Today I stopped besides a field of grass waiting to be mowed for maybe the last time this year. I wanted to catch some of the “grass feeling” but because the Industar is a decent macro lens I got caught up by the small details.
This is one of the Russian lenses and though it is not as sturdy as the Rikenon it still feels good. I’m not a big fan of the clickless aperture ring but it is stiff enough to prevent it being moved to easy.
I love the out of focus parts of the picture, both with details close by and far away. I also get used to focusing with this lens and it might not be super sharp it is still impressive for a 50,- US Dollar lens.
I have a third 50(ish)mm lens I am trying out now that I really like. Maybe I have three 50mm lenses in my bag on my next vacation.
Today I did a similar thing as yesterday only now I used my 18mm Fujinon lens together with my new and cheap E-bay extension tube of 10mm. Using extension tubes on this kind of wide angel lenses is not something you normally do. Even the slightest raising of the distance between the lens and the sensor will shorten the focus distance dramatically. There was a bright sun so I had to wiggle around with the camera as to not cast a shade over my subject with the lens onto the tiny flowers. I had to remove the lens hood because I kept on bumping into them.
The focusing distance between closest and furthest is around 2 to 3 cm, really short so you have no choice to get close. The downside of this that if you bring this small and lightweight extension tube with you for the occasional macro shot you better make sure it’s only small flowers or other objects.
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I still like the result of the pictures, the lens combination gives an other feel to the pictures than my other lenses do in macro mode and that’s worth something to. This time I choose the aperture and let the camera do the rest. The two out of focus pictures are also taken with this lens setup but might as well be taken without the extension tube. The pictures are sharpened and lightly edited in lightroom.
ISO 400, exposure time 1/180s, aperture f5.6, 55mm
Today i used my Fujinon 55-220mm lens in combination with two autofocus extension tubes. I have normal extension tubes for macro photography but they cannot pass through signals and power to the lens for autofocus, the electronic aperture ring and image stabilization. Some of the new lenses for the Fujifilm X-mount have no manual aperture ring, you can only use it electronically and as far as I know all the lenses have a motor build in to adjust the focus, the focus ring is not connected to any lens elements that works great ass long as you use the right macro extension tubes. This means that I need a “smart” extension tube, Fuji makes them and here in Norway they cost around 90 US Dollars for one ring so a 180 for both. That is not a bad price but I tried E-bay and there you can buy cheaper version for between 15 and 40 US Dollars for both. I don’t think there is much difference between the cheapest and the more expensive ones on E-bay, I bought them for 23 US Dollars. The reviews where mixed but it’s not the first time that I buy something from E-bay so took the gamble. They arrived today and I tried them with my Fujinon lenses and it all seems to work. They feel a little bit light so they are probably the same as the originals only made with cheaper and thinner materials. I will see how long they last, I will treat them with more care than I normally do .
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I have to try them out more but with the 55-200mm I got much closer when I combined the two rings (10mm and 16mm). At 55mm I came closer that with 200mm, without the rings that is the other way around. As with most Fujinon lenses the image quality is very good. I shot all the pictures handheld with the image stabilizer on, I did not pay much attention the ISO and aperture setting the camera chose for me so that will be a surprise for me to. The weather was nice, no direct sun an lightly overcast. All the pictures are sharpened in Lightroom together with some basic editing, nothing fancy besides the two black and white pictures.
Today I used for the first time a mirror lens. I always wanted to try out this kind of lens, specially because of the rings in the bokeh or background blur. The one I bought is a Rubinar 500mm f5.6, it was around a hundred dollars and that’s a good price compared to the prices at E-bay. Its Russian made, probably in the 1990s, its heavy and larger than I expected. The quality looks OK the only thing I noticed is that the numbers looked to be engraved by hand, not important, gives it kind of a charm.
The quality of the pictures is not that great if sharpness is important to you. If you focus further away the sharpness is not that bad but the closer you get to the minimum distance of two meters the softer the pictures get. I used a tripod for most of the pictures so I could use the focus assist on the X-t1 whereby you see a zoomed in center of the frame. If you try to do this handheld with this 500mm on a cropped sensor (750mm) you have to much shake. On the tripod the pictures stays nice and stable and you can clearly see that the pictures is not sharp though the focusing ring is nice and heavy and in principal good enough to get a good focus.
For now I am not unsatisfied, for me sharpness is not a necessity for creating an interesting image.
It was a nice and sunny day, I used relatively high ISO values so to get a decent shutter
time. The aperture is fixed at f5.6 as is normal with a mirror lens. I used Lightroom to see if I could some extra sharpens out of the RAW files. The colors and contrast of the pictures was not bad but I pumped them up in some of the pictures because that can sometimes help with the (perceived) sharpness.
Today I used an other manual lens, the Rico auto Rikenon 55mm f1.4. As far as I can tell the lens is from the 60th, it’s heavy and feels really good in the hand, the focusing ring is the best I ever felt. Today I used it meanly at an aperture of 1.4 to see the results. You cannot focus really close, around 45 cm from the sensor but at that distance there is not much depth of field. Tomorrow I will try it at other f-stops and from longer distances from the subject.
So far I like what I see, the colors are nice and the sharpens seems good even though it is hard to see on most of these pictures because of the shallow depth of field and the angle I have taken these pictures. I did some more work on these pictures in Lightroom, mainly some highlight work and basic sharpening and contrast, the sun was shining bright and it was the middle of the day so the light was not at it’s best, the colors where already great in my opinion, straight from the sensor.
Today I used my 300mm Nikon lens on my X-t1 to try out manual focus with this kind of lens. The X-t1 has this focus aid that shows you a small zoomed in part of the screen besides the main screen and this works great. All the pictures are taken hand held with a shutter time of 500. The pictures of the flower give a nice mood and because of the aperture of f4 only a small sliver is sharp. The picture of Darth, our cat, shows a good sharpness in the eyes and the bridge is sharp to, at least part of it because the aperture was also f4. The butterfly was more difficult to get sharp but that was because of the wind, I shot a burst of pictures and prayed for the best, something a normally never do. Overall manual focusing works fine with this kind of lens.When I use this lens, made between 1987 and 2000, on my Nikon D7100 you can use the autofocus but it is slow, there is no motor in the lens like you have with modern lenses, it’s all mechanical and you notice, and hear it. As long as the subject is not moving to mush and you are not in a hurry it works great. .
Today I used a Lensbaby scout with a fish-eye lens. It is a relative cheap lens but it is fun to use, you can get really close and get some cool effects. If you focus really close you end up with a lot of vignetting that’s why I cropped the pictures. The pictures are not particular sharp, at f5.6 you have a small depth of field with this lens and I didn’t use a tripod.
All the pictures have the same settings: ISO 200, exposure time 1/125s, aperture f5.6
Today I used a lens from Lensbaby, the Muse. With this particular lens you can easily tilt part of the lens to create some strange effects. You can move the front part slightly forwards or back to focus and you have to manually replace rings in the lens to mimic different aperture settings, I had it on 2.8 witch give you a shallow depth of field. I personally like the dramatic effect and the slight soft image that you get out of this lens.
I only did some slight curve adjustment in Corel aftershot pro, I really like the RAW files that come out of the X-t1, not sure what Corel brought to the table. All the picture have the same settings: ISO 200, exposure time 1/180s, aperture f2.8
Today I used the Nikon 50mm and reversed it with a special adapter you screw on the lens where you normally screw on a filter. you can buy these kind of adapters for different camera mounts, in this case I used one for Nikon F-mount. There is off course no auto focus and you have to set your aperture manual. Today it was overcast and i set my ISO at 200, the shutter on 1∕180s and the aperture of f2.8. I didn’t change these settings and let the environment decide what the mood of the picture would be. The pictures are JPEG’s straight from the RAW file without any changes, only the one with the insect is slightly sharpened. I personally like the effect of the low depth of field and the lack of sharpness. I shot these pictures handheld and there was some wind, I will test this setup an other day in better conditions whit a tripod to see how sharp the 50mm is reversed.