Leitz 50 mm-vs-Zeiss 55 mm

Casually I called Leitz Elmarit lens I used on the Nikon Z in the previous post, a homemade though, glass itself was a serious Leitz product. Hence, having a proper optical quality as we expect. —– ? was it ? = was that quality, within a normal standard ?

—– So, I made a comparizon.

This is the test image taken by the Leitz Elmarit P 50 mm F2.8 at F2.8. With the focus peaking. (Photo right was a part enlargement of the centre = the top of the tree) —– the small twig still maintain its detail though, is this fuzziness normal ?

So, to have a close comparizon, Zeiss Sonner FE 55 mm F1.8 lens was mounted to the same Nikon Z7 body and had the test shot on the same tree, same condition. (since Zeiss / Sony lens has a funny habit = keep move the focus, so that, click the shutter when focus was peaked) In the photo right, some leaves on the tree were coloured red = may be an effect of the chromatic aberration. Was it ? Wait a moment = this is not a £1 junk projection lens but a genuine Zeiss / Sony lens costed hundreds of the pounds. (Even though it was made in Thailand)

Then, I gave yet another test = Zeiss Sonner lens was mounted on the Sony A7R body and had exposure of F1.8 and F8. (manual focus) —– F1.8 image (photo above middle) was the sharpest among all the photos in this post. (Though, strangely F8 image = photo right, was soft —– very difficult to make a precise manual focus on this A7R camera)

Since the same Zeiss lens showed no chromatic aberration on the A7R body here, there is a possibility of either (1) Sony has correction program built into their image processor to compensate lens’s own aberration. or (2) The lens’s obstruction = keep moves its focus when the lens was not mounted on the Sony body = moves only a small part of lens, only to destruct the clear image, hence making big chromatic aberration on the Nikon Z body.

Yet those photos here showed very different strory. The photos were taken same as those photos above.

= Zeiss lens on the Sony A7R body. Exposed on F1.8 and F8. —– But here, F1.8 image (photo middle) showed funny chromatic aberration (red leaves)

(This is the puzzle = how those red leaves were created ? The Sony camera and their image processor seemed to hide too many puzzles.)

—– the correction program of Sony Image Processor may be working erratic. (still, how to make only some leaves red on the Nikon Z and on the Sony A7R as well looks too strange = In fact, the culprit mast be the Lens, not the camera, though, how this Zeiss FE lens can put the red color to a selected part of the image ? === this phenomenon needs to be investigated further !

This is a problem of the “Soft controled digital imaging” = it would make a pretty picture though, it may work, may not work like a Beauty App. That why I hate those artificial images. (Still, film photography can create strange phenomena too —– but, as I didn’t have an experience to enlarge a 35 mm color photo to 1.5 m big and examin the details, may be I was not aware )

Here, they are the shot to finish-off this argument (of Red Leaves) made by Zeiss Sonner 55 mm ZE lens. = The lens was tested at F1.8 if it showes chromatic aberration of red and green fringe on the roof pattern. = The result was as you see. (When the lens was fore-focused, the image has green fringe — photo above right)

And I found a very interesting bokeh pattern on the tree behind. The question is, is this the quarity of the lens which says “Sony / Zeiss Sonner” ? ? ? ( 55 mm is not special, neither F1.8 is difficult to design)

So, how about the chromatic aberration of the Nikon 50 mm F1.2 (photo middle) and F2.8 (photo right) —– a lots of red leaves seems to be here too ! = We shouldn’t be surprised. —– Otherwise we need to pay thousands of £ for a lens which shows no aberration on fully opened iris. === Only the question IS, why we need such perfect image ? ? ? (May be the obsession.) = If you want to see the perfect image, come down to the tree and see it close)

The reason why we don’t see such Chromatic aberration everyday, —– (1) We don’t use maximum F-aperture often, except in the very dark situation. And if it was dark, we can’t see such color fringe in the dark details. (2) In those lenses (Zeiss 55 mm, Nikkor 50 mm) when we stop down two or three stops, the aberration would be disappeared = hence we don’t became aware its existence. (3) We don’t enlarge the image to such big size. = so that, in the small print, the color fringe (even if it’s there) would be buried in the details. (If you are seeing the enlarged tree top photos in this post on a PC screen, it is the equivalent of seeing a 36×24 mm size photo enlarged to the 120 cm x 80 cm (43″x32″) and giving a close look.

The aberration is an optical phenomena, when the light was not converged into the focal point and spread to the surroundings as well, make the image fuzzy. Among the cause of such problem, if it was coused by the way how the light was bend differently by its color (= wave length) it was called Chromatic Aberration. As you might remember to see the rainbow 7 colors made by a prisome, when the light go through the glass they bend according to the wave length (= color). To solve this problem, converging lens which bend the red light more to outward and the diverging lens which bend the blue light more to outward were combined together to conpensate each other to the light concentrate to the same focal point (so to make a sharp picture). —– While making the light bend inward and outward, still make them to converge to the same focal point, optical designer use the fancy technique and special glass etc etc = that’s why good lens is using 10 or more glasses inside of one lens. (= making such lens hugely expensive) —– Sigh 😀

—– Still, it is rather rare to see such prominent Chromatic Aberration like the red leaves here, —– in most of the case, the fringe color appeared only on the edge of the details and make the picture just a bit soft. (Hence the most of the people doesn’t became aware such things ever existed in his lens. )

And in this point, why the Leitz projection lens I’ve talked on the begining of this post showed such character become clear, = the projection lens showes the 35 mm slide image hugely enlarged therefore the chromatic aberration would become quite visible yet, a bit soft image wouldn’t be much of the trouble as the larger the projected image, people view it from the larger distance.

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It seems, the battle between the camera, lens keep going on. 😀

Fuji-Fun lens

In the 80s, before this country got money from the North sea oil.  And it was long before the  digital revolution, in fact even before the Walkman not mention any digital sound, the Disposable / One-time use camera was very popular.   Simply the people haven’t got the money to buy proper camera.  Anyway, even with an expensive camera, the use of the camera / film was as such, in one film, it started with Xmas and finished with next Xmas kind.  So that, to buy Disposable camera on each occasion was not such bad idea. 

And local chemist taking care of all those photographic business = sending the film to a lab and giving back the printed pictures to the customer.   Shop people take a film out of those disposable camera and send only the film to the lab = its mean, the left over carcase of those disposable camera filling their bin.   So, I got those discarded camera from their bin, while thinking “One day, I’ll use those plastic lens in somewhere else.” 

The lens to film (sensor) has to be 30 mm, Nikon Z’s frangeback is 16 mm, leaving 14 mm to maneuver.  In order to manage this  14 mm, I used a helicoid extension ring 12~17 mm and M42 to NEX adaptor both from China.  With this helicoid, the lens can give a focus from infinity to 0.3 m close-up.  (Since the lens itself has NEX mount, it can be used on Sony A7R as well.)

The most of lens of those disposable camera is just one plastic disc.   Optically they are very well designed aspherical lens and together with its built-in small iris, the camera can give a omnifocus effect.  (In any distance, the picture would be reasonably good on 3×5 print = Basically, this lens can produce pretty good image with its designated small F-aperture.  But to use this lens in such a way has no point for me = If so, why not use the camera as it was intended = as in an original form )

But I’m using this lens without its small iris therefore the out of focus blurred image, together with its halation is masking the decent image.  And instead of having deep depth of field by its small F-aperture, I used a helicoid focus.  On the end, the lens produces rather funny image = they are not sharp but not necessary soft image like an old Zeiss lens or Kodak Vest Pocket Lens.   So, I’m not sure what is the advantage of this lens. —– and I got, yet another 12 more of them !   I’m having rather absurd life.   😀

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110 Pentax 24mm Lens (2)

I realized that the tiny toy like Pentax 110 camera’s 24 mm F2.8 lens appeared to be very critical lens.  What I mean critical is, as it was designed by the Pentax, aiming to achieve their 110 photo’s quality comparable to full size 35 mm, so the quality of the lens is very high —– and it’s requirement / the standard must be also high. 

In this blog, I’ve been plying with hundred of tinkering job, —– though, its standard is pretty casual.  I’m doing it in my kitchen, without having even an optical bench.  And I demonstrated that how the standard of the optics can be not critical. = typically like “Twisted lens” demonstration or  “F-Aperture control” kind. —– still I could manage those tinkering with good success.   So, when I adapted 110 24mm lens to Sony A7R body, I just made a hole in a Sony’s body cap and inserted the bottom of the 24mm lens then fixed it by Epoxi glue.  I thought, I’ve adjusted infinity very well (as A7R’s focus peaking works perfect) —– but later, I noticed that the focus was not even = left-hand side was a bit out.

Yet, the slant of the lens was barely visible = the lens may not off the straight perpendicular less than 1 degree —– though, lens was short focus 24mm, of which only 2mm of lens shift makes the focus from infinity to 0.35m.  It’s mean, even less than 0.1mm off-position on one side would spoil sharp infinity image. (Especially, here the lens is always fully open F2.8)

There was a funny paradox here.  24mm lens for 110 Pentax was a standard lens, = obviously, the lens for 110 Pentax was expecting to be used and worked as a standard lens.  But the same 24mm lens for 35mm camera was a very wide-angle. Therefore, while 24mm lens for Nikon was having distance scale  ∞, 3, 1.5, 1, 0.7 —m, 24mm lens for 110 Pentax has much finer scale  ∞, 8, 4, 2, 1.5, 1, —m,  and the focus seemed to be also quite critical.  (But, to fully satisfy those potential in the Pentax Auto 110 needs to have very delicate, fine handling while see the image in its small SLR view finder —– though, as the 110 body here was broken and I couldn’t see the finder image, I can’t tell if their aim to make hi-quality image was materialized by this system as a whole or not.

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110 Pentax Lens on A7R

OMG, —– I found a EOS 620 body and a tiny Pentax 110 (both of them were broken junk state) for hefty £5 in the odds & ends box of the City Camera Exchange, Strand Shop.  (They got the best junk in London as well as the latest expensive cameras, and if you feel hungly, you can have the best lunch or dinner in the Simpsons, only few steps round a corner.)   😀

EOS body may be used as a display dummy for my (Canon mount) homemade lens, and the tiny 110 Pentax lens, should make a good fun to test it. 

To test this Pentax lens on Sony A7R body was very easy = just mount the tiny lens on an A7R body cap — Infinity focus was happened to be almost straight.  (but there is no Iris as the camera was designed to give an Auto-exposure by Aperture and the Shutter speed combined system.  = So, the lens works as a 24mm F2.8 only lens, and the focus works very well. (If your finger is small enough to pinch its small lens front)   😀

As the lens is rather bright F2.8 = focused depth is quite shallow yet still, the image where focused was very sharp and crisp.   Though, since the lens was designed for 110 Instamatic size, image circle doesn’t cover the 35mm full screen of course.   (and I wouldn’t attempt to make it Retro-focus with a concave lens to spread the image.)

Don’t to be fooled, even if the camera, lens were such small, like a children’s toy,  Pentax seemed to designed its lens with their full force. = image was such crisp = I would say, too prosaic !  The lens showed no chromatic aberration, in fact it got no aberration at all.  (May be in reverse use, lens may work as a pretty good macro lens. —– I’ll test it on future.)

Still, such small lens on the small mirrorless camera is very comfortable and CUTE ! = I wouldn’t complain the dark surroundings.  Its a own character and a part of fun.

for comparison, this was a shot by the 110 AUTO 18mm —– think, this is 18mm and fully open f2.8 = the quality is very high !

Well, we can have a lot more fun from those old lenses.

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Moon by Non-telephoto lens

I took a picture of the Moon too many times = It’s the same moon for the millions of nights = So,  I’m rather weary to take out my 500mm lens = I just clicked a camera with the lens happen to be on.

The camera happen to be the Sony A7R with a modified Kodak Vest Pocket Camera lens on.  With this structure of the lens, we can not hope a good focus.  Still, whatsoever the picture was made as this.  (Since the Vest pocket camera had no focusing mechanism, I wonder how the picture of the moon looked like on the original camera ? —– I haven’t tested it yet.  Sorry.)

As the lens on A7R is easy to change, I put (yet again a modified) Zeiss Baby Ikonta camera’s 50mm lens. (This lens has front-focushing = And, it was set to infinity though, the image was not sharp at all. = You may say Don’t ask too much to 90 years old antic. —– generally this lens works well = but may not for a real infinity subject.)

(In both shots, the F-aperture was fully open,  VP = F6.6 / Ikonta was F4.5 and  1/250 or so shutter speed —– because I was not intended to make any sharp image = otherwise why do I used junk lens ? )

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Morning Sky on Oct’ 2018

( 13-10-2018   / 06:04 —– by Zeiss Distagon 18mm F3.5 for Nikon on Nikon D850)

It seems this was the only second morning red sky in this autumn.  Whether it was the matter of the angle of the Sun or the clarity of the Air, we don’t have red sky in summer.

(The same sky by Omnifocus Fun lens on Sony A7R —– / 06:05)

 

( 05:58 —– by the Kodak Vest Pocket camera lens on Sony A7R)

(05:55 —– / Zeiss Baby Ikonta lens on Sony A7R )

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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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G10 Lens Test

This is much awaited G10 lens shot !  (Oh, really ?  Who did wait ?)

It’s funny to see, are they the graffiti or the cover of the construction site ? (Good idea.)

I’m not sure whether the subjects were hopeless or just the images ? ? ?   😀 

(You must be convinced that to show the image, fine quality of the lens is not important.)

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Snap the Town by Mag lens (2)

Some more snap shot by a homemade So-called Mag Lens.

With your annoyance even more to come.  😀 

PS :  By the way, I’m editing this blog on Toshiba Laptop with W-XP and Google Picasa —– though, when I see the same on iPad, the images looks darker and the color seems more saturated (in other words,”Picture looks more exaggerated”)  They were displayed differently on each device by device but my intention was not so dark.   Murky doesn’t necessary looks gloomy.  😀

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