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Specifications: 180mm. Aperture: f/2.8. 7 elements in 7 groups. Focusing turns 290 degrees clockwise. Diagonal view angle: 26 degrees. Weight 3 lbs. 5-1/2 oz., Filter size: M95x1. Mount: Rolleiflex 6008 AF. List price: $4.600. Street price: Approx $4,200
What you should know: A classic portrait tele focal length for medium format, the180mm f/2.8 excels in separating the subject from the background at large shooting apertures.
Hands on: Understandably large and heavy due to its large expanse of glass, this fast 180 is beautifully finished in satin black and balances quite well for handheld shooting on the Rollei 6008 AF. The very wide, ribbed, rubberized focusing ring turns reasonably smoothly and with well damped action in manual-focus mode, and does not turn during autofocusing. White-on-black aperture and metric distance numerals are large and legible, as is yellow-on-black depth-of-field scale with red IR index. Footage numerals are less visible in green on black. Aperture ring locks at “A” setting for shutter-priority or programmed autoexposure. Front ring has inner 95mm thread and outer three-lobed bayonet for mouting filters, etc.
In the lab: (No SQF figures possible with this lens due to equipment limitations.) Lines-per-millimeter resolution figures are furnished instead. Minimal pincushion distortion (0.25%), an excellent result. At closest focusing distance of 71 inches (1:11.3) center sharpness was acceptable at f/2.8, good at f/4, very good at f/5.6, excellent at f/8, very good at f/11, good at f/16, and poor at f/22. Corner sharpness was poor from f/2.8 to f/4, good af f/5.6, very good from f/8 to f/11, good at f/16, and poor at f/22. Optimum performance was at f/8.
In the field: Test transparencies were very sharp and contrasty, and flare was very well controlled at all apertures. Light falloff was gone by f/4.
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