Lenses

[kye]

12 hours ago, mercer said:

@BTM_Pix I am fairly certain your collection puts mine to shame, but if I was more into photography, I would keep a lot more lenses... I mean buy a lot more lenses. 

Is 135mm your favorite focal length and which is the best you’ve ever used... if you had to pick one off the top of your head?

I’ve been eyeballing the Nikkor f/2 but it’s such a huge lens and goes against my desire to only own small lenses. I may buy a Samyang 85mm to test against my Nikkor because I think the Samyang is considerably smaller. I’ve even thought about buying that Canon 70-200mm f/4 L lens but the size is turning me off.

But I digress... I’m not even sure I own any 135s... hmm... I used to have a couple but never fell in love with them. I may have an old Rikenon or late Canon FL/FD when they issued the rubber grip but before the new bayonet mount.

While I have you, how are the Samyangs outdoors? Do they flare a lot?

I have a few 135mm lenses, you've inspired me to compare them.

There's a saying "there's no such thing as a bad 135mm lens" and I'll be putting that to the test by comparing my $4 Petri with the Super-Takumar.  My initial impressions were that the Petri was a pretty good contender

5 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

Might sound like a Samyang fanboy but its worth bearing in mind that its MY far more expensive lenses its making me a look a bit silly with by more than competing with them in these tests

The 24mm was up against a bona fide ten times the price cinema prime lens in that last test and it wasn't exactly getting humiliated wide open.

Cinema lenses are great for continuity of performance across a set etc but for the rest of us the cost of those diminishing optical returns even on ONE lens are way better invested in other areas in my view.

Yeah, most of the differences between cine lenses and stills lenses aren't attractive to me.  The only exception is click-less aperture, which is helpful to have while shooting as it means you can adjust it during the shot without shaking the whole camera and ruining the shot.  Even the focus breathing isn't a big deal for me TBH.

[kye]

Question: what kind of lens makes a circular flare on the very edges of the image?

ie, something that looks like this [(xyz)] where the [ ] is the frame, the ( ) are the flares (very similar shape actually) and xyz is the frame contents.  I saw them a lot on The Expanse S3 (which is great BTW!)

[noone]

3 hours ago, kye said:

 

There's a saying "there's no such thing as a bad 135mm lens"

 

You ain't seen my ancient Promura 135 1.8.      Impressive lens to look at, big, heavy and solid.     Was ok with film and 6mp DSLRs I guess.    Mine looks like someone tried to clean it inside and ended up smearing things a bit but it has remained the same since I got it when there were half a dozen bricks and mortar camera stores in Wagga (and I got it from one of them).   The EF Canon 135 f2 L is a  nice AF lens still Used on M43, APSC and FF and I regret selling mine when I needed the money.    I kept my Sigma 150 2.8 instead though and I am glad I did though still miss that Canon (plus they can be found pretty cheap these days since they have been around so long).

[leslie]

2 minutes ago, noone said:

You ain't seen my ancient Promura 135 1.8.      Impressive lens to look at, big, heavy and solid.     Was ok with film and 6mp DSLRs I guess.    Mine looks like someone tried to clean it inside and ended up smearing things a bit but it has remained the same since I got it when there were half a dozen bricks and mortar camera stores in Wagga (and I got it from one of them).   The EF Canon 135 f2 L is a  nice AF lens still Used on M43, APSC and FF and I regret selling mine when I needed the money.    I kept my Sigma 150 2.8 instead though and I am glad I did though still miss that Canon (plus they can be found pretty cheap these days since they have been around so long).

wagga wagga ? we'd be almost neighbors ?

[mercer]

2 hours ago, kye said:

Question: what kind of lens makes a circular flare on the very edges of the image?

ie, something that looks like this [(xyz)] where the [ ] is the frame, the ( ) are the flares (very similar shape actually) and xyz is the frame contents.  I saw them a lot on The Expanse S3 (which is great BTW!)

It sounds like some kind of anamorphic... maybe something with internal reflections causing a flaring effect... or even a fake anamorphic?

[kye]

20 hours ago, mercer said:

It sounds like some kind of anamorphic... maybe something with internal reflections causing a flaring effect... or even a fake anamorphic?

I think I recall some of those horizontal halos that anamorphics give, so you might be right. I guess I didn't anticipate an anamorphic lens having any circular artefacts considering that neither the bokeh or halos are circular, but I'm definitely not familiar with them.

[kye]

I shot the second part of my lens test...

135mm / 150mm / 200mm vintage lenses.

 

[AlexTrinder96]

Was just looking through some old photos

Video screengrabs from around 2 years ago... Takumar 50mm f1.4 on Panasonic G7  

 

 

[BTM_Pix]

On 3/21/2019 at 3:50 PM, mercer said:

Is 135mm your favorite focal length and which is the best you’ve ever used... if you had to pick one off the top of your head?

A bit of a crisis here.

So I thought that my addiction/collection was six so I'd figured out a way to have a tournament where they were seeded so that the Nikkor, the Leica and the Contax Zeiss would be automatically in the semi-finals and the fourth one to join them would be the winner of a preliminary round.

I have just got them all out to line them up to give them a bit of a clean before doing it tomorrow and can you spot the flaw in that plan ?

It strikes me that with having seven then the only fair way to do this would be to have an eighth one to make it four seeds and four non-seeded lenses so there would be four quarter finals and then the semi-finals and the final.

This is clearly the Lord's way of telling me to buy that Samyang isn't it?

[mercer]

1 hour ago, BTM_Pix said:

This is clearly the Lord's way of telling me to buy that Samyang isn't it?

I think the Good Book was misquoted and it should have read... “Jesus died for your lens.” And not for your sins.

[kye]

10 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

A bit of a crisis here.

So I thought that my addiction/collection was six so I'd figured out a way to have a tournament where they were seeded so that the Nikkor, the Leica and the Contax Zeiss would be automatically in the semi-finals and the fourth one to join them would be the winner of a preliminary round.

I have just got them all out to line them up to give them a bit of a clean before doing it tomorrow and can you spot the flaw in that plan ?

It strikes me that with having seven then the only fair way to do this would be to have an eighth one to make it four seeds and four non-seeded lenses so there would be four quarter finals and then the semi-finals and the final.

This is clearly the Lord's way of telling me to buy that Samyang isn't it?

One lens short?  No worries - I'll mail you the Petri ASAP!

[mercer]

So on my quest for the best manual 50mm lens, I just bought an FD 50mm 1.2 L lens, for a great price, that I plan on having converted to EF.

Everything I’ve read about the lens has been stellar. Are there any owners of the lens that can confirm, or deny it?

[BTM_Pix]

48 minutes ago, mercer said:

Are there any owners of the lens that can confirm, or deny it?

I remember that @Andrew Reid had one but not sure if he still does ?

 

[mercer]

@BTM_Pix yeah I thought the same thing and asked him over in the Magic Lantern forum. 

In the US, there’s a company called Simmod that offers a full Cine mod for FD Lenses using Ed Mika adapters so if all looks okay with the lens, I’ll send it their way. I may have to charge up the batteries on my EOS-M to test out the lens... maybe I’ll give the new experimental EOS-M build a test while I’m at it.

Btw even with the cost of the mod, I’ll be cheaper than what most versions of the lens sell for on eBay... by a good bit actually. 

[BTM_Pix]

9 minutes ago, mercer said:

 

Btw even with the cost of the mod, I’ll be cheaper than what most versions of the lens sell for on eBay... by a good bit actually. 

Always good to snag a bargain!

I've never actually owned an FD mount lens though I do own an adapter that I'd bought in advance when I was supposed to be buying one but the deal fell through .

Was it by chance a 135mm version that I was supposed to be buying ?

[mercer]

21 minutes ago, BTM_Pix said:

I've never actually owned an FD mount lens though I do own an adapter that I'd bought in advance when I was supposed to be buying one but the deal fell through .

They are nice little lenses. Years ago I never had any luck with them but last year I bought a modified 50mm 1.4 and I was stunned by it. It matched my ef 28mm beautifully. But then stupidly I sold it. But then a couple of months ago I found another one that was modified and paid a stupidly cheap price for it. And this copy was better than my first. But last night I saw how cheap the 1.2L was and I couldn’t resist... so expect a bad and fast 50mm FD lens comparison in B&W in coming weeks. If it’s only moderately better than the 1.4, I’ll just sell the 1.2L for a nice little profit... but from what I have read, there is not a nicer manual 50mm lens than the FD 50mm 1.2 L. We shall see.

Interstingly, the 135mm f/2 gets pretty good reviews as well...

[mercer]

Of course, I continue my path of hodge podge lenses.

And weirdly enough I think my next lens purchase may be the humble and cheap 24-85mm 3.5-4.5 EF lens. At slower apertures it seems like a candidate for a plastic fantastic with fast AF and a good all arounder to match with my 28mm 1.8 and 85mm 1.8.

But back on topic, I wonder how well, or if, the FD 50mm 1.2L would match with more modern EF L lenses like the 24-70mm f/4 zoom.

@BTM_Pix

[BTM_Pix]

3 minutes ago, mercer said:

But back on topic, I wonder how well, or if, the FD 50mm 1.2L would match with more modern EF L lenses like the 24-70mm f/4 zoom.

@BTM_Pix

I'm expecting the Sigma MC21 EF to L adapter to be released next month so I'll be doing more EF comparisons as I've got a hotchpotch of different ones that I'll now be able to use on my SL.

The focus control being woken up for the Pocket4K with the new Metabones firmware is a bit of a game changer as well. Not so much the AF (though it is useful but only 1 shot) but being able to control focus remotely using the joystick/app combo is pretty good.

I'm off to Japan in a few weeks and I'm looking at some interesting prices there for the Sigma ART 24-35mm f2. 

I will of course be checking in at the secondhand store run by the two somewhat, erm, "curt" older gentlemen to see if they have any FD stuff for cheap.

[mercer]

26 minutes ago, BTM_Pix said:

I'm expecting the Sigma MC21 EF to L adapter to be released next month so I'll be doing more EF comparisons as I've got a hotchpotch of different ones that I'll now be able to use on my SL.

Have you ever used that 24-85mm? I vaguely remember you posting some shots from an older EF lens but I think it may have been an even cheaper one... the 35-105mm or something?

[BTM_Pix]

8 minutes ago, mercer said:

Have you ever used that 24-85mm? I vaguely remember you posting some shots from an older EF lens but I think it may have been an even cheaper one... the 35-105mm or something?

No, I haven't.

It might have been this one that you are thinking of which is the definitely not lacking in zoom range Canon 35-350mm L