Playing With Lenses: July 2018

Monday 16 July 2018

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the best lens of them all? RMC Tokina 500mm 1:8

Cost: 48.51$ (average market price $70)

I have been looking forward to try a true mirror lens. Not that I had high expectations, but it is for sure something different. Impressive tele, light weight… what is there not to like. A lot, it seems.

OK, what is a mirror lens? Mirror lenses are telephoto lenses that use a combination of two mirrors to reflect light back and forth between the ends of the lens prior to the light passing through to the camera.

Source: Wayne Grundy's PhotoTech Blog

This means that the physical size of the lens is around a third of the size of a conventional lens and the mirrors are also much lighter than the optical glass enabling the lens to be hand hold with an appropriately fast shutter speed. And chromatic aberration is virtually absent by design.
Mirrors are significantly cheaper than conventional long telephotos, and much easier to carry. Almost all major brand once had mirror lenses in their product range, such as Pentax, Sony, Nikon, Minolta, Zeis, etc.. Today, you can still find new, cheaply priced, mirror lenses from the likes of Kenko, Opteka, Rokinin, Polaroid, Samyang and others.

Mirror lenses do come with a set of disadvantages, such as fixed aperture (no control over depth of field), slow aperture (needs high ISO for hand held shooting, and no disk time shooting), fixed focal length, significant vignette in the corners (that can be easily removed in Lightroom), and a very messy bokeh with the typical ring shape (see sample pictures below). The very peculiar bokeh can sometimes create some special looking effects, but is mostly distracting from the subject.

Most mirror lenses are manual, and that's a shame, as focus is difficult with such a narrow depth of field. Most of my pictures were throwaways due to lack of focus. If you can find one with Auto Focus, such as the Sony, it might be a real advantage.

Aside from the focus issues, these lenses are very slow. Even is daylight, I was shooting with ISO settings up to 1600, resulting in high noise, not always correctable in a de-noise program (I use Dfine).

This lens has a solid metal build and smooth focus ring. It came with a nice lens hood, and one filter "skylight" filter in the rear mount. I understand it originally came with a set of additional ND filters.

It seems that some people had some good success with mirror lenses, but I was disappointed in mine. Likely caused by the photographer, or the lens itself. True tele-shots were very blurry and had low contrast and saturation. My best results were with close to medium distance. Actually not to bad to get birds in full frame if they are a few meters from you. The further the subject, the lesser the quality.

It is an easy way to carry around a high focal length, but I think I will stick to regular lenses as I believe that even with less focal length, I could get better results, even when cropped.

I actually liked the results of my cheap Samyang 500mm F8 much better. Just easier to use and sharper. But it seems some people were able to get good results.

RMC, or Rainbow Multi Coated, stands for a multiple of chemical coatings for lens surfaces with minimum light loss. The result is a dramatic improvement in both color fidelity and brightness and the elimination of flare and ghost images.

Lens Specification:

Focal Length: 500mm
Maximum Aperture: F8 (actual measurements is rumored to be more like F9.5)
Minimum Aperture: NA - Mirror Lens with Fixed Apperture
Image Format: 35mm
Lens Mount: FD
Optics: 7 elements in 2 groups
Blades: na (mirror)
Focussing: Manual
Minimum Focus: 150cm
Filter Size: 35.5mm (rear)
Weight: 485g
Length: 87mm
Production: late 1980's
Serial Number: 8136767

Samples:

1/1000 sec - ISO400 - F8 - Handheld

1/640 sec - ISO400 - F8 - Handheld

1/1000 sec - ISO400 - F8 - Handheld

1/1600 sec - ISO1600 - F8 - Handheld

1/500 sec - ISO1600 - F8 - Handheld

1/400 sec - ISO1600 - F8 - Handheld

1/160 sec - ISO1600 - F8 - Handheld

1/320 sec - ISO1600 - F8 - Handheld

Sources:
Wayne Grundy's PhotoTech Blog
Pentax Forums
Camerapedia
Flickr
Laur's Photo blog

Sunday 8 July 2018

The stakes are high: Konica Hexanon AR 50mm F1.7

Cost: $15 (average market price $25)

The Konica Hexanon AR 50mm 1.7 is by some regarded as one of the sharpest legacy lenses ever made. Although I must admit it sure is capable of sharp pictures, I did not find it to keep up with some of the better Pentax prime lenses. And with a maximum aperture of 1.7, it should be a fast lens, so what better place to test this nifty fifty in Las Vegas, in the Venetian casino to be more precise.

Build quality is excellent, clear lettering, with a solid metal body and mount. Aperture and focus rings are smooth, like lenses of this era should be. It sure has the looks, and the feel. Note that minimum aperture only goes to F16.

When shooting, it did however not really feel as a fast lens. I had to do some extensive de-noise in Lightroom to make it acceptable. Idem ditto for sharpness. Some picture were sharp, straight from the camera, but again Lightroom had to be used to make them somewhat crispy. I expected more of this lens.

Flickr seems to have many great samples, so in all fairness, I should try this lens in daylight, to really see how sharp it can be. But in the meantime, it does not make my list of favorite lenses. I wonder how much better it would be on full-frame camera or with a speed booster.

Lens Specification:

Focal Length: 50mm

Maximum Aperture: F1.7

Minimum Aperture: F16

Image Format: 35mm

Lens Mount: Konica

Image Stabilization: none

Optics: 6 elements / 5 groups

Blades: 6

Focussing: Manual

Minimum Focus: 55cm

Filter Size: 55mm

Weight: 243g

Length: 40mm

Production: 1976-1979

Serial Number: 7548482

Made in: Japan

Company:

Konica was a Japanese manufacturer of film, film cameras, camera accessories, photographic and photo-processing equipment, photocopiers, fax machines and laser printers.

The company was founded in 1873 (before Kodak) when pharmacist Rokusaburo Sugiura began selling photographic materials at his store in Konishiya Rokubē. Rokusaburo Sugiura gave the original shop to his younger brother and launched a new shop, Konishi Honten (Konishi Main Shop) in the Nihonbashi district of Tokyo.

Konishi started producing photography related materials in Japan in 1882, including the "Cherry Portable Camera" in 1992, the first Japanese produced end-user oriented camera. Konishi Main Shop became the leading camera company in Japan. In 1921, his elder son took over the rains. The name Konishiroku was taken from the abbreviation of their names, Konishi Rokuemon. Konishiroku released the "Konica I" type camera in 1948, after which they would name their own company in 1987. In 1990's Konica signed its first major contract by leasing copiers, resulting in a major shift in the industry that had sold only copiers before.

On August 5, 2003, Konica merged with Minolta to form Konica Minolta. Finaly, Konica Minolta Holdings exited the photography business in 2006, and it 's digital SLR camera section was transferred to Sony.

Adapter:

K&F Koncept Konica AR - NEX

Cost: $22 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. 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:

1/40 sec - ISO640 B - Handheld

1/40 sec - ISO800 B - Handheld

1/80 sec - ISO800 B - Handheld

1/50 sec - ISO800 B - Handheld

1/40 sec - ISO800 B - Handheld

1/125 sec - ISO800 B - Handheld

1/80 sec - ISO800 B - Handheld

1/100 sec - ISO800 B - Handheld

1/40 sec - ISO800 B - Handheld

1/125 sec - ISO100 B - Handheld

Sources:
wikipedia.org
myfavouritelens.com
verybiglobo.com
allphotolenses.com

Monday 2 July 2018

Dublin's Fair City: Nikon AF Nikkor 35-80mm 1:4-5.6 D

I reviewed this lens a few months ago ("The Value of Cheap"), but when going on a business trip to Dublin, I grabbed this lens one more time (forgetting I already reviewed it). My opinion of this lens remains the same.. a slow, cheap, all-purpose lens, suitable for travel, but not excelling in quality.

In any case, here are some more samples from Dublin.

Samples: