Lenses

[BTM_Pix]

15 hours ago, mercer said:

I'd love to get the 24mm 1.4 but they doubled in price over the past year or two. I'd see them sell for around $700 but now they're hard to find for less than $1500 with some Japanese eBay sellers asking over $2000. I don't want it that bad.

With the Japanese ones though the condition they sell them in is probably cleaner than when it left the factory !

Is the f2 maybe a compromise option or do they not match that well with your 50mm ?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Excellent-Canon-New-FD-NFD-24mm-f-2-Wide-Angle-MF-Lens-From-Japan-292/133235260635?hash=item1f0570bcdb:g:NDgAAOSwLARdv9kl

[kye]

3 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

The first port of call for me with wides like that would be the edges, for both sharpness and curvature so a brick wall is usually the simplest way to do that.

Anything upright vertical on either edge of the frame will suffice though so if you are shooting indoors a couple of pencils etc could be used.

Its a very obvious basic test but with ultra wides it might save a lot of time in additional testing as its likely going to be the most important determining factor as to whether you find the lens acceptable.

The subtleties of all the other parameters may be rendered moot if the overall image is distorted enough to act as a quasi fisheye.

If it passes that test then you can move on to picking out the bits you need from this guide.

https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2010/11/how-to-test-a-lens/

Just looked at the first clips I shot with the 7.5mm Laowa and there's no visual traces of distortion at all - it's straight lines all around with this one.  Definitely worthy of additional testing  

[mercer]

3 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

With the Japanese ones though the condition they sell them in is probably cleaner than when it left the factory !

Is the f2 maybe a compromise option or do they not match that well with your 50mm ?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Excellent-Canon-New-FD-NFD-24mm-f-2-Wide-Angle-MF-Lens-From-Japan-292/133235260635?hash=item1f0570bcdb:g:NDgAAOSwLARdv9kl

Really? I've bought a few lenses from Japanese sellers over the years and every single one of them has been junk and not as described. Obviously not all Japanese sellers are bad but I've been burned enough to be very wary.

Yeah, I'm sure the 24mm f/2 and the 85mm 1.8 would be fine. A lot of people prefer the basic 50mm 1.4 over the 1.2 L, so I'm sure they're really good. I haven't used an FD lens that I hated. Luckily, I am finding that I should be able to intercut the FD 50mm 1.2 with my EF 28mm 1.8 in a pinch.

Canon 28mm 1.8

Canon FD 50mm 1.2 L modified to EF...

Other than a quick correction, both of these were SOOC with just the default Rec709 conversion in the Resolve Raw Panel. I think with a few contrast adjustments, I can get them to match pretty good.

With that said, I'll probably be on the lookout for some nFD lenses and try to build a rag tag set over the next year or two. I've never owned an UWA for FF, so the 17mm f/4 could be an interesting lens. 

 

11 hours ago, noone said:

This is just nuts!    I was looking on Ebay out of curiosity at the price of 24 1.4 lenses.

Yup!!! It's absolutely nuts! We've discussed a couple times how nice of a lens it is but I can't believe it's +$2000 nice... you can probably find a Super Speed for that money.

14 hours ago, kye said:

so the limitation in whatever setup you end up with will likely be something else - the sensor / codec / anamorphic element / etc....

You forgot to add my aging eyes and total disregard of skill, talent and craft.

[mercer]

10 hours ago, kye said:

They look lovely though!!

 

There's a guy I follow on IG that uses FD lenses with his P4K and they look great.

With that said, what I learned most from that video, is how much Panasonic is killing it lately. If I was in the market for a new camera, I am pretty certain I would buy an S1H.

[BTM_Pix]

37 minutes ago, mercer said:

Really? I've bought a few lenses from Japanese sellers over the years and every single one of them has been junk and not as described. Obviously not all Japanese sellers are bad but I've been burned enough to be very wary.

Most of my experience of them is in physical shops there where you could probably take the goods straight into an operating theatre without fear of challenge!

I've only had a couple of things from there off eBay and they were mint condition as well and also looked like they had been wrapped by this Rowan Atkinson character 

 

48 minutes ago, mercer said:

Yeah, I'm sure the 24mm f/2 and the 85mm 1.8 would be fine. A lot of people prefer the basic 50mm 1.4 over the 1.2 L, so I'm sure they're really good. I haven't used an FD lens that I hated. Luckily, I am finding that I should be able to intercut the FD 50mm 1.2 with my EF 28mm 1.8 in a pinch.

Yeah, they look like they'd have no bother being matched up.

There is definitely some value for money in the FD stuff.

[noone]

7 hours ago, kye said:

Getting setup to do a bunch of lens tests, but not entirely sure how to test very wide angled lenses.

For everything longer than 35mm (FF equiv) I'd do the person sitting with xmas lights in the background, but at what point is a lens so wide that this style of test doesn't apply?  

I have lenses that are 15mm and 16mm equivalent, so not sure what to test - people? landscapes? sharpness?  People talk about the classic Hollywood close-up with a wide-angle and a shallow DoF, should I do that?

I would simply test them at how you would use them.      Some of them have a lot of field curvature so might not be good at something like a flat image or landscape but really good for something else like an environmental portrait.     I think that applies to some of the various 24mm lenses for instance.   Should have been more lenses like the Minolta 24 vfc that you can control the field curvature with.    Lenses with floating elements would allow closer focus and better use for others things as well.

[kye]

10 hours ago, mercer said:

You forgot to add my aging eyes and total disregard of skill, talent and craft.

Hahaha... considering how much those apply to me, I just kind of assume people take that as the context of all my messages!  

9 hours ago, mercer said:

There's a guy I follow on IG that uses FD lenses with his P4K and they look great.

With that said, what I learned most from that video, is how much Panasonic is killing it lately. If I was in the market for a new camera, I am pretty certain I would buy an S1H.

That video really does look nice and I suspect it might be the colours.  People get pretty critical of Panasonic CS but I have seen enough lovely images from P that I'm not critical at all.

9 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

Most of my experience of them is in physical shops there where you could probably take the goods straight into an operating theatre without fear of challenge!

I've only had a couple of things from there off eBay and they were mint condition as well and also looked like they had been wrapped by this Rowan Atkinson character 

 

Yeah, they look like they'd have no bother being matched up.

There is definitely some value for money in the FD stuff.

LOL about that guy..

I've had the same experience from Japanese ebay sellers but I must admit that the best results are coming from those people who have a rating scheme with criteria that they rate all their auctions against.  I think it's a professionalism thing.  I just bought my Voigtlander 42.5mm f0.95 from Japan and it's basically brand new, but I managed a ~25% discount from the new pricing.

FD glass really is nice, after buying the FD 70-210 F4 and TC I really was impressed by the IQ and overall build quality.

8 hours ago, noone said:

I would simply test them at how you would use them.      Some of them have a lot of field curvature so might not be good at something like a flat image or landscape but really good for something else like an environmental portrait.     I think that applies to some of the various 24mm lenses for instance.   Should have been more lenses like the Minolta 24 vfc that you can control the field curvature with.    Lenses with floating elements would allow closer focus and better use for others things as well.

I am kind of curious about those notorious shots that everyone says are absolutely critical to Hollywood when they're saying why they could never use MFT.  I'm beginning to wonder if they're a mirage because no-one seems to be able to give me a straight answer.  I would have thought if they were half as common as I'm made to believe then we should be drowning in them and someone should be able to just post a bunch of them

But yes, in terms of testing for me, I'll point them at a fence and run through the apertures.

[leslie]

12 hours ago, mercer said:

Really? I've bought a few lenses from Japanese sellers over the years and every single one of them has been junk and not as described. Obviously not all Japanese sellers are bad but I've been burned enough to be very wary.

 

 

i prefer to buy from japan, if its made in japan, it should be easy to buy from japan. At least you know the lens most probably hasn't been around the world twice ?

i tend to look at all the photos. I'm wary of those sellers that only have two or three photos of the item because its easier to hide things, the more photos the merrier. I also like the sites that rate their items and list the conditions of the exterior and interior especially the lens if it has fungus or haze or scratches. If their brave enough to list the condition then they usually will except returns. The guys that says it has some haze but doesn't affect photos surprisingly doesn't accept returns odd that  ?.  the same goes for as is condition when i see that listed its time to move onto the next item. I think a lot of people flogging stuff on ebay know whats its worth listing with only a couple of photos and a short nondescript description leaves a lot of room for a sale that isn't what you think it is. You can always email the seller for confirmation about condition or query something which you can then use in an ebay dispute to prove your side of the case. But i prefer to avoid that in the first place

One thing that ticks me off is the ( new  prefix ) the fd lens system is not new, these lenses are old, if they were new you'd list them as new old stock. I only see this on canon fd lenses from japan, its quite bizarre. I tend to wonder about the character of people who tell me something is new when its sold as used ?     

[BTM_Pix]

4 hours ago, leslie said:

 

One thing that ticks me off is the ( new  prefix ) the fd lens system is not new, these lenses are old, if they were new you'd list them as new old stock. I only see this on canon fd lenses from japan, its quite bizarre. I tend to wonder about the character of people who tell me something is new when its sold as used ?     

In the case of FD lenses, the "New" designation is to differentiate between the second generation versions of lenses which have a bayonet mounting mechanism rather than a sneaky trick  

https://cameraville.co/blog/list-every-canon-fd-lens-ever-made

[leslie]

34 minutes ago, BTM_Pix said:

In the case of FD lenses, the "New" designation is to differentiate between the second generation versions of lenses which have a bayonet mounting mechanism rather than a sneaky trick  

https://cameraville.co/blog/list-every-canon-fd-lens-ever-made

hmmm... i still dont like it. Call it a either a breech mount or bayonet, but not new

[homestar_kevin]

New FD, nFD is the generally accepted name for the revised versions of all the FD lenses.

They came out after the Breech Lock SSC series stuff and are a bit more compact, black and plastic.

New FD is what I've always heard them called though *Shrug*

[kye]

Video about 24 and 35mm primes.  It's about stills photography, but is about composition, the lenses distortion, and exposure levels so also applies to moving images...

 

[noone]

Anyone used the old Tamron adaptall 28-80 3.5-4.2 SP on digital recently?     It seems it had a good reputation a few years ago.     Worth paying $10 (Australian) for? (not like I NEED another lens but since it is there!).

 

[kye]

4 hours ago, noone said:

Anyone used the old Tamron adaptall 28-80 3.5-4.2 SP on digital recently?     It seems it had a good reputation a few years ago.     Worth paying $10 (Australian) for? (not like I NEED another lens but since it is there!).

 

How can you go wrong for $10?

[kye]

 

[noone]

4 hours ago, kye said:

How can you go wrong for $10?

At the moment, I could find a way!     While I am curious as to how good it is, I really do have far more lenses than i need and the few I mainly use are MUCH better than this would be.     I know ten bucks is one beer at some pubs/brewery's these days, it is still something i would want to be good enough to use from time to time.      I would not for instance get any of the non SP Tamron adaptall lenses in that range (one was offered to me for $1 (Australian....about 68c US currently) and I knocked it back two weeks ago.

 

[kye]

1 hour ago, noone said:

At the moment, I could find a way!     While I am curious as to how good it is, I really do have far more lenses than i need and the few I mainly use are MUCH better than this would be.     I know ten bucks is one beer at some pubs/brewery's these days, it is still something i would want to be good enough to use from time to time.      I would not for instance get any of the non SP Tamron adaptall lenses in that range (one was offered to me for $1 (Australian....about 68c US currently) and I knocked it back two weeks ago.

I don't know about you, but I kind of think of a small section of my income as R&D, where learning is the primary objective, rather than getting a monetary or utility return-on-investment.  From this perspective, there is little risk with a purchase so low, either you get something useful, or you at least learn something.

What's the criteria you're afraid it won't meet?  if it's IQ then surely you can find some photos online taken with it?

[noone]

11 hours ago, kye said:

I don't know about you, but I kind of think of a small section of my income as R&D, where learning is the primary objective, rather than getting a monetary or utility return-on-investment.  From this perspective, there is little risk with a purchase so low, either you get something useful, or you at least learn something.

What's the criteria you're afraid it won't meet?  if it's IQ then surely you can find some photos online taken with it?

I guess I have been through the try many many lenses thing and I had pretty much settled on my kit (Canon 17L tilt shift, FD 24 1.4L, FE 55 1.8. EF mount 150 2.8 macro, Adaptall 300 2.8 and a  Canon EF 20-35 2.8 L) with the others remaining just being because i like "stuff".      I have recently given away a few old lenses including some that were quite nice (Nikon 50 1.8 AF) and sold a few others so it now is pretty much if i buy it will i use it?    This 28-80 would need to be pretty good for me to buy at any price (the old me before getting some really nice lenses would have got it in a heartbeat).     These days my income is limited too which does not help.....I still wanna get things like a new Sony flash (sold my old one when my A7s broke but now I have another A7s I need one) and a FD-E and EF-E speedbooster (for my now back up NEX-3N)....I really want to see if the 17 tilt shift will work with a speedbooster FF too on the A7s.    I like to try things people tell me I can not do but that ends up with me accumulating a lot of junk/stuff.

 

 

[leslie]

9 hours ago, noone said:

I guess I have been through the try many many lenses thing and I had pretty much settled on my kit (Canon 17L tilt shift, FD 24 1.4L, FE 55 1.8. EF mount 150 2.8 macro, Adaptall 300 2.8 and a  Canon EF 20-35 2.8 L) with the others remaining just being because i like "stuff".      I have recently given away a few old lenses including some that were quite nice (Nikon 50 1.8 AF) and sold a few others so it now is pretty much if i buy it will i use it?    This 28-80 would need to be pretty good for me to buy at any price (the old me before getting some really nice lenses would have got it in a heartbeat).     These days my income is limited too which does not help.....I still wanna get things like a new Sony flash (sold my old one when my A7s broke but now I have another A7s I need one) and a FD-E and EF-E speedbooster (for my now back up NEX-3N)....I really want to see if the 17 tilt shift will work with a speedbooster FF too on the A7s.    I like to try things people tell me I can not do but that ends up with me accumulating a lot of junk/stuff.

 

 

we should probably  start a too poor to have it all thread with reviews.  The other idea i have is clean up best you can and flog em on ebay

[kye]

1 hour ago, leslie said:

we should probably  start a too poor to have it all thread with reviews.  The other idea i have is clean up best you can and flog em on ebay

The ARRI Master Anamorphic prime lenses start at USD$50k each, and go up to $65k.

This thread is the “too poor to have it all” lens thread!