noone

13 minutes ago, HockeyFan12 said:

 

 I remember my 18-55mm Canon zoom felt this way.

I like using my 18-55 Canon APSC lens but I use it as a FF Sony E almost throw away (24-55mm coverage).

It is with someone else right now but when i get it back i want to try it at f32 as a macro lens (extension tubes).

Not sure i buy into the "clinical look" thing and maybe to me it is more about a "normal" or usual view (IE close to what the eye sees and with deep DOF) so anything that departs from the "normal" is no longer clinical??   Does that make sense?    Do people ever attribute a clinical look to lenses that completely blur the background Good or bad bokeh)?   Are very wide?  Very long? Tilt/shift?

Have you noticed that there seems to be with few mount exceptions, very few (comparatively) lenses 60mm (m43), 80mm (APSC) or 120mm (FF) or longer faster than f4 made recently?     Only about 5 for M43 (apart from some cheaper MF ones).

If you make it an "equivalent" aperture as you should (if using "equivalent focal length"), it gets even worse for choice.

Canon APSC seems to have the largest native choice since they can use any EF mount lens and plenty of 85 mm primes and zooms qualify.

Still, you can always adapt and (for stills at least) get pretty much native use with Canon EF lenses on many systems including Sony E and M43.

I prefer faster longer lenses and like to be able to blur out a background while still having plenty of the subject in focus.

A few more shots from my ancient Tamron 300 2.8. (speakers at the march4justice march here in Wagga yesterday).

No.

I used to lust for a lens like this but now I realise I would use it 90% of the time at the short end and the long end and it isn't wide enough really for me and it is slightly too short for me too.     24-60/70 would be more appealing.

I used to have the Sony FE kit lens and I actually did like that (I know most do not) and it was the right size for me for a lens like this and useful as a longer body cap when carrying other lens.

Now, if i DO get a lens like that it will be either the Tamron for the extra 5mm at the long end at a tiny increase in weight or the new 28-60 Sony kit lens or even the 24-70 f4 Sony Zeiss (another lens i like but many don't).

9 hours ago, kye said:

Not sure why, but there's quite a difference in price....

Maybe the "3 left in stock" means that's not a normal price, or maybe it's that the 9mm is the international version and looking at the delivery dates it obviously ships from overseas.  Commerce and the foibles of markets are strange sometimes, although they gave us lenses like the Helios that are crazily cheap for what they are, so it's not all bad!

Ahh, looking at their construction, the 15 is a simple 3 element 3 group lens with "all glass construction" while the 9mm has 5 elements in four  groups and even has two aspherical elements so I would think the price difference is right there.     Not to mention the 15 seems far more common.

Interesting.   

I just looked up Olympus official site for lenses (Asia anyway) and the two body cap "lenses" are listed under the accessories page and not under any of the actual lens pages.

I have the most fun shooting low light and concerts/gigs.

Not much live music for me these days but one of my favourite (and most fun) shooting situations is night time illuminations and for me, that means Enlighten in Canberra.

Any Australians planning on going?       I hope to get there in a couple of weeks (Covid, hotels and transport depending).  From 2018 (this is old parliament house).

Oops, not "click stops" but focus settings.

13 hours ago, leslie said:

i confess up front i like flowers...

m10 mark ii with the 15mm body cap lens between wind gusts this afternoon. I thought the 15mm did pretty well. i have the focus peaking set to the fn3 button. The 15mm has a little lever that allows for some control between 300mm and infinity combined with the peaking on the olympus, it allows for a small measure of control. Apart from resizing the jpegs are straight from the camera. 

not much vignetting either i think maybe noone was full frame ?

 

 

Yes, there is no vignetting with M43 (as it was intended).

It is a much better "lens" than it should be though I would not want to use it for anything but fun!

Have you noticed it actually has THREE settings yet?    When you open the lever to infinity, there is another setting "click stop" just next to that and then at the other end for 0.3m/0.98ft

8 hours ago, kye said:

 

I thought @noone had put it on 2x digital zoom, which should be an MFT crop exactly.  Maybe something else was going on filming a monitor so close?  Not entirely sure.  Either way, I'm fine with it.  Those pics even have some background separation which is pretty cool.

 

 

Something like the RX100 with it's low-light capabilities would be lots of fun to work with!

Yeah, I used the 15  FF (which has very heavy vignetting) and FF with 2x clearzoom (with no heavy blackening vignetting).    In APSC mode it has heavy vignetting still but only in the extreme corners (which is gone with 1.2x clearzoom).

I would not say the RX100 cameras are really great in low light overall but they are for their sensor size (at least the versions 111,IV,.V and Va with their faster lenses.)

Put it this way, I think I would take my RX100iv (just) over a M43 camera with a 2.8 or slower lens at 24mm equivalent but at 70mm equivalent the m43 camera would be better in low light with anything faster than f4.

M43 with a (good) fast prime would do much better in low light but it is still ok for instance to match against a good M43 camera with any of the 2.8 or slower zooms at the short end and most of the same range zooms at the long end....of course, you can always change the lens of the M43 but not the Rx100 cameras.

If anyone made a camera like the Rx100 cameras with the faster lens but with a bigger sensor, it might be almost all I need except for a coupe of specialist things (fast long telephoto and tilt shift).... I doubt I could ever afford it though and as it is, I was very lucky to get my RX100iv as cheap as i did (less than some are selling mk 111s and even some 11s.

I am on my second Oly m43 15mm body cap lens.     I sold the first when i sold my GX7.

I got another really cheap just to play around with again on my FF Sony A7s.

The (very thin tiny and sharpish edged) metal adapter is almost as big as the lens.

Not for serious use and not used often but again fun.

Using it FF, FF with 2x clearzoom (both "focued" at 0.3m) and photos of it with adapter mounted, on the lens.

I try and not buy anything that I do not think will not be fun!     Just using for amateur use so I have zero reason to buy something photo/video otherwise.

To that end, since i love shooting in low light, my old A7s is still the most fun for me and same with my all time favourite lens, the Canon 17 tilt shift.

Honourable mention to the little Sony Rx100iv as it has a really nice lens and so many features well it is a fun camera to use with ok results.

Reading a review of the new Leica M10-R I thought maybe i could get a cheap old Leica digital M.      Thinking an M8 is now over 15 years old, surely they MIGHT be affordable....Nope, a body only M8 costs as much as a Nikon D780 DSLR or Olympus EM1-X M43 flagship.

Looks like I will be using my Sony A7s for a few years more.

1 hour ago, lebigmac said:

I grabbed an A7 for 400€ used and it is a wonderful camera, esp. when you're coming from m4/3. It fits perfectly in the hand, is really small and is incredibly lightweight, which puts it in front of the A7ii, to my eyes. Image quality is competitive today, I would say, except in low light. AF capability is good enough, if you're not after shooting greyhounds at the races. It's the perfect camera to take into the streets and for travel + if it gets lost it's not the and of the world. Gives wonderful results with old minolta lenses, as well.

  

I actually would not mind using an original A7 to shoot greyhounds racing!     

I USED to shoot greyhounds with a Pentax DSLR with several photos published in a national (Australian) greyhound racing paper (at the time one of the largest circulation greyhound racing papers in the world).     Even the first A7 had better AF than the old Pentax DSLRs I used. 

 I never did use the A7 for that though but it would be ok for me.

Yes of course there are better cameras for that (lots of them).

In good light, the first A7 takes quite nice photos with still competitive DR (still better than many even current FF cameras at ISO 100 and still better than almost every smaller sensor camera.

If someone just wants a FF camera to take good light photos in good weather it is still a nice choice.     Once you start adding OTHER requirements, not so muchnow.

6 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

With the sensor size not being the minimum of what is generally considered "true" medium format (645 and above) the difference will not be as stark (and has the potential to open a whole new strand of Oh No Not The Equivalence debate 😉 ) but the upside of it not being larger is that a lot of FF lenses will get very close to full coverage and in some cases achieve full coverage.

 

 

One reason I look for as cheap a MF camera as i can from time to time is that I see Canon EF tilt shift lenses being used on MF cameras and they work quite well.   It would mean my favourite 17mm TS gets a wider view which would be very useful sometimes without having to stitch.

A couple of things. 

MF maybe not so much for video though getting there.

Not all medium format cameras have the same size sensor and ones that truly match MF film cameras (which ALSO had variants) are larger in area than most of the recent MF cameras.

In good light at base ISO and with the best available lens, any of the MF digital cameras WILL produce a better picture when compared to the same with FF generally.

That said, you can NOT currently use MF for many things you can with FF in many cases just because the lenses are not there.     The FF lenses still work out more often to be faster than the MF lenses (while the smaller than FF sensor cameras do not usually beat out FF in the same vane).

Cost, size and speed of use will still be factors for MF for a while yet VS smaller formats.

I will keep using FF and a 1 inch sensor P&S for my needs.

I still have dreams about getting a MF digital back at some point for my old Polaroid 600SE interchangeable lens camera (essentially a Mamiya MF camera with a different back that takes polaroid film but can also take cut sheet film via an adapter but I have not tried that)....I think i can get a film adapter and then fit a digital back to that but it is a low priority and might be more work than worth the effort.... The 600SE and lenses still sell for ridiculous amounts even though film for them is pretty much non existent now. so a digital back might be the ONLY way i could use it now.

11 minutes ago, Tim Sewell said:

Thanks for the advice guys. I found a nice condition A7R2 with 4 batteries for a good price on eBay this afternoon so I've bought it. 

The right choice for you I think.      I might have to see if I can find one myself soonish.

That said there is nothing wrong with a 12mp camera for stills unless you are shooting for very large prints or framing very loosely.

The original A7s is a wonderful photo camera and especially for low light stills and HD video but it is OTHER things that make it a less sensible choice for many people....CDAF only, forget about AFC unless the movement is slow and not far, adapted Canon lenses AF very slowly, primitive eye AF ETC.

If you mainly use manual focus lenses though many of the issues go away.      

I had the original 24mp A7 as well and while I liked it, I prefer the A7s MUCH more for BOTH photos and video

11 hours ago, kye said:

The K35 looks like it has more wide-angle distortion, almost like it is a wider lens that's closer to the subject, but that isn't the case.

Of the more affordable lenses around, what are the ones that stand out? and why?

While I think some of the FD L lenses are at ridiculous prices (24 1.4 especially) I till think it I a lovely lens and I wish I had kept my 50 1.2 L and that my 85 1.2 L did not have the dissolving bearing issue.     The 85 L can be had for (sort of) reasonable prices (be careful about the bearing problem).

I think most older lenses now should be looked at individually because you do not know how hard their "lives" have been or if they were even good copies to begin with.

Shot from my FD 24 1.4 L at 1.4 on my old A7s.

2 hours ago, kye said:

 

The video is 1-hour and they present screen grabs from lens tests as well as talk about lots of interesting stuff, especially K35s.  @Andrew Reid - there was even some stuff mentioned in here about them that Media Division didn't include in their excellent video on the FD vs K35 lenses.

 

Just looked for prices on K35s on Ebay (Australia and USA) and there are very few.    A couple of zooms for over 30,000 Australian.    Some HOUSINGS for over $1500 ETC.

Even some of the old FD L lenses are still going for ridiculous prices (I posted earlier that Ebay collectively "thinks" my battered old FD 24 1.4 L is worth more than any other lens I have (including my 17 TSE that i could never afford to replace).

3 hours ago, kye said:

I'm not convinced - the 24-70/2.8 will be as good a lens that Canon / Nikon / Sony etc can make, but they all managed to extend the zoom range by lowering the aperture by a stop.

I cannot believe that the same trade-off isn't possible at a slightly lower focal length.

Yeah, that those two APSC lenses exist says to me it SHOULD be possible since many APSC lenses do cover FF at least in part.     

The flip side would be that they ARE only equivalent to 24mm on FF and therefore not really ultra wide angle and i suspect it is making it from ultra wide to telephoto that might be the issue (ease to build for the price they would charge and the market need).   Maybe the different elements needed and the corrections required would just make it a headache and maybe not compatible?

Same thing with small sensor super zoom cameras, the lenses start at very small focal lengths but not really ultra wide (I think there were a couple of compact cameras that had zooms starting at around 19/20mm equivalent at most).

15 minutes ago, mercer said:

Haha... 'lack of victims."

Have you hired a lot of models in the past? For my upcoming short films, mostly horror/thriller I was thinking about going the model route, instead of an actress, since some of the female roles don't have any lines of dialogue. 

No, first time trying.     It is simply that most of the lenses are manual focus and people just do not have the patience they used to.     Imagine how todays instagram/phone people would go  back when they used to bolt you in place while they took long exposures with large format gear and sheet film !

10 minutes ago, mercer said:

I love Tokina lenses. I have the 24-40mm 2.8 that I've always loved. I should bring that out the next time.

I could really use a long zoom. @BTM_Pix has recommended the Nikon Series E 75-150mm that's intriguing.

I have just sent the young model a PM and am really hopeful of shooting her with the Tokina 60-120 2.8 and my old 300 2.8 and Sigma 150 2.8 APO macro and Sony Zeiss 55 1.8 in one session.   MAYBE the old Canon FD 85 1.2 L but not sure since the focus throw is very loose and I am not sure what she charges yet (or if she will want to).

This old Tokina was made as a portrait lens which was probably a bit unusual for a zoom at the time all those years ago (adverts from then say portraits and also sports but it is a bit short for most sports). 

  I posted about it in the lens forum but have hardly used it since then due to lack of victims.

This site has not been updated for years but it is still useful regards Nikon lenses. 

http://www.naturfotograf.com/lens_surv.html

17 hours ago, mercer said:

 

 Are there any old, cheap lenses that you guys love more than the generic modern lenses a lot of people use?

I love the old MF Tokina 60-120 2.8 I got last year for cheap on Ebay.

The only thing about is the minimum focus distance but that is solved with a helicoid adapter.

It looks and feels as if it was a day old (probably been sitting in its case for the last thirty years or so).   

Zoom function (push pull) is a little stiff to get moving but easy after that though since i pretty much use it at 120 nothing really.      I just need portrait victims to use it still as it is a bit slow for me to use and peoples attention span has greatly reduced over the years.

A lovely young model has just moved here so maybe i will see if I can hire her to use all my portrait type lenses in one sitting but this would be the first I use maybe.

15 hours ago, kye said:

Sorry - I mean FF.

There's heaps of lenses starting at 24mm FF FOV, but if you want to get the 16mm FF FOV then you're stuck with 2X zooms.  If you don't care about wider than 24mm FF FOV then you're covered, but the 16mm FF FOV is part of my trinity (16 / 35 / 85mm FF FOVs) and they're super common if you're a vlogger too.

Even on MFT there's the 6-11, 7-14, 8-18, and 9-18...  all 2X zooms.

 

I think it would cost too much to make and buy and be too complex for an ultra wide- short telephoto and maybe not a huge market for such (yet).    

 Mind you, the Fuji and Sony lenses should not need to be THAT much bigger or more expensive if they made them FF. 

My ultra wide angle needs are met by my all time favourite lens (Canon 17mm tilt shift).    I could never afford to replace it if I lost it or broke it.    

My trinity is a bit more flexible (Canon 17 TS,  Sony Zeiss 55 1.8 and third varies with situation for now though if i ever get one would be something like a Sigma 105 1.4).

I guess primes and 2x zooms are some of the best lenses available.

I have been using my ancient Canon EF 20-35 2.8 L a little bit lately (I normally prefer primes).