The Canon 1.2/85 is a legend of a lens and in this review I put it’s earliest incarnation to the test on my Sony a7II.
| Diameter | 81 mm |
| Length | 72 mm |
| Filter Thread | 72 mm |
| Weight | 756 g |
| Max. Magnification | 0.1 |
| Close Focusing Distance from the sensor | 1 m |
| Number of aperture blades | 9 |
| Elements/ Groups | 8/6, floating elements |
Continue reading Review: Canon FD 85mm 1:1.2 S.S.C. Aspherical
P: Hi Sebboh, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came to use manual lenses?
S: I’m a neuroscience researcher from Portland, OR. Photography has been a hobby for most of my life and I shot with my father’s manual focus film camera (Minolta XE-5) when I was a kid. I wanted something smaller when I went to college and switched to the tiniest point and shoot I could find (still film). I was pretty happy with that way of shooting for a number of years till I became afflicted with the desire to take pictures of birds. That led me into DSLRs (Olympus and Nikon). This was my first experience of AF without the giant dof of a p&s and I quickly became extremely aggravated by the inability to get focus where I wanted it easily. Landscape shots were often ruined by miss focus that I didn’t detect till after the fact and shooting people moving seemed nearly impossible if dof was small. I found I got more consistent results with my old Minolta lenses as well as having a more enjoyable experience of fuller control of my images.
Being able to zone focus or use the infinity stop for landscape and street shots drastically improved my hit rate and speed. Focusing on moving targets was slower than AF, but I had a lot fewer misses and a lot more decisive moment catches. With only a meager number of old lenses from my father, I looked around ebay and discovered that manual focus lenses offered much cheaper ways to get long focal length or high speed lenses. I began experimenting with all the different lenses I could get cheaply and found many had very distinctive looks that I preferred for one type of shot or another. Unfortunately, this has led to me having far more lenses than are necessary, many of which are seldom used except for special circumstances.
Continue reading The manual photographers series part 4: sebboh
A manual lens needs to be focused manually? Think again! The Techart LM-EA7 turns about any manual lens into an AF lens. For the extended explanation and an in-depth assessment check out this post.
| Weight | 133 g |
| Mount | M-mount |
| Extension | 4.5 mm |
| Weight limit lens | 700 g |
| Compatible cameras | Sony a7rII, a7ii, a6300, a6500 |
*update*
Please read this thread over at FM carefully. It seems that there is a design fault which will eventually lead some wobble of the adapted lens. Until this issue is fixed by Techart I would advise against buying the LM-EA7.
*update 2022*
Comment by User Yukito: “If you plan to update it maybe you can mention the fact that the Techart Pro works only up to A7RIII. It stopped working (still moves but never gets the lens in focus) with A7RIV, A7SIII, A9.., A1. I think that’s imputable to the PDAF system these new cameras have. A pity Techart seems not to be updating their firmware.”
The Techart PRO LM-EA7 sell for $379 at amazon.com* or ebay.com*. In Germany you can buy it at ebay.de* for 449€.
*=Affiliate Link
Continue reading Review: Techart Pro Leica M Sony E Autofocus Adapter
On the Easter weekend 2016 I was rather spontaneously visiting famous Cinque Terre in Italy. The weather forecast was quite alright, but as I was only on a two night stay, I had very limited time (and blue hours) so I had to make the best of it…
As usual when on a trip I was using my Mindshiftgear rotation 180 panorama* backpack. In the belt comparment I was carrying my A7s, Nikon AF-S 20mm 1.8G, review sample of the Zeiss Loxia 35mm 2.0, Voigtlander Nokton 50mm 1.5 and the Leica Summicron 90mm 2.0. In the upper compartmend I also carried a Nikon Ai-s 180mm 2.8 ED which I didn’t use once on the trip (therefore sold now). I also carried a small Gitzo traveler tripod, a mini tripod and a few filters. With the small lenses the backpack still has some space left for water and food. Now even more, as I won’t carry a longer tele anymore…
A german version of this article can be found here.
Continue reading Making of series part 2: “Vernazza” with Zeiss Loxia 2.0/35
The Series E lenses were meant as a low cost alternative to the more expensive yet reknown Nikkor lenses. This didn’t work out so well for Nikon, at that time many people were simply not interested in “cheap” lenses made mostly from plastic. Nevertheless, some of these lenses are quite good optically, therefore I take a look at the Nikon Series E 75-150mm 3.5 zoom lens.
