Sweetest Cherry Photo (so far)

Those photos were taken by a lens came from a Tokina Wide-converter and

its converging part of the lens has about 160 mm focal length, I call it Tele-soft.

In fact this lens can have a quite sharp image when an Iris was placed and the

spread of the light was centered — otherwise, its F4 equivalent of optics

produces beautiful soft Bokeh.     As the lens was mounted on a bellows, it is

quite awkward to use still, it can easily make a good close-up image as well.

I hope you appreciated to see them.   

(Honest ?)  🙂

PS : I didn’t use any filter or PS digital manipulation at all

—– only clopped and the brightness was tinkered on Picasa free program.

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Graffities in Peckham

Those photos were a part of the test shot of the 100 year old lens. = Generally,

the lens works pretty well — considering to its fungi infested aged state.

(Under large magnification, we can see the halation is eating away each detail.

The halation around the bright spot must be caused by the scattered light on the

fungi.  And the images near the corner is much softer = the lens’ aberration.)  

But otherwise, this lens doesn’t seemed to be worse than those phone-cameras.

To enlarge the shiny metal part, the halation is quite visible.

But the question is, who notice it and who care such details ?

— Some professional photographers may need to have the image part enlarged

for an editorial reason though, otherwise most of the camera user is using their

photo smaller than a tablet size. = so, this 100 year old lens is good enough.  😀

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Snapshot by 100 year old lens

The photos here are the first field test of the lens from 100 year old camera,

= Doppel Anastigmat of Steinheil Munchen —– so that they were just

the random snapshot in the Peckham, south-London downtown.

In certain extent, Peckham said to be a nice vibrant place though, when I walked around,

I’ve come across a Police cordon, notice to seek a witness for rape attack kind etc.

When local MP Harriet Harman (local though, she is living in the much nicer hillside

miles away   🙂 ) walked about the town with Police, she was wearing bullet-proof jacket

(hence created big public uproar).     The place was dubbed as “Little Lagos” as lots of

Nigerians were living here still, these days, I saw many Kosovars,  Vietnamese,  

and ever increasing Chinese. (used to have a lots of Afghans as well) 

With its ethnic mix, the vegie shop is selling from hottest Habanero Chilli

(Photo top), Plantain Banana, huge Yam to Bok Choy etc and the meat

 is Halal (for Mosrim). 

Since the lens got awful lots of fungi which I can’t clean as they are between 

the stacked lenses, the halation is inevitable, still it’s managed to capture 

some details in the shadow ! = rather amazing.

And even Peckham has Cherry too ! 

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Images from Southbank (B)

Well, they were the rest of shots of the day at Southbank by the

“Homemade Two Element Lens”

— (This Lens was for Canon version, but I got Nikon version as well.)    🙂

I think, this lens and its images has enough significance, say raison de etre.

Anyhow you don’t need to agree.  😀

(What this lens amazed me was, despite its fuzziness, it still shows good details.) 

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Images from Southbank (A)

Like a word “City” mean a specific area of London, adjoining the north of Tower

of London where a lots of Banks, financial establishments were concentrated,

a word “Southbank” having special meaning as the center of the art performance,

from the music concert to the art exhibition.  

So, I’ve been this area quite often, long since —– though, this time it was

nothing to do with their art but just a casual snapshot on the street.

The lens used was that “Homemade Two elements Lens” consisting with two

plastic lenses = one from Toy Camera and a specs’ lens for short-eye sighted.

—– I didn’t design the lens but that toy lens happen to be there and I just

stretched its focal length by placing a concave lens on front.

(made it as a Retrofocus type)

(The beauty of this lens is, there is no focus or Iris control = just click it !)

I don’t have much of intention to control the image.  I happen to be there and

the scenery was there.  (by the way, there was no PS kind of process but just clop.)

Anyhow, this lens happen to have this quality which I like very much. 

It’s a fun indeed.  😀

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Magnolia – 2015 (B)

This Magnolia was an utterly unexpected discoverly.  And beyond of my knowledge

and imagination — came from where or if it was a garden variety, how it was

created from which parents ? ? ?  

She is a tall tree and the flower is huge = as big as a Magnolia Grandiflora

 ( even 10″~12″ ) still, flowering long before the leaves was coming out

= closer to the Kobus but not Grandiflora.

In closer look I wonder if they are in fact a kind of invertebrate from the sea ?

—– You know what I feel and that was why I wanted to create fuzzy image.  🙂

Lens used was Canon EF Macro 100mm F2.8 and Tamron 500mm Mirror F8

on Canon 5D Mk-3.   (Some fuzzy pictures were taken by Homemade Lens.  🙂  )

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Magnolia-2015-(A)

Magnolia here must be a garden variety of Magnolia Kobus, its origin was a Japanese

“Kobushi” (こぶし）which has 6 petals.  But I don’t know the Garden Name.

In this post, the photos were taken by a homemade Lens on Tilting Bellows.

And if it was not fuzzy, it was done by the Canon EF Macro 100 mm F2.8.

I still like those fuzzy images.  🙂 

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Cherry blossoms with ultimate Bokeh !

In this post I experimented the Cherry photo with strongest ever kind of Bokeh.

The lens I used was appeared here before as a Proxer (close-up lens) which was

in fact a front element of a TV zoom lens.   But, in this occasion, lens itself was

used as a photo-taking lens, somewhat 60mm F1.4 lens mounted on front of the

Tilting Macro Bellows (hence, good for a Macro photo as well though, take macro

photo of shaky flower under windy condition was not easy at all.)

—– Yes, they got big Bokeh what I expected though, — it seems, it’s gone too far.  😀

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Play with Lens (2) — Tamron 300mm F5.6

On the previous post, I’ve shown you many samples of the fuzzy, soft-focus images

created by the (mostly) single convex lens.   And I had a belief that the single

convex lens which inherently possessing aberration would produce soft image.

Yet still, what I have tested was the lenses about 50mm focal length —– then I thought,

if I can get longer (= telephoto) soft-focus lens I could take nice photos from distance.

(Pentax had 80mm Soft-focus lens and Canon used to have 135mm Soft lens though

their effect was rather subtle.)

—– So, why not to see it with the front element of a telephoto lens. 

What I tested was old (70s ?) tamron 300 mm F5.6 lens. (Photo above — bottom left was  

the front element and the bottom right was the rear element.

(this rear lens seems to be a 2 element compound lens) 

Photo above is the test shot of the Tamron 300 mm F5.6 (center photo was the part

enlargement of the photo left (full-size) and the right photo was by the Tamron 500 mm

F8 Mirror lens as a comparison) —– 500 mm lens showed much clear image though

this 300 mm lens was not in the original and in good condition. ( — Even worse,

those photos were taken through the dusty double glazed window)  🙂

The question was if this front element alone could show the soft image ?

Photo above, both left and the center were taken while rear element was removed

(= Front lens alone ! )    (This lens could focus down to 1m = 1/3 close-up.)

Well, with or without the rear element which supposed to eliminate

the aberration did not make much of difference. (on this occasion)

= My attempt to make fuzzy telephoto lens was failed so far.  🙂

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Play with Lens

 So far I made quite few lenses to obtain soft-focus or wide-angle pinhole etc,

mostly by utilizing single lens. (still, some of them seemed to be an achromatic

compound lens)  Single lens has inherent aberrations which produces soft image.

Furthermore, I’ve experimented soft images with focus shift or even with camera

shake/vibration using aberration corrected normal lenses. Though, those approaches 

were hardly called technique but more like an opportunist seeking a good luck, since 

the success rate was rather low = lots of try and only few will show the good results. 

That’s because, when the focus ring was rotated while camera’s shutter was open,   

the resulting shake gives devastating effect than a soft nice blur.

= make smooth focus shift while camera was held steadily. = That’s what I need. 

Inside of the Canon G9 compact camera, I found pretty useful mechanism.  

(1) A motor moves the lens.  (2) Small stepping motor shifts a lens for focus.

—– though, those two mechanisms were constructed on the same plastic piece.

(Photo above, left) = I needed to cut and separate its center mechanism out of the

lim with DC motor.  (second photo shows the separated piece = the lim which can

drive a cogged barrel — in the second photo top, the lens was placed in the barrel)  

Photo 3rd and 4th showed the center mechanism — the lens was pushed out most

and pulled inward most by its stepping motor.

The photo above, left is the cogged barrel = when it was rotated by the motor,

the barrel, hence the lens will be extended(= Pushed out) (photo center)  

When motor rotate opposite direction = lens was pulled in. (photo right)

Those function is exactly what I need for a smooth Focus-shift.

 In order to have an experiment to get a soft focus by the focus-shift ( by a normal

lens, not by the aberration) I took the lens unit out of a Canon 50mm FD lens.  

(Photographic equivalent of gouging the eye !)

( a disc shaped mechanism on the right is the Iris — very useful device )

The lens unit which I’ve put inside of the plastic barrel, in the photo before was this

Canon 50mm F1.8 Lens.  —– though, on the test, I found that this Canon 50mm FD

lens can’t give an infinity focus on Canon EOS = only usable closer than few meters.

(otherwise, the EOS’s mirror will hit the lens bottom.  😦  )

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Then, give a thought, what all those hustle for ?

—– Why not just modify a Canon EF 50mm for EOS = 

put an extra electronic connection to override their AF motor !

(Ideally, huck into the Canon camera’s OS and reprogram it to give a focus-shift while

shutter is open = was the best though, not only the risk to destroy the camera but also,

the Canon doesn’t like it at all. ) 

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