Playing With Lenses

Friday, 14 July 2017

Blah..: Summatech Zoom P-MC Macro 1:4.5 70-210

Cost: 19.99$ (average market price $20)

Blah... that's the correct term to describe this lens. The lens feels cheap, with a shiny but metal build, poor handling and low image quality.

The lens is hard to focus as the focus peaking feature was not accurate, and the focus zoom was hard to use due to an almost hazy picture in the view finder. The macro feature was not much better then any other non-macro lens.

Image quality was lacking. No contrast or saturation, disappointing bokeh, often a lack of sharpness, to much fading of the image when taking pictures in the slightest direction of the sun all the way up to a point where some Lightroom editing cannot correct it anymore.

Just one of these lenses where you doubt you want to post the review, as for sure this one is going for sale on eBay and you don't want a potential buyer to Google this review... but honesty first, I guess.
Blah!

Lens Specification:
Focal Length: 70-210mm
Maximum Aperture: F4.5
Minimum Aperture: F22
Image Format: 35mm
Lens Mount: PK
Optics: ? elements in ? groups
Blades: 6
Focussing: Manual
Minimum Focus: ??cm
Filter Size: 58mm
Weight: 560g
Length: 128-140mm
Production: 70's or 80's
Serial Number: 831346
Made In: Japan

Company:
From the little information I could find, Summatech was a 70's-80's Denver-based company that sold camera accessories and binoculars. Apparently they also distributed a very limited line of re-branded lenses for various mounts. A quick search on past postings on eBay gave a 200mm Prime, a 28mm Wide Angle... but not more.

P-MC
I was not able to find to much on this, so will just assume that MC stands for Multi Coated, and P possible for Pentax Mount. Note that the term PMC (without the hyphen) was also common used on Panagor lenses.

Adapter:

Lens Turbo II PK - Nex

Cost: $75, used on B&H PhotoVideo, new for $149

The Pentax K Lens to Sony E-Mount Camera Lens Turbo Adapter Mark II from Mitakon allows Pentax K lenses to be mounted on Sony E-Mount APS-C format cameras, increasing the angle of view by 0.726x and the maximum aperture of the lens by 1 f-stop.The four optical elements of the Lens Turbo adapter condense light from the Pentax K full frame lens and project it onto the camera's APS-C sensor allowing the sensor to capture all of the lens' transmitted light, negating the 1.5x crop factor and effectively producing full-frame coverage on non-full-frame sensors. A corresponding increase in the maximum aperture of 1 f-stop makes the lens more effective in low-light situations.

The Mark II version of the Lens Turbo features an improved design to produce sharper images. Its rectangular rear lens rests closer to the camera's sensor improving light transmission and an enhanced lens coating minimizes ghosting and flare. One extra-low dispersion (ED) lens element reduces aberrations for better delineated images. The adapter offers a sturdy metal construction and stainless steel mounts, it attaches to both camera and lens with little play and includes a front and rear protective cap. The Lens Turbo is a manual adapter offering no electronic communication between lens and camera.

Samples:

1/320s - ISO1600 - Handheld

1/4000s - ISO1600 - Handheld

1/200s - ISO400 - Handheld - Cropped

1/160s - ISO100 - Handheld

1/400s - ISO400 - Handheld

1/100s - ISO400 - Handheld - Cropped

1/400s - ISO400 - Handheld - Cropped

1/50s - ISO400 - Handheld - Cropped

Sunday, 9 July 2017

Getting detailed: Ricoh XR Rikenon 1:2 50mm

Cost: 19.99$ (average market price $24.50)

This is my second Rikenon 50mm prime. This time the XR version. Again a decent, well build lens. Smooth handling, light weight, sharp and nice colors. Did I mention sharp? Take a look at the horse pictures below.

This time, I wanted to do something different, so I tested the lens also with some Macro Extender Tubes. To get a decent macro, traditionally you would use a dedicated Macro lens. But with the new digital camera's, with high ISO, you can use the tubes without even needing a flash. No pixel-peeping though as the high ISO does show when zoomed in all the way.

No need to say I'm impressed. Most of the macro shots below where of subjects smaller than the thumbnail of my pinky. No need for expensive macro equipment. And a lot of fun experimenting. The peak focussing feature again helps tremendously. You leave the lens to the closest focal distance and move the camera itself until in focus. A high shutter speed will keep things sharp.

Again a keeper. If you see one, get it. A very cheap way to get a fast, sharp, 50mm prime.

Lens Specification:
Focal Length: 50mm
Maximum Aperture: F2
Minimum Aperture: F16
Image Format: 35mm
Lens Mount: PK
Optics: 6 elements in 5 groups
Blades: 6
Focussing: Manual
Minimum Focus: 40cm
Filter Size: 52mm
Weight: 230g
Length: 38-46mm
Production: 1980's
Serial Number: 146068
Made In: Japan

XR
The XR and P versions are Rikenon lenses with better optical quality. The XR and the P labelled models are essentially of the same optical grade and image quality, the only difference being the pin on the P model for use in AV mode on Pentax cameras.

Samples:

1/125s - ISO800 - Handheld

1/160s - ISO100 - Handheld

1/250s - ISO100 - Handheld

1/500s - ISO800 - Handheld

1/350s - ISO3200 - Handheld - Cropped

1/400s - ISO1250 - Handheld - Cropped

1/320s - ISO1600 - Handheld - Cropped

1/320s - ISO1600 - Handheld

1/50s - ISO3200 - Handheld - Cropped

1/320s - ISO3200 - Handheld

1/160s - ISO3200 - Handheld

1/800s - ISO3200 - Handheld

1/160s - ISO1600 - Handheld

Sources:

All Photo Lenses
Wikipedia Ricoh
Pentax Forums

Wednesday, 5 July 2017

Playing with the big boys: Samyang 500mm 1:8 Preset

Cost: 39.99$ (average market price $110.00 - new)

I was looking forward to play with this lens from the moment I found one last winter in a Thrift Store. A whopping 500mm for less then the cost to fill the gas tank of your car. Of course, for that royal amount of cash, you get one really slow lens. But does that matter these days, when using camera's that are capable of getting good images with high ISO? As long as the glass is sharp...

Also, do not confuse this with the common Samyang 500mm 1:8 Mirror lens that cost the same, but gives a lot less quality.

Now, when would you use a 500mm lens? I can see two prime use cases. Sports and wildlife photography. And since I'm not a sports fan, I took it out to shoot some birds. I did find myself a little limited amongst other photographers with lenses easily over $10K. But on the inside, I was grinning, as I had just as much fun for a lot less investment.

OK, image quality isn't that great. You will not win any exhibition prices, or make it on a wildlife magazine cover, but for the occasional bird picture, it does just fine. Decent colors, even without a lens coating and sharp enough, but nothing spectacular and some significant color fringing. But as long as you are not pixel peeping, it's not that bad. If this was a 50mm, it would be rubbish, but for a 500mm... not that bad.

Handling was OK. With this focal length, I would have expected an obligatory use of a tripod (enforced by the fact it comes with a tripod collar on the lens), but because of the low weight, the wind was causing vibration on the lens and made it really hard to focus. It was actually more easy to use it handheld. The length of the lens, combined with the low weight, made it reasonably stable. Almost like a rifle... and yes, the length was so ridiculously long that it wasn't fitting on my cutting board anymore.

The simple design but solid build made it fairly easy to handle and focus. Even focus peaking worked well. The one confusing part are the two focus rings... one ring that controls the aperture, but has no intermediate aperture steps that you can feel, and a second ring that has the steps, but is not connected to the aperture mechanism at all. You have to use both together to understand what aperture stop you are actually using.

I actually enjoyed taking this lens out, and as you can see below, the results are not that bad.

Lens Specification:
Focal Length: 500mm
Maximum Aperture: F8
Minimum Aperture: F32
Image Format: 35mm
Lens Mount: T-Mount
Optics: 4 Elements, 4 Groups
Blades: 6
Focussing: Manual
Minimum Focus: 1006cm
Filter Size: 67mm
Weight: 640g
Length: 312-326mm
Production: In Production
Serial Number: 881886
Made in: Korea

Company:

Samyang Optics Company Limited is a Korean optical equipment company founded in 1972, producing al their lenses in the company's plant in Masan, South Korea. Samyang is known for producing various low-cost interchangeable lenses compatible with different 3rd party camera's such as Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fujifilm, Pentax, Samsung, Yashica, Olympus and Panasonic, plus a wide range of T-mount lenses. Samyang SLR lenses were also branded as Vivitar, Falcon, Rokinon, Walimex, Bower, Opteka, Bell and Howell, Polar, and Pro-Optic.

Adapter:
K&F Concept M42 - NEX
Cost: $19 on Amazon

Although there are better and much more expensive adapters on the market, it found this one to be of good quality, feel solid, holding the lens very tight. A large button to remove the lens make it easy to use (seems to be a common problem on some other adapters). It was good enough for me to buy these brand of adapters for other mount types.
Do remember this is a manual adapter, so no auto focus and no passing on of information to the camera (as we are using old manual lenses, that is of no issue).

Samples: