#10 Hermagis Portrait 310mm f3.9
Like a broken-winged swan calls
wistfully to a spring... I was so lonely for portraits. The birds are already screeching, the flowers will soon start pestering with their pollen and in the meantime, I’m frantically polishing brass for the season.
One of these cherished glassy tubes is one that carries portraits right in its name and lineage. Here comes the illustrious Hermagis Portrait!
What makes a portrait lens truly great? What should we highlight, what combination of features should it have? Let's subtly ignore weight and size and cut straight to the essentials - so first and foremost:
Aperture – because time is a cruel mistress: for alternative processes with low sensitivity, speed is everything. A fast lens means you won't be stuck with exposure times measured in seconds (or worse, tens of seconds), sparing your subject from playing a torturous game of "Statues" or being strapped into one of those Victorian-era head braces that look like they belong in a medieval torture exhibit. Oh, and of course - a wider aperture means shallower depth of field and creamier bokeh.
Bokeh – beauty is in the blur: better bokeh is subjective, and no, faster doesn't always mean smoother. But let's be honest - it often does.
Depth of Field – the double-edged sword: shallow DoF is gorgeous. It sculpts the image, adds depth and draws the eye. But the shallower it gets the harder it is to nail focus. If you're shooting something static, the only thing standing between you and a tack-sharp image is your own (in)competence. But people? Even the most disciplined model will shift - especially if you don't use the chloroform. And when you're working at f3 or faster, like with a Schnellarbeiter, we're talking about millimeters of focus. One small twitch and - congrats! - you've just perfectly focused on their nose instead of their eye.
- Speaking of chloroform, it wasn't just a joke - it was actually used in the early days of photography to calm down infants and small children during long exposures. Back then, exposure times were long and patience - both of mothers and photographers - was short. But hey, in small doses, it can't be that bad, right? Like rum.
- A little off-topic: the game known as "Statues" or "Green light, red light" is known in the Czech Republic as "Cukr káva limonáda, čaj rum bum", which could be translated as "Sugar coffee lemonade, tea rum boom." The whole thing rhymes in Czech and speeds up as the game progresses, so it is also a verbal pun. And Czech children obviously like rum and explosives.
If you don't have a sedatives, the light is blinding, or you're trying to photograph a bunch of fidgety humans, an aperture comes in handy. Whether it's an old washer-style one, a Waterhouse slot system or a classic iris diaphragm - something's bound to be useful. And let's be real, while a bladed iris is the most complicated, most fragile and slightly eats up light, it's also the most user-friendly.
- Because unlike metal stops, you won't lose it! Well, at least not as easily. Those things disappear faster than odd socks - one moment they're there and the next they've joined the Bermuda Triangle of household objects.
What else? Contrast, sharpness, edge fall-off - all very subjective. But I think we can all agree that a lens must have character - whatever the hell that means. Does it swirl the background into a fever dream and paint bokeh like little donuts, hexagons, or twelve-sided dice? Does it fail to cover the full image, blessing you with vignetting darker than a Congolese plantation worker's hands? Who cares! The point is, it's got that elusive, unexplainable something.
- If you're hunting for that something, Petzval lenses are your best bet. And even among those, some stand out. When it comes to portraits, you can't ignore the Dallmeyer A and B series or the unmistakable Darlot/Jamin Cone Centralisateur. I REALLY WANT THAT ONE.
No more fluff, time to shock the reader - the Hermagis Portrait lens checks every damn box for a flawless portrait lens! With an aperture around f3.9, it's hella fast, but not quite as razor-thin in DoF as f3 and below. (Below f3?! Yes, we're talking about Walzl, Ross, Aero and Fluro Ektar etc.)
- Sure, a bladed iris slightly dims the light transmission, but let's be real - lens manufacturers themselves had such creative math and "flexible" constants that their stated specs often drifted more than any mechanical loss from the iris. A tenth of a stop here, a tenth there - whatever. Your exposure meter (and you) will screw it up worse anyway.
Dreamy bokeh? Check. Contrast, sharpness, delicious vignetting? Check, check, check. An iris diaphragm? Damn right. And that indefinable magic? Look around - it's oozing character from every surface! And, if I may say so myself, I managed most of these shots without resorting to chloroform. The No.5 focal length is just right - pretty much perfect for head-and-shoulder portraits (obviously for the best format in the world, 8x10"). Wide open at infinity, the vignetting is intense, but that's par for the course with similar lenses (Dallmeyer 290mm f/3, Hugo-Meyer 310mm f/3, Darlot 300mm f/4, Voigtländer f/3.3, etc.).
I've had both the modern version and an older type with rack & pinion focusing, waterhouse stops and a completely different chassis design - right down to the font and its layout. Optically, though? Identical. And both painted beautifully. Sitting on my shelf, waiting for sunny days and willing models, is the legendary Dallmeyer 3B - one of the few lenses actually capable of stepping into the ring and going toe-to-toe with my beloved Hermagis. So, I'll test it, I'll see it, and at some point, I'll write about it. But for now, let's circle back to the opening question - the one that's ultimately pointless and irrelevant: Which portrait lens is perfect? You already know the answer. None of them. And all of them. Each is beautifully flawed, uniquely imperfect. Because perfection, my friend, exists only in imperfection. Čaj rum bum.