Playing With Lenses: August 2018

Thursday 23 August 2018

So what about Olympus? Olympus OM-System Zuiko MC Auto-S 1:1.8 50mm

Cost: $25 (average market price $37)

Time for another Olympus review. This time the famous Zuiko Auto-S 50mm f/1.8. Although just a fast kit lens of witch 5 millions copies were made in different versions, it's a remarkable lens. It's light and nimble, but sturdy and a good quality build at the same time. The low profile makes it nice to use with the smaller Sony body, even with a adapter in place. As I have been told, it's the lightest Zuiko lens from this era.

As common with Olympus lenses, the aperture ring is at the front. That took me while to get used to but it's probably the only issue I can mention about this lens. Image quality is exceptional with great resolving power. Sharp right from f/1.8, and great sharpness across the complete frame from f/4 onwards. There is a little color fringing on high contrast, but hardly noticeable. In general, color is good with high contrast and rich colors.

As you can see on Flickr this lens is used a lot as a portrait lens, due to it's sharpness, but as it is a fast lens, it's also excellent for general and street photography. I can fully recommend this lens to whoever is looking for a cheap, fast, manual but great quality lens. Well done, Olympus!

Lens Specification:

Focal Length: 50mm

Maximum Aperture: F1.8

Minimum Aperture: F16

Image Format: 35mm

Lens Mount: OM

Optics: 6 elements in 5 groups

Blades: 6

Focussing: Manual

Minimum Focus: 45cm

Filter Size: 49mm

Weight: 165g

Length: 32mm

Production: 1972 to 2002

Serial Number: 202127

Made in: Japan

MC: Multicoated to combat partial reflections.

More information on: Olympus Corporation

Samples:

1/400 sec - ISO200 - Handheld

1/400 sec - ISO100 - Handheld

1/200 sec - ISO100 - Handheld

1/100 sec - ISO100 - Handheld

1/640 sec - ISO100 - Handheld

1/160 sec - ISO100 - Handheld

1/320 sec - ISO100 - Handheld

1/200 sec - ISO100 - Handheld

1/640 sec - ISO100 - Handheld

1/800 sec - ISO100 - Handheld

1/400 sec - ISO100 - Handheld

1/80 sec - ISO100 - Handheld

Other samples on flikr.com

Monday 20 August 2018

Where smoke is, is: SMC Pentax-FA 1:3.5-5.6 28-80mm

Cost: 21$ (average market price $49.07)

This is a lens of an era when lens makers started making plastic-only lenses, with much experimenting with colors and materials. This lens is available in two colors. An ugly dark green, or an even uglier cheap silver (light metal) color. In other words, this lens will not win any beauty contests.

Yes, it feels like plastic. Very light, but also very flimsy. Although it does have a metal mount, the feeling of cheap is always there. Focus and zoom is light as a feather, but lacks the "Pentax" smoothness of earlier generation lenses. I have not tested the auto focus feature, as it isn't compatible with my Sony, but other review describe it as faster then normal for Pentax FA lenses.

Image quality is also not spectacular, nice Pentax SMC colors, but not very sharp and some amount of color aberration.

In total view, not a bad lens but not to good ether. If you have one, I'm sure it can be put to good use, but I would not go looking for one. There is better on the market, especially as you can find a couple of prime lenses for not much more... especially when going off-brand. Unless you do have a Pentax camera, where auto-focus has some value.

Samples below are a bit hazy, thanks to the heavy smoke these few weeks in Vancouver.

To combat partial reflection, Pentax developed chemical coatings for the lens surfaces with minimum light loss. SMC is "a remarkable seven-layer lens coating process that cuts the reflection ratio down to just 0.2% per lens surface. The result is a dramatic improvement in both color fidelity and brightness and the elimination of flare and ghost images."

SMC was patented and first applied in 1971, when Pentax was still making screw mount equipment. The multi-coated lens lines changed from Takumar and Super-Takumar to Super-Multi-Coated Takumar and later on to SMC Takumar. SMC Pentax was used for the newly introduced K-mount lenses. Pentax's SMC is still today considered as one of the best lens coatings on the market.

Lens Specification:

Focal Length: 28-80mm
Maximum Aperture: F3.5-5.6
Minimum Aperture: F22
Image Format: 35mm
Lens Mount: PK
Optics: 8 elements, 8 groups
Blades: 6
Focussing: Manual
Minimum Focus: 50cm
Filter Size: 58mm
Weight: 278g
Length: 78mm
Production: 1998 to 2001
Serial Number: 5693215
Made in: Vietnam

More information on Pentax

Samples:
Pictures shot with Lens Turbo II adapter

1/200s - ISO100 - Handheld

1/125s - ISO100 - Handheld

1/100s - ISO100 - Handheld

1/320s - ISO100 - Handheld

1/250s - ISO100 - Handheld

1/200s - ISO100 - Handheld

1/125s - ISO100 - Handheld

1/200s - ISO100 - Handheld

1/125s - ISO100 - Handheld

1/50s - ISO100 - Handheld

1/100s - ISO100 - Handheld

Sources:
Pentaxforums
flickr

Monday 13 August 2018

Let's have some DIY fun with the Canon Zoom Lens EF 35-80 1:4-5.6

A few months ago, I blogged about a cheap Canon zoom lens, and I ended the story with the suggestion to do something else with this lens. When researching this lens, I found a few people who modded the lens into a decent macro lens by removing the front element.

original lens

As this was a cheap kit lens, I saw no harm in taking it apart and make it useful for a different purpose. The front lens group can be removed by removing 3 screws on the top focussing barrel.

front lens group to be removed

Once the front element was removed, I use a hammer and screw driver to smash out the glass. No subtle process here. Make sure you remove any glass or plastic left behind so no particles can make it back into the lens.

front lens group after lens removal

Once ready, mount the front element back on the lens, this time with no lens remaining in the front element.

lens with the glass removed in the front lens group

Technically you are now complete, and you own a nice but cheap macro lens. Practically, you do want to protect the inside of the lens against dust, so mount a clear filter (I used a Kenko Skylight 1A that came with the lens) on the front element so the lens is again protected against outside elements.

The end result

As focussing was done with the front element, you now have lost that capability. Not a big issue as most macro photographers do not use auto-focus anyway. You just rock the camera back and forth until your subject is in focus.

The zoom capability remains, so you do have some flexibility in framing your subject. Do note that aside from being able to zoom in an out, also the depth of field is impacted. The more you zoom, the shallower the depth of field becomes. When completely zoomed in, the depth of field becomes extremely narrow and it is almost impossible to photograph live insects and get their eyes in focus. And forget about a complete focussed subject, unless it is in the same field, or you use a more advanced process of focus stacking (but that is not the topic of this blog).

Another problem is that because you have now converted to a Macro lens, you loose a lot of your incoming light, so high ISO will be required in order to maintain a fast enough shutter speed. Not a problem if you are not a pixel peeper. This can also be resolved by a ring or other macro flash, but remember, we are trying to keep things cheaply here.

So how much enlargement can you get? Let's do a simple test and take some shots of a Canadian 25c coin, roughly the same size as an APSC sensor.

zoomed out

zoomed in

As you can, see on the first shot, the coin is almost filling the picture, so roughly a 1:1 macro. On the second shot, we get damn close to a 2:1 enlargement. Very impressive as a 2:1 macro lens can range anywhere from $400 for a cheap version to over 1000$ or more for a brand macro lens. And I paid $11.99 for mine.

I can really say I had a lot of fun playing with this lens, looking around for little bugs and flower details. I'm absolutely positive I will be using this lens again. It's just to much fun!
Samples: