. And you can tilt and stitch at the same time. How wonderful is that?

The drawbacks? This lens is big, taking lots of space in the backpack. It requires 86mm filters. The thin "neck" makes it quite fragile, so please handle with care.

A word of warning: the front element of HR 32 bulges out in the center. Most screw-on filters will touch the center, leaving a mark on glass. It probably will not affect image quality, but it is an eye-sore on such a high-end lens. My solution (suggested to me by the late Mr. Fred Zhou, the highly esteemed and long-time ALPA representative for Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan), is to use a 95mm filter with a 86-95mm step-up ring. The step-up ring creates a tiny but safe gap between the filter and the front element.

RODENSTOCK / ALPA HR ALPAGON 4.0/50 MM, SB34

Sample Images Made with This Lens

This lens provides a view like that of a 32mm lens on a 35mm camera. It has a large image circle. I find that I use it frequently in locations such as the Dolomites where using a super-wide-angle lens will often render the magnificent peaks too small to my taste.

The resolution is spectacular. I used this lens to create one of the largest landscape prints in the world. Although the final image was stitched, each individual frame still had to deliver the highest possible image quality in order to produce a print two stories high, measuring 6 × 9 meters, or approximately 20 × 30 feet, while still allowing viewers to stand only three feet away and examine the fine details. For more information about this monumental installation, see the Beauty at the Extreme exhibition installation video.

RODENSTOCK / ALPA HR ALPAGON 5.6/90 MM, SB34

Sample Images Made with This Lens

This lens is special; a legend. Rodenstock HR lenses are arguably the sharpest lenses on the planet. Every single one of them is exceptional. Among them, HR 90 offers the highest resolution power (with the exception of the upcoming ALPA HR ALPAGON 6.5/138 MM) over a fabulous 120mm image circle. Such a large image circle enables it for use on ALPA Pano body (too heavy and I do not recommend, unless you have such a need, and if you can get one - only 50 of them have been made.)

Schneider-Kreuznach 90mm/4.5 APO Digitar, SB34

Two 90mm lenses compared. On the left is the Schneider (SAD 90), Alpa Mount, aperture only. On the right is the Rodenstock (HR 90) discussed above.

SAD 90 is a very interesting lens. Alpa's version is aperture only, so you have to rely on the electronic shutter on the digital back. Comparing to the legendary HR 90, SAD 90 is much smaller, much lighter (300 grams vs 880 grams), at 1/3 of the price. SAD is best to shoot at f/11. The image circle is 90mm. The image qualities at the center between the two are almost identical. However, when shift to 18mm, SAD 90 is noticeably softer than HR 90. If you do not shift, or if you just shift slightly, the substantial reductions in size and weight make it well worth considering.

Frankly, I have never used this lens in real world situation because I have some concerns about the image quality at the far edge. I purchased this lens purely as a backup. If someday I must do some ultra-light backpacking, I might put this thing in my pack.

Rodenstock / ALPA HR Alpagon 6.5/138 mm, with Floating Element, SB51

You can put the 51mm adapter before or after the camera body without worrying about vignetting. I prefer to put it behind the body so the system balances better on the tripod.

Sample Images Made with This Lens

Before the introduction of this lens, HR 90 was the king of resolution. HR 138 is the new gold-standard. It is outrageously sharp (it out-resolves HR 90 at every aperture) and crazy expensive.

As a landscape photographer who mostly shoots grand scenery, I found that the 138mm (116mm in 35mm format) focal length is of limited use. I shoot with both wide-angle or tele lenses, but rarely something in the middle. I do occasionally find it very handy in certain situations (mostly for intimate landscape). If this focal length works for you, congratulations, you have one of the sharpest lenses available to mankind.

RODENSTOCK / ALPA HR ALPAR 5.6/180 MM (SB34 version)

This lens is huge. It is not the easiest one to carry. It is not heavy, though. The size comes from the long lens barrel, which is mostly empty space. If you use a bellow system, you just need the lens itself without the barrel. It becomes a much more portable system. However as I mentioned before, there are too many other problems with bellows.

You should put the 34mm (or the 51mm one if you have the new version) adapter behind the camera body to reduce vignetting.

Sample Images Made with This Lens

Landscape photography is much more than wide-angle views. With a long lens, we can focus on some unique details. This is the longest focal length offered by Rodenstock. The manufacturer claims an image circle of only 80mm. In practice, it is much larger than 80mm. On a 12MAX I can shift all the way (+- 18mm) without seeing visible image quality losses.

The problem with using a long lens on a high-pixel-count medium-format camera is that even the slightest wind will cause substantial resolution loss. You need a way (e.g., using an umbrella) to shield the wind. You can also use a long-lens-support system from manufacturers such as RRS. This setup significantly improves the stability, although you do have to carry some extra stuff.

ALPA recently announced the SB 51 version of this lens, making it slightly easier to carry. You can also send your SB 34 version back to ALPA to shorten it. Of course, you do need a 51mm adapter. Most people probably already have a 34mm adapter and a 17mm one in their camera bag, so just by stacking the two together, you have a 51mm one.

ALPA HPF HIGH PRECISION FOCUSING (HPF) RINGS

We are talking about a lens accessory instead of a lens here. I have ALPA HPF rings installed on every single Rodenstock lens. I think this is one of the best features of the ALPA system. Using live-view focus during twilight is very difficult. It becomes mission impossible at night. These rings, when correctly calibrated, allow me to focus very accurately by just looking at the marks on the ring. Simply turn it all the way to infinite and the lens will focus on infinite accurately. This sounds so easy and obvious, but if you have ever tried to focus on infinity at night with a 35mm camera you should understand what I am referring to. I use HPF rings all the time, especially at night, and I have never, ever, missed my focus.

Note: use the ring to focus but forget about the Depth-of-Field marks. These DOF marks were calculated for film systems. Modern high-resolution digital sensors require a much stricter CoC criterion(CoC), these marks are totally off. Use a good DOF calculator App such as Lumariver that takes the CoC of modern sensors into consideration, or use a pre-calculated DOF table.

SCHNEIDER KREUZNACH 40-80MM LS F/4.0-5.6 (for XF camera)

Sample Images Made with This Lens

This blue-ring lens is very sharp, very versatile. The problem is, it is a beast. Too heavy (4.1 lbs/1860 g/65.60 oz.) and bulky for backpacking, IMO.

I did bring it with me when I was shooting and camping in the Boundary Ranges of Alaska. However, we flew to the camping location in a helicopter, and I didn't have to carry it with me hiking for many hours. It is also an excellent lens for aerial shots from a helicopter.

That said, the entire rig (digital back + XF camera + 40-80mm) is extremely heavy. And you probably need an 8-10 lbs gyro stabilizer if you plan to shoot from a chopper. I found the whole experience a little bit stressful. In the future, I will probably pick up a Fuji medium format body and a lens with stabilization for this type of jobs.