Fancy a Fancy Lens ?

Among my weird looks (often its function too) lenses this is the most fancy one.  

It was made out of the front element of a cheap fish-eye converter and 

the focusing element of the discarded Canon G9 compact camera.

(As the focusing lens had stepping motor built-in, I thought I could make

“Focus Shift” unit though, it didn’t work with strong front concave lens)

So, this fancy lens does just ordinary job = able to take mediocre photo.  😀

Just like as a 60th Instamatic Camera, (though on a rather expensive setting)

the lens works just as a camera lens and produce “so so” kind of the images.

— still, considering it has only two lenses = front concave lens and the lear

convex lens and no focus at all,  it wasn’t too bad.

—–> with a kind of routine test here, this lens showed this character :

Since this wasn’t an omnifocus type of the lens, I needed to give a focus for close shot.

(Lens wasn’t fully inserted into the camera = about 2mm lifted-up from the mount)

= with the best focus, its image was surprisingly good ! (Photo left and the center)

But, when lens was fully mounted, the image was hopeless. (Photo right)

—– I’m not sure whether this lens ever become my fancy  🙂

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Forget me not — by Focus Shift (yet again)

Yet again Focus Shift photos — in fact all of those flower photos in the park 

were taken in one session, just in a different corner.

The lenses used were either Canon FD 50 mm F1.8 or Canon EFS 18~55 mm IS-II.

The photos which showed closer, hence more out-of-focus bokeh were taken

by 50 mm lens otherwise they were taken by EFS zoom (often on wider setting).

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Rhododendron in the Park — by Focus Shift

Long time ago, I was seeing the Rhododendron in the mountain.  

Then I saw them in the Kew Garden —– I’m afraid those memories

 are getting afar and fading.   Now, I’m seeing a bit in a local park,

— may be I should be contented or I need to be thankful that I did

have the struggle to go through gorgeous bush of Rhododendron.

I don’t know why the fragile sister of Rhododendron was named Azarea.

To know about the “Focus Shift” please go to the previous post and the links.

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Flowers in the Park — by Focus Shift

In here the shots of the Flowers in the Park, taken by Focus Shift 

using the Canon FD 50 mm F1.8 or EFS 18~55 Zoom lens. 

Well, not necessary everything was flower.  🙂

Since this plant above is a cousin of Hydrangea, the white decorative part around 

are not a flower, in strict botanical term, they are called sepals (a kind of leaf).

As the camera was hand-held, not only the Bokeh created by the shifted focus

(= intentionally added out-of-focus bokeh) but also the blurr by the shake

might be mixed as well.  Shifting the focus on the Canon EFS zoom was done

by driving their AF motor and the FD 50 mm lens was purposely modified to

do the shift.

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How weird ! ? ? ? — Where the Ghost came from ?

While checking the photo taken by motorized Canon FD 50mm lens,

I found that those photos were utterly odd.

Those two were the consecutive photos, next to each other.  Though, 

the data recorded was — the left photo = A0452 , 4.2MB / Right photo

= A0453, 3.6MB and strangely  both were taken 14:29:44 (= exactly the

same time — of course, on the same 44th second, my 5D could have shot 

5 frames though the camera has been set to shoot only a single frame).  

What odd of those photos were —– obviously the camera shot the same 

flowers, yet they don’t look the same. = some flowers were stationed 

still, looks not exactly the same.  If all the flowers in the right photo

really existed on front of the lens, why they were not in the left photo.

And if the left photo was the real one, where all those additional flowers

= ghost images came from.  There was no similar image on any of the

preceding shot = no possibility of the memory mix-up in the camera.

A0452

A0453

If you download each photo and see each of them by alternately clicking 

next and back again = you can see which flowers keep the same position

and which flowers appeared and disappeared.  —– ? ? ? —– How wierd ?

How those flowers could disappear.   Were they existed there at all ?

Have you seen like this ?  Such happening was the first ever in my life

= the spooky images I never encountered before.   

Of course, I didn’t manipulate the photo at all (a bit brightened though) 

and the photo wasn’t a copy of the other.  —– Could anybody explain,

was that caused by the camera’s malfunction or else ? — But how ? ? ?

Please give me your opinion.

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Flower Patch (6) — Canon FD 50mm F1.8 Focus Shift

While a patch of flowers are blooming, I should test the Lenses as many as possible.

So, on this post, it was the Canon FD 50 mm F1.8 which was modified to have a motorized

focus.  Funnily enough, the controller of this operation was not that device I’ve designed

for focus-shift but for vibrating a lens.  Despite the battery voltage was low

(nominal 3.7 V battery could give 4.2 V soon after a flesh charge), I found that the

 same device could work for focus-shift as well with some adjustment of the timing.

Unlike the other Lenses of Canon EFS 18~55mm or Tamron &0~300mm, this

50mm lens was worked well on a hand-held shooting, and the pictures’

highlight got pretty smooth halo on them.  = That was what I wanted.

The lens was mounted in the plastic barrel which came from a broken Canon

compact camera G9, and with its barrel, the lens can extend to a close-up range

= almost 1/2 size though, unfortunately a blurring halo is an arch enemy of a

macro photography. —– still, some time, the result looks not too bad.  

(See the Bokeh on the blue flower, photo above, (click to enlarge) = they

don’t follow the “Depth of field” ! —– I don’t know how the 5D processed it )

When the lens was re-constructed in the G9’s barrel, I didn’t put the Iris,

therefore this lens is always fully open F1.8 = in this condition, quality of 

the image was rather good.   (You may feel, it’s too funny of me to say that

— Yes, a man after fuzzy image still see an importance of the sharpness)  🙂

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Flower Patch (5) — by 2-Element Homemade Lens (B)

2Ele Nikon

And the lens here was the other one, for Nikon mount type.  

Nikon fitting can be mounted 

on a Canon Eos body but not 

the other way round because 

the Nikon body (its frange-back 

on the Lens mount) is 2.5 mm

 thicker = Canon Lens on a Nikon body

can’t have an infinity focus but in the other hand, a mount 

converter on Canon for Nikon can have 2.5 mm to play with.

(Photo above, the lens was fitted with Nikon to EOS adapter.)

—– the reason why I further made Nikon type of this lens was,

“I wanted to have this fuzzy image in 32 MP sensor”— serious !   

(but the Canon is going to have 50 MP soon, how interesting.

—– Why 200K kind of image needs 20Mb size details ?

= this is THE Paradox — or joke Sir.   😀  )

Those two have a similar structure though, looks very different.

= Nikon type is much smaller still, as its front lens got stronger

curvature, it got stronger distortion.  And unlike Canon type,

I didn’t put an Iris (hole in a black-tape) the image has more flair.

—– (for a sake of choice, I left this fuzziness as it is.)

I got quite few lenses which give me sharp image, so it’s nice to have other

choices of the lenses which could create fuzzy, painterly images from subtle

to utterly impressionists painting like one.  The beauty of this exercise is,

I don’t need to rely on the tool (so called program) somebody else has made.

My art has to be created by myself and for it, I don’t use a readymade template.

(of cause, I didn’t make 5D camera myself, still some time I do.)   Ha ha ha.

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Flower Patch (4) — by 2-Element Homemade Lens (A)

There are two “2-Element Homemade Lens” = both were based on the

(supposedly) same toy camera lens (seems to have 27 mm focal length) but

one was using HOYA short-eyesight specs lens to lengthening the focal 

length, suits for a full-frame Canon 5D.  The other was using a strong concave

lens, came from a discarded zoom’s front element, and I made this for Nikon 

(though, for this test, I’ve used it on 5D with “Nikon to EOS” mount adapter.)  

As the original lens was designed for focus-free, they are the easiest  lens to 

use = unlike Pinhole, at least I could see the finder image, still no need to focus 

= just click, thanks to the camera’s AV mode.   🙂

And the photos in this post were taken by the HOYA-Canon type.

As focus-free, the lens could capture from quite close range to the distant subject

with very reasonable quality with an added “good” softness and the good deal of

halation which makes me smile with fun.  🙂

(though, I haven’t established whether its softness was the toy camera’s inherent character

 or caused by the added lens —– whichever the cause, it wouldn’t spoil my fun.)

And the images made by the toy camera lens (hence, close-up only) was in this post.

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Flower Patch (3) — by Double Density Pinhole

When the sun was bright and the distinctive (esp’ in color) subjects were there

= it’s the time to take the Wide-angle DD-Pinhole out.    As a kind of image, this 

lens could produce the most typical “Impressionistic” painterly image.

I very much like the image though, I may not have found the best subject

for this Lens yet.     (May be I need to go to the countryside where 

old masters took their canvas out.  🙂 )

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Flower Patch (2) — by Anastigmat Lens

The shot from the same flower Patch as before but by the 100 year old 

German Anastigmat Lens.  There was no fancy operation or trick, but just

click a DSLR Canon 5D on AV mode, while the lens was fully open F5.4.

(Focus was done by a Pentax Helicoid Extension Tube)

On this last picture, there are funny halo on the whitish flowers = almost like

a Focus-Shift or Lens Vibration though they were only a straight shot if not

by a hand blurr (but not likely) —– I’m not sure what caused it.  The 100 year 

old lens has no crisp image still able to show certain details but nothing more.

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