Japanese New Era is coming

Well well, not for tomorrow’s April fool, but Japan is going to have the new name of the Era for coming new Emperor.    Japanese calendar system has the name of each Era with each Emperor’s throne.  Which is the continuing tradition of the past 2500 years, started on the time of the legend of Emperor  Jinmu.  So that the coming new Emperor Naruhito is its 256th Emperor.  = in other words, the current Emperor Akihito’s (He is going to cede the throne to his son Naruhito on 1st of May)  Heisei Era will end tomorrow.  (I remember the day, when I went to see the wedding parade of Prince Akihito and his bride, Michiko in their hose drawn coach. — I think I was a secondary school boy then) 

—– anyhow, on this last day, I should clear the stacked photos of Heisei while it is still in its era.

(Those photos were taken by ZM2 lens and Helicoid B lens on Nikon Z7)

On the end Japan got their new name of the era as Reiwa (令和) —– long live to them.    🙂   🙂   🙂

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Short Walk (B)

Those photos were another product of the same Short Walk (A), hence using the same homemade lenses Helicoid (A) and (B) on the Sony A7R.     While walking through the park, finding which flower is really a chance encounter, and how to capture it, while seeing the character of the optics and the shape of the flower, how to compose it, in which angle and the distance IS what all about the Photography.  In certain extent, it is a game or the match between the two personalities.  In Zen Buddhist term, we are living on the moment to moment life.   And to deal with the Person (subject just encountered) as if there is nothing else exists and nothing else to do is, so-called Mindfulness, and in this mind-set, there is no Ego.   So, this situation is a proof of the No-self or Anatman.   Yet still, in other stance, to see a subject as a subject might be seen as yet another Ego, therefore not aim the subject but to see everything as the everything may be a right view.   Though, in practice, the image of an ultra-wide angle lens clicked random is just a mess —– so, the question is, whether the Zen needs a nice answer ?    Or such answer itself is not Zen ? ? ?  —– Good question.   What a nice day ! —– Ha ha ha,  😀  

Helicoid (A) lens happen to have an Iris, so that, by the depth of field control, flower showed a bit more details, still, take the image of Helicoid (B) (photo right) is a matter of the taste.

Both (A) and (B) lenses, its center of close-up images are amazingly good.

Those two pictures were given a shake when the shutter was opened. (Don’t ask me what for — it’s only for a fun)

I realized that I don’t have many photos of the Blue Bell.  May be their flower is too common, yet only in a short period.  Still, why it makes the difference to the Cherry ? —– M m m ?  —– I might have an unconscious notion, that the Cherry is the Japanese but the Blue Bell is English.   But why ? ? ? —– May be because, I didn’t grow up with Blue Bell but with Cherry.   As the photography is a way of the Self expression, it became a kind of a biography.

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Short Walk (A)

In deed, I haven’t have done a photo-walk a while. —– without a reason = IS a problem = just getting lazy.   So, bashing myself and went out with a camera and two lenses. (still, all in one pocket = that’s a beauty of the small homemade lenses. = Helicoid (A) and (B) lenses with Sony A7R)

You may wonder what was a point to have those two lenses.   Ha ha ha, you are right.  Both of them are equally fuzzy lenses.  The differences were, —– if the fuzzy surrounding has Coma bokeh, it was the (A) lens.  And if it was with Astigmatism bokeh, it was the (B) lens.   Both for the sake of painterly effect which I like very much.

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Camberwell Cherry by NZ Lens

While passing through by bus, I noticed that a Cherry tree in a corner of the Green was in full bloom.  So, I went back there with my camera together with some homemade lenses. 

(In this photo the red cast seemed to be created by the camera’s image processor — may be non genuine lens may not work well with this camera (Sony A7R)

Cherry itself seemed to be a primitive wild cherry, we called Yama-zakura (Mountain Cherry) in Japan, not the well cultivated Kan-zakura (Winter Cherry), nevertheless Cherry flower is the Cherry flower. (May be from the mountain standard, the climate in the town was warm enough to open their flowers.)

(The photo above left was the other tree nearby — this one seems a Plum flower)

The photos in here were taken by the lens called (or, I named) NZ lens.  It was a Nikon Zoom lens which I utilized its front element, and made it as an individual lens. (Works as a 90 mm F1.6 and able to focus down to 45 cm)  Its macro quality was not too bad though, it got a strong aberration and together with its “Fully open” F1.6 aperture (Think, 90 mm F1.6 is pretty big), it’s creates “Fantastic” fuzzy images like those top photos.  They were shot while using 10 mm extension ring.  And this fuzziness IS very unusual = it looks like a halo in the highlight which spread around still, the details and the contrast in highlight was maintained. = I never seen the image like this.   (If you agree with it.  😀 )  

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Lens Comparison (2)

This photo — by the Zeiss 18mm F3.5 on Nikon D850 / ISO 800, 250th Sec —– (All the photos in this post were cropped only in its hight, and the width were kept as its original to show the relative angle of view of each lens —– for example, after the widest 18mm, next wide image was shown here by the Fun lens, which was originally an one-time use panorama camera and the viewing angle was the 35mm equivalent of 27mm lens.)

Seeing the same old sky, I took the picture of the same, with many different lenses —– and made more or less the same images.  😀

Still, they are only a half of my homemade lens stocks.  (It’s annoyed myself a bit) 😀

The first of this operation was, the Helicoid (B) with a setting of ISO100, 650th Sec —– since this lens has the brightness about fully open F2.2,and 2.2 only = no iris = needed to use lower ISO.

By the so-called Fun Lens / ISO 100, 15th

By the Helicoid (A) / ISO 100, 320th

By the G9 lens / ISO 100, 1250th

By the Double Density Pinhole / ISO 6400, 250th

By the G10 lens / ISO 50, 640th

By the Mag lens / ISO 50, 650th

By the Sony 30mm F3.5 / ISO 50, 500th —– I can not stop thinking, what this “sharper” image can give us, more than the other fuzzy images ?

By the Sony/Zeiss 55mm F1.8 / ISO 50, 2000th (It seems something wrong with this lens’ focus = even with manual setting, the lens moves away when the shutter was pressed = may be that’s why it was offered so cheap. (and lots of them in the Ebay)   😀 

100 years old Kodak lens (equivalent of 175mm F10 / ISO 400, 500th —– as a 175mm telephoto lens, the image was quite good, especially considering that the lens consists only symmetric 2 glasses, that’s all ! )

By the Koda-Fun lens / ISO 50, 4000th

By the SZ lens / ISO 50, 1250th

By the so-called Omuni (focus)lens / ISO 50, 1250th

More or less the same fuzzy images though, still got each character.  It’s not too bad to play with those lenses.  (Anyhow, they didn’t cost me much — still gave me a lots of fun)

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What on Photography

Although it was a bit cropped, still this was a quite wide-angle view (18mm) of a morning sky, and this was more or less the view what we are actually seeing = in other words, this IS a faithful representation of the view = and that was what we expect to a photo.  —– So, the Photo IS a COPY of the subject, therefore if the subject wasn’t there in the first place, the Photo couldn’t exist neither.  And may be because of that, the Photo competition prohibit the Photoshopped photo.   Photo has to stay as a faithful secondary image of the subject.

And this is the image of the same sky, taken by the other camera at about the same moment of the photo on top.

So, this is a tricky situation. This photo above may be seen to be an illegal image using a ready-made digital effect, so-called “Filter” such as in a smart phone.

But this is the natural character of the lens.  From the common sense, this images may not to be regarded a Photo still, this IS the image, straight out of the photographic device / camera.  (Downsized to 1200x*** and collaged by Picasa in my XP laptop)

They were the images out of Sony A7R with so-called Helicoid (B) lens. —– If the photography was a mean to express oneself, those photos may have my feeling which evokes much deeper into your subconscious.  And they were not by the ready-made effect but only one of the kind in the world. (Whether you like it or not.)   😀

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Oxford Street, it WAS

I know, I should have done this week ago.  Nevertheless, here the photos.

Those window decorations were from Selfridges —– but I wasn’t so much impressed.

(Strange green colorings in the shadow area was created by the Sony image processor. —– It IS a headache with this camera.)

So, it WAS a so-called Xmas decoration. (Now there are only Sale, Sale signs)  😀 —– Most of the photos were taken by  the Homemade G9 lens.  (except last one which was by Sony 30mm F3.5 and the camera was Sony A7R)

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NZ Lens

Before, I’ve made close-up lens out of a front element of the zoom lens.  So, I wanted to make something different from this Nikon zoom lens. (AF-S Nikkor 18~200 G ED)  Conveniently, the front element of this zoom lens extend  = it’s mean I don’t need to look for a focusing helicoid to use with this lens. (It’s already there.)  😀

The matter of conversion was, to mount the separated front lens unit to a camera body.  There was a possibility to make the lens for Nikon mount. —– but on the end, I found that, unless I could trim off yet another 2.5mm from the lens barrel, it was only useable on Sony E mount.  The photo above was showing how the glue-up connection was made. (Aluminium ring was glued to the lens barrel first, then it was stick to the body mount.) (First plan was to mount the lens unit to a lens reverse adapter for Nikon though, as it couldn’t get an infinity focus, plan was changed to Sony = an adapter to use EOS lens to E-mount was chosen for its matching diameter.)

So far this lens is the heaviest among my homemade lenses.  Looks a bit strange though, it would give an impression of some kind of professional gear, not a homemade mock-up.  😀

Photo above are the test shots of this NZ (NZ for Nikon-Zoom) lens.  It looks the most murky, fuzziest image out of my many homemade lenses.  It was not a kind of light scattered halation — much more fundamental = light is not focused to single point (worse than spherical aberration and the image field was curved) —– Mind you, against its focal length (about 90mm) the diameter of this lens was 60mm =  it’s mean, 90mm lens brighter than F1.5. — Well, unless it was a few thousand pounds lens, no designer would give any guaranty of the decent quality for such bright lens.—– If I could produce decent sharp image out of this lens, it is a fraud. 

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G9 Snapshot of the town

Well, they may looks all same.  😀       The shot by a homemade G9 lens on Nikon D850.     A kind of mystery was that D850 recorded this lens as a 50mm F2 lens = it’s more or less correct  (F2.5 was more likely figure though) —– How they found this ? ? ? 

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Snap the town by Mag lens (3)

How weird ! ? ? ?  (of the image of Mag lens or my eyes ?) —– I know.   😀

(I’m going to further this with G10 lens etc — some may say, It’s an obsession.) ——– Oh, my my my, it’s snowing.

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