colorful – My photography notebook

Fujifilm X-T1, Hanimex 28mm f2.8

Today I write about a lens I used recently. It’s an other rebranded lens from a lens manufacturer specially made for the Australian marked. The lens is a Hanimex 28mm f.28 lens. I bought this lens for less than 10 USD. My particular lens has many small hear fractures in the front lens, they don’t seem to influence the picture quality but I can’t compare it. The aperture also changes from f22 to around f8 when I focus from the minimum distance to infinity. I only noticed this when my viewfinder and light meter didn’t change when I changed the aperture past f8 when taking landscape shots. These flaws might temper my enthusiasm about this lens but compared to the other 28mm I tested not so long ago (Orion 28mm f2.8) this lens is better. I will compare them side by side in the future but for some reason I like to take pictures with this lens. I also made some pictures of landscapes but they all came out bad. It might have something to do with the strange aperture behavior or with me not taking the time focusing accurately. Maybe I just like the focal lens on my 1.5 crop camera of this lens.

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Fujifilm X-t1, Mir-1b 37mm f2.8 part 3

Testing

Today I took some random picture during my break at work. I used The Mir 37mm again. The four colorful pictures are edited more in a stile I like, colorful, punchy and no blue in the sky. I like these results and I don’t think I would be more satisfied if I had taken them with one of my modern lenses. There are of course all kinds of (technical) things wrong with it if you look closer, or even if you don’t but I had fun making them, manual focusing, making sure the aperture ring was set and finely editing them. I will remember the time and place of when I took these pictures when I see them again in the future and relive the moment in a small amount, what more do you want. I would use this lens for a paid assignment, they hire me for my style and not for my technical skills. The other picture of the museum I work for is almost straight out of the camera and it captures perfectly the mood of the day, misty, grey and silent. I had to put some contrast in it because that’s something this lens misses.

On E-bay you will find different version of this lens for around 60,- US Dollars. I bought mine here in Norway where I live now for a similar price. The quality of my particulate lens is not that great, there is some movement in the focus and aperture rings and is used quit a lot. Optically I looks fine but I have no other MIR-1 to compare it with, I don’t see fungus or dust inside the lens.

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Fujifilm X-t1, Ricoh Auto Rikenon 55mm f1.4 (M42)

Testing

ISO 200, exposure time 1/2000s, aperture 1.4

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.

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