Category: 2019

Another walk, another lens test.

David M7 Comments

I managed to get out for a proper walk with the 7artisans 35mm f/1.2 lens attached to the camera recently. The first test was a quick walk around the yard when I had a couple of minutes.

Second impressions are that it’s an interesting lens, I can see it spending a lot of time on the camera. I still think it needs a lens hood so that’s something that needs sorting out before the next test.

A Day-Lily near the start of the walk. Shot wide open the lens produces some interesting background blur in the leaves behind the flower.

Testing the 7artisans 35mm lens.

 

An Umbellifer flower with the lens wide open at f/1.2 again.

Testing the 7artisans 35mm f/1.2 lens.

Not really an adapted lens but?

David M2 Comments

An extension of the adapted lens idea.

There’s a selection of manual focus prime lenses now being manufactured in a variety of camera mounts by some little known makers. They don’t have to be adapted to fit the camera but they’re not as optically corrected as modern lenses from the major manufacturers. I regard them as a variation on an adapted lens giving some interesting effects.

One of those manufacturers is 7artisans who build around half a dozen small manual focus primes in a few different camera mounts. This photo was taken with their 35mm f/1.2 lens on a very brief walk last weekend.

It’s my only outing with the lens so far so I haven’t really formed an opinion on it other than that with a fairly large front element close to the front of the lens it will probably benefit from a lens hood. Not something that I have bothered about with the adapted CCTV lenses I have been experimenting with.

An Orange Day-Lily photographed with the lens wide open at f/1.2 which produces an interesting, soft, out of focus rendering of the foliage in the background.

Not really an adapted lens but?

Another test of the 25mm CCTV lens.

David M2 Comments

Having fixed the focusing mechanism of the 25mm CCTV lens I was experimenting with I went for another walk with it. The first test/walk is here.

It turned out that while the focusing mechanism now works the lens now focusses well past infinity and no longer focusses as close at it had when the focusing mechanism wasn’t working properly. I haven’t decided if I’m going to dismantle the focusing mechanism again or just leave it as it is.

Old seed pods and new leaves. It seems strange for the old seed pods to be on the plant this time of year. The swirling around the edges of the frame is very obvious in this shot.

Old seed pods and new leaves.

Some interesting variegated leaves. The swirling around the edges and vignetting in the corners is less obvious in this shot.

25mm CCTV lens adapted to fit a mirrorless camera.

A walk with a 50mm CCTV lens.

David M3 Comments

A morning walk with the camera, this time testing a 50mm f/1.4 CCTV lens adapted to fit a mirrorless camera.

So far this lens seems optically the best of the three CCTV lenses I am testing. But one of the main reasons for experimenting with these lenses is their strange optical behaviour around the edges of the frame and in the backgrounds of images so this lens is a bit of a disappointment so far. I wasn’t expecting a $41 CAD (including shipping and the adapter) lens to be this good.

A Periwinkle flower after some overnight rain with the lens wide open at f/1.4. The flower seems to be fairly sharp considering it’s close to the edge of the frame and the lens was wide open.

Blue flower photographed with a CCTV lens.

Old seed pods and new leaves. I had photographed these seed pods last winter and was surprised to find that they were still on the plant months later surrounded by new leaves. Again, the seed pod seems fairly sharp even though it’s away from the center of the frame.

Fresh growth and seed pods.

A walk with a 25mm CCTV lens.

David M1 Comment

An afternoon walk, this time with a 25mm f/1.4 CCTV lens adapted to fit a mirrorless camera. I quickly discovered that the lens has to be used wide open, when I stopped it down I could see it vignetting badly in the camera viewfinder. It still vignettes a little wide open and as the image circle produced by the lens barely covers the sensor there can be some interesting swirling around the edges of the frame.

Soon after discovering that the lens needs to be kept wide open the focusing mechanism started playing up. Initially the focusing appeared to be jammed, once I got the focusing collar to turn the lens would focus on close subjects but wouldn’t focus on distant subjects.

I continued on my walk as my testing was going to be mostly close subjects. When I got home from the walk I got the focusing mechanism working and think that I have managed to fix it.

Some interesting variegated Hosta leaves. One of the first shots taken with the lens before the focusing mechanism started playing up. The edges of the frame don’t show much swirling in this shot.

Interesting variegated Hosta leaves.

Ivy leaves on a tree trunk. The swirling around the edges of the photo is really noticeable in this shot.

Swirling around the edges.

An afternoon walk, 25th June.

David M2 Comments

Another afternoon walk after physiotherapy in the morning and another opportunity to test an old film camera lens adapted to fit a mirrorless digital camera.

This time it was a Vivitar 35mm f/1.9 lens I purchased used in the 1970s. The lens has had a hard life, in the late 1980s it spend several springs attached to the back of various nestboxes while I documented the nesting cycles of various bird species. As a result it feels as if it could fall apart each time I use it.

A Bracken frond with the lens wide open at f/1.9. The out of focus dirt and rocks under the frond have an interesting rendering with the wide open lens.

Bracken frond with an adapted lens from the 1970s.

Orange Lichen and green moss on a boulder with the lens wide open again I think. I tried to keep the aperture wide open as much as possible on the walk but as it’s an adapted lens there’s no communication with the camera so no lens settings are recorded.

Green moss and orange Lichen.

An afternoon walk, 18th June.

David M4 Comments

I have physiotherapy on Tuesday and Friday mornings. As the weather was nice I decided to go for a walk with the camera on Tuesday afternoon to continue exercising my leg and arm.

For the walk I used my oldest lens, an Olympus OM Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 I purchased with an Olympus OM1 in 1976. I also decided to keep the lens set at its maximum aperture, f/1.8, for all the shots.

The lens is one of the early OM system lenses know as silvernose (or silver nose depending on the reference) because they have a shiny brushed aluminium front on the filter mount. They’re often single coated rather than the multi coating used on modern lenses. My copy of the lens has had a hard life over the years, it was once submerged in Georgian Bay and dried out in an oven.

Some interesting variegated Hosta leaves.

Some variegated leaves in the spring.

A small group of Dandelion seed heads. I didn’t spot the falling seed until I posted the photo on Instagram a day later.

Dandelion seed heads.