Two New Faces

For two years I was the only author on this blog but I am very happy that I now have two co-authors  who are as passionate about photography and (manual) lenses as I am. There are so many interesting lenses out there that I have no chance to cover them all alone and together we can cover a lot more lenses.

I think it is about time to introduce them after they have already published a few articles.

Jannik Peters

Jannik works as an engineer and lives in northern Gemany.

Jannik is interested in many lens systems but I would say that his focus is on two manufacturers: Zeiss and Canon FD. So far he has published reviews of the Zeiss Loxia 2.8/21, Zeiss Sonnar 3.5/100 and a comparison of 35mm Canon FD lenses.

You can follow Jannik on flickr.

Bastian

Bastian lives in the south of Germany and besides his main job he runs workshops about nature and architecture photography. You can check out his web site if you are interested.

Bastian is specialized in M-mount and Nikon F-mount lenses. So far he has published reviews of the Voigtlander  2/28, Voigtlander 5.6/12 and Leica Summicron 2/90 pre-ASPH.

You can follow Bastian on flickr.

Phillip

I am of course still on board and I still study and live in western Germany.

More recently I have reviewed many Zeiss lenses but I also bought my first lenses from Olympus (OM 2/100) and Pentax (SMC K 3.5/28) which I both like a lot and I look forward to exploring both systems a bit more. In the past I have reviewed many Canon FD and Minolta SR lenses and I plan to review a few more Minoltas in 2016.

You can follow me on flickr and on facebook.

I am certainly not the first to report that the original Sony a7 has a problem with it’s mount which is loosening over time but so far I haven’t seen an illustration of how this problem can affect image quality.

My Sony a7 arrived on Nov 20. 2013 so it is very close to two years old now. Until now I had noticed that the mount had gotten a little more play over time but it wasn’t a real problem to me.

But now a point is reached were it has become a real issue for me. If I mount a lens like my FE 4/16-35 and pit the camera on a tripod I can see a gap between lens-mount and camera-mount! And the lens also has some rotational play.

Does the problem affect image quality?

Yes it does!

Continue reading The Sony a7’s loosening mount →

This blog is mostly about manual lenses which are usually 30 to 50 years old. And while most of them are surprisingly reliable the are a few things you should check before or after buying a lens.

This checklist is based on the experience I gained from buying  more than a hundred lenses since I discovered how much fun it is to use them on Sony’s Alpha cameras.

If you have additional info about a defect not listed or disagree with my assessment please leave a comment!

Scratches on the lenses

Use a large light source like a window and place the lens between you and the light so that you can see the colorful coating of the lens.

Scratches are seldom a problem in the real world but they lower the resale value of a lens. In theory they could reduce the contrast of a lens or cause some flare but I have never seen that happen.

You can’t really do anything to restore coatings but it sometimes makes sense to fill larger scratches with black paint to avoid light scattering.

Continue reading Defects in Manual Lenses and lens buying advice →

What is an L-bracket?

An L-bracket is a peace of metal which serves about three functions:

• It makes it possible to mount the camera in portrait orientation on a tripod
• It is a more solid connection to the camera than quick release plates because it has a much bigger area of contact to the camera.
• It increases the size of the grip and makes holding the camera easier.

For me an L-brackets has improved the everyday experience of my Sony Alpha 7 and I think too few people know about L-brackets so I want to share my experience in this post.

Continue reading Useful Accessory for the Sony Alpha 7: A L-Bracket →

In party 3 of my series I will  tell you about my approach to post processing. This is my personal approach and there are many different approaches, some of them more sophisticated than mine, but I found that it works quite well for me this way.

In case you haven’t read part 1 and 2 yet, here are the links:
How I create Images – Part 1: looking for motifs and light
How I create Images – Part 2: working with the Sony a7

I will talk about this image later, but it makes a nice intro

Continue reading How I create Images – Part 3: Postprocessing →