A few more Pics from the Leica Elmar 90mm f4

I've been trying lots of lenses over the last few weeks and have ended up with an extra elmar 90mm F4. I keep coming back to this lens - it has a very nice feel to it,focusing is easy and very sharp!
My "new" lense is a really old one - from 1933! It's an uncoated lens, so it's a bit different to use that a modern (coated) lens. See the final picture - the lack of coating causes a major flare and loss of contrast if sunlight hits the lens directly, so hood is a must if shooting towards the sun!

Roses, straight out of camera...


foreground, background focus - again straight out of camera...

a quick bit of "auto" from light room...

Nice sharp details (again straight out of camera)...

Oops - lens flare - low contrast is the result.

Leica - First Light!

My First ever Leica lens - Leitz Elmar 90mm f/4 - 1938!
Wow, it's incredible to use a lens this old and still get very nice photos.

Trying out a few lens with the Nex adapters...

Minolta 55mm f/1.7 Rokkor

Pentax-M 50mm f/2 "Focal" 135mm f/11 minolta mount)

Takumar 55mm f/2

Nex IR - first light

I tried out the IR capability of the Nex using a 760 IR filter, and was very pleased with the first result. The weather is poor for IR outside - windy and cloudy! Even so, I am happy with the results taken at ISO 1600.
Interesting thing to note: Focus in all my photos was out... I forgot that IR has a different focus point than visible light. The lens I'm using (Super Takumar 55mm f/1.4) has an IR focus mark - I must remember to make that adjustment next time!

(composite photo Nex-5, Super Takumar 55mm f/1.4 2sec, ISO 1600)

Update!

Using the IR focus mark, I reshot the same scene... Plus a bit of PP

Mirrorless SLR

I've been thinking about getting a mirrorless SLR for a long time now. Options I've considered are Olympus and Panasonic M4/3 mount and Sony e-mount.

I've liked the look the a pana GF1, but the idea of putting up with 2Xcrop factor really bothered me. So, when I saw a refurb Nex-5 at a good price, I bought it. 5 minutes later I had ordered adapters for Minolta MD mount, Pentax PK, M42, DKL, and C-mount lenses.

Finally, all my manual lens could be used!

Here is the Nex with a Voigtlander Color-Skopar X (Retina mount). I really like this combo.Here are some of my first pics from the Nex+Skopar. I need to learn how to use the lens - very different from my M42's - a few outside shots...And a few from inside...

I attached the M42 bellows and am very pelased with the result. This photo has roses in the background...There was a bit of PP to get this photo looking nice...I'm really excited by the camera. I have applied the v3 firmware pack and although it is small, it seems very capable.

FCP pt. 7 State of the project

This is the current "look" of the FCP. The lens has been upgraded a few times since starting the FCP (see pt2). In this state, I have mounted the Goerz lens to an old Asahi M42 bellows mount. The Asahi bellows are just narrow enough to let me focus beyond infinity. Minimum focus distance (with the bellows fully extended) is approximately 20cm. (photo taken on iPhone 3GS)

I have mentioned that I have a persistant cloudiness to my photos. I have felt this was due to the poor quality of the lens surfaces. In frustration tonight I dismanteded the lens and gave the components some tough love and polished the surfaces by rubbing with my fingers. I was very happy to see that after some effort, the lens began to clear a bit. I have taken some indoor shots and so far there looks to be a big improvement.

Goerz Kalostigmat at 0.4s f/6.8.

Nice centre sharpness, see this 100% crop. I will try in the sunlight tomorrow morning.

FCP pt. 6 - The "raw" images

I thought it might be interesting to show some of the "before" processing images that come from the Kalostigmat lens setup, and mention some of the major post processing actions I . These images are all posted as finals in previous FCP posts.

(From FCP pt. 3)
The light here is from the side of the camera, so the lens does not fog up too badly. However, this is an unacceptably hazy image, so I coverted to B&W to remove the yellow cloud. I also applied "black levels" to remove some of the distracting background, and increased the contrast in the centre of the flower.



(From FCP pt. 4)
The first thing you notice is the haze in this photo. This is a real problem with the Kalostigmat setup caused, I think, by the poor condition of the lens and exacerbated by the sunlight directly behind the lens. To cure this I auto level the image, increase clarity, boost contrast and boost black levels. In this case, the goal was to recreate the look of an old B&W photo, so all of the actions were performed in B&W - I'm sure this picture would be a real mess in colour. I also heavily cropped the photo.

(from FCP pt. 5)
Again, abit of haze in the photo, but not too bad. The clarity, contrast, and black levels boost were all applied.