This is just a mini review of the Sakar CPL filters I got on ebay recently, I got 3 different sizes for about £6.50 all in, very cheap in other words!
Sunday, 31 January 2010
Sakar Circular Polarizer Filter CPL (£6.50 for 3 on eBay)
This is just a mini review of the Sakar CPL filters I got on ebay recently, I got 3 different sizes for about £6.50 all in, very cheap in other words!
Monday, 11 January 2010
Optomax 200mm F/3.5 M42 (Around £5 from ebay)
This lens was one of the first manual focus lenses I bought and came as part of a job lot. Due to my lack of experience I expected a poor performance from this lens based on the brand because at the time I had no idea that many of the old manual focus brands were just importers and that this lens was likely to have been made by one of the major Japanese manufactures. In time I came to realise that the lens was probably made by Tokina and that there are Vivitar and Mamiya versions out there as well as others.
I have to add that this lens has several patches of fungus around the perimeter of the front element along with what appears to be some residue possibly from internal lubricants leaking. I have yet to buy a decent lens spanner but when I do I will be able to easily clean the lens up and I would expect the image quality at the edge of the frame to improve somewhat.
All of these samples are wide open:
You can click on the following two to see them at 100% size:
Conclusion
Saturday, 2 January 2010
Sun Optical 28mm F/2.5 (£6.51 from ebay)
I like Sun lenses, they were one of the few companies to make their own
lenses in a time when many of the popular brands were just distributors putting
their name on other companies designs. The company started off some time soon
after the second world war rising from the ashes of the K.O.L lens company. They
initially made lenses for the Leica screw mount and one of the appealing
qualities of their lenses is that they continued to make lenses that were
aesthetically pleasing in a time when other brands were becoming a sea of dull
blackness. The company appears to have ceased the production of 35mm lenses in
the late 80's but the company still seems to exist as a manufacturer of
industrial lenses, on their website they claim to have began operating in the
late 80's but had a past in the 35mm lens industry so there is surely a
connection but how deep or shallow it is I have no idea.
The sharpness wide open is not bad in the centre but poor at the edges, unfortunately the edges don't really come up to scratch until F/8-F/11 but I find myself using this aperture a lot with wider angle lenses anyway. The lens also makes a fairly good portrait lens on my Olympus E-410 where it has a 56mm equivalent focal length, in this situation I can use the lens wide open because the subject is more often than not at the centre of the frame.
Where this optics strengths lay are no doubt in the colour and contrast department, there is a very appealing warmth and enthusiasm to the colours this lens produces and the contrast is gives a decent pop that almost makes up for the lack or resolution at wider apertures.
The bokeh is interesting in that it is very smooth wide open but at smaller apertures has a strange almost ring shaped appearance on highlights, almost like a mirror lens. I like it personally but then again I like mirror lens bokeh so I'm a Judas in any case!
There follows some samples which can be clicked on to see a larger version.
Conclusion
Friday, 1 January 2010
Ebay nightmares: Soligor 200mm F/4 T2 mount
You know the scene, browsing soon to end items on ebay, you catch something that's really cheap so you put a bid in and cross your fingers. I won this lens for next to nothing BUT I only bid on it because the seller described it as in good working condition, I know a few pound isn't much but it's the principal that counts surely? I wouldn't have paid a few pennies for it if I had know how it would turn up!
Was there fungus? No
Was there a stuck aperture? No
Scratches? No
Stiff focusing ring? No
So what am I complaining about?
I would have to say that the front element is rather loose to put it mildly!
So, I says:
"Hi there, Just received the lens but there seems to be a problem, the front glass element is completely loose and rattling around, it looks like it could fall out at any moment. I'm not trying to say you sent it knowing it was broken but obviously the lens is unusable in this state and I would appreciate your thoughts about that to do. Here is a photo of the lens:"
And he says:
"Hi ,I thought it was packed all right with it being in the case aswell.the postal staff must had a game of football with it.When I offered it for sale & indeed packed it there was no rattle or problem, if yo look at my feedback record ,you might assume that I am very fessy about what I sell ,this is clearly a transit problem.Either you or I must make a claim from the post office,Ive a feeling it might have to be me even tho it cost a pitance ,in any case keep the lens etc as evidence.There is no point in sending it back because of the cost involved but I can assure yo I wouldnt send out a faulty piece of equipment esspecially for a measly £2.00 Let me know your thoughts"
Tokina RMC 80-200mm F/4 (£6.99 from ebay)
This lens is as good a place to start as any!
The main negative issue I see with these lenses tends to be a small amount of colour fringing when the lens is wide open but nothing that cannot be corrected in software. What impresses me with the majority or lenses in the 70-200mm (give or take) arena from the 70's and 80's is that they seem to consistently produce sharper images at the long end of the zoom than modern equivalents can manage whilst usually having a usefully faster maximum aperture. I would even go as far as to say that almost all consumer grade zooms in this range available today will inevitably be soft at the long end especially wide open. I cannot believe that technology has taken a backwards step so I can only assume this is a deliberate measure taken my manufacturers in order to split lines into consumer and professional ranges. It is almost guaranteed that a modern zoom that ends at 200mm will have a F/5.6 aperture at best whereas older lenses always seem to be F/4 or better whilst delivering sharpness that is usually significantly better.
Build quality and finish
Image quality
Conclusion
This lens can be bought for peanuts, it's well built and delivers amazingly strong images considering its age and compact size. The only negative quality I can see is a slight amount of colour fringing at wide apertures but certainly not enough to spoil the party. Overall I recommend this lens and I find it's superiority to modern consumer equivalents a real hoot, If you can do without autofocus this lens will give you a real step up in quality and it's not alone! In time I will show you models from Tamron, Vivitar, kiron and others that can all be had for similar money and exhibit similarly good performance!
Greetings and happy new year!
This is my first post as you can probably see for yourself!
My main reason for setting this blog up is to document my experiences buying and using manual focus lenses on my DSLR's which at the moment consist of a Canon EOS 350D and an Olympus E-410. I also of course buy and use more modern autofocus lenses as well as filters and various other accessories which I will also write about.
I hope this blog will prove helpful to potential owners of these lenses and will be of interest to photographers and collectors in general.
The reason I got into the practice of using manual lenses was simply a matter of curiosity coupled with the amazingly cheap prices some lenses can be had for on sites such as eBay as well as in second hand shops and car boot sales etc. As times goes on the more respected and famous lenses continue to fetch more money but there is still ample opportunity to pick up bargains and "hidden gems". Many lens brands around in the 60's/70's/80's were simply importers who had lenses produced for them by established Japanese manufactures so it is commonplace to find lenses made by companies such as Tamron, Tokina, Cosina, Komine, Kiron and Olympus(!) wearing cheap and nasty sounding badges, Vivitar is a great example of this although prices are soaring! Soligor is another good example, many lenses wearing this badge are made by Tokina and Tamron! I would be lying if I said I didn't occasionally pay a fair sum for an old lens but for the most part the joy for me comes from taking a gamble on an unknown lens that costs a few quid, testing it against lenses I already own and deciding if I should keep it or sell it on again. If I make a small profit that's great but even If I only break even it means I have a financially neutral hobby that is always interesting and sometimes very rewarding.
I'm a great believer in finding things out for myself, even though that sometimes equates to learning the hard way! I am always buying very cheap filters and other accessories, some turn out to be exactly what you expect them to be but others show up the more established brands as overpriced and prove that sometimes people dismiss things too easily based on name and reputation. A good example is the Expo Disc white balancer which costs an eye watering £80 in 82mm size yet a coffee filter will do an equally good job and if you want something slightly more dedicated you can buy items that perform just as well on eBay from as little as £3 including international shipping! I'm by no means an expert photographer and I am certainly no Wordsworth either but hopefully over time this blog will prove to be at least interesting! The rate at which I update will depend on how busy I am and how inspired I feel at any given time!