Lenses Galore!!

As you might realise, I'm a fan of the old things. I drive a Land Rover Defender 90. I use a wood burner for my main source of heating and I have an Alpha Industries Parka to keep me warm when I'm outside (you know the one - the same as the US army use for their extreme weather manoeuvres).

As some of you will also know I recently acquired a Canon 550D Digital camera. As mentioned - a great piece of kit. From the last blogcast, you'll discover that I have been purchasing bargain lenses that have an M42 mount that I'm using with my EOS adaptor and 550D. All is well and good in the household of yester-year. That is until I found some reviews discussing one of the lenses I have recently bought: the Sunagor 28/2.8 (Nope, I hadn't heard of that brand either).

It's not easy to recognise a quality lens from a virtual distance, but what I do know is that if it hasn't cost me too much (and in this case we're talking about less than £20), then I consider this a risk worth taking - especially as the average Maccy D meal for two is in this region (and the lens is going to last much longer - and likely give much, much more pleasure).

I digress.

So a couple of weeks ago I won a bid on the bay for said lens (the Sunagor) and waddaya know - it's a beauty. Ok so the brand is one of those 'bargain bucket' sneered at brands that other more professional types berate in their for-blog-casts, but for me it's a beauty.

Here's why.

It has a maximum aperture of f/2.8. It has really good contrast and saturation. I can get to within 15 cm of the subject and still focus. It has great bokeh for a wide angle lens. It takes great pictures. And - best of all - I only paid sixteen quid plus postage.

I've only done some initial tests, but I like the results (here they are).

So I hope you'll agree with me that the results are pretty impressive for a bargain bucket lens I got for less than a night out with the missus. I like this lens so much that it's likely to be my main lens (with a magnification factor of 1.6 the 'proper' focal length calculates to about 45mm). It doesn't end there though as I just laid out a slightly bigger wedge for a Chinnon 55/1.4. Again another bargain bucket sneered at brand, but I'm telling you - the bokeh with that is incredible (don't worry, I will post some snaps from this lens soon - WTS).

At work we have a set of Canon lenses that meet some of the specs of my recently 'liberated' lenses, so when I get chance, I'll do some proper comparisons. But already I know that I'm not going to beat the Sonagor for value. Call me biased, but I seem to remember that in the Good Book we are encouraged to love the lost and the lonely. Sonagor 28/2.8 we love you. Much more than 'wise' people do.

Check out the Bokeh

So I got the lenses (and the body): Revuenon. Solid. Had to wait for the adaptor to come through.

Friday night, one week later.

Finally the adaptor arrives and I go through the steps to set up the information for the camera to read the adaptor and to set the camera so that I can use the manual settings. It took a while, but I eventually deciphered the Chinglish and got the lenses to 'communicate' with my 550D. A word of caution here. If you do get lenses from the internet, make sure everything fits properly BEFORE firing the camera. I understand that on some of the older screw fit lenses and some of the latest digital bodies the mirror can catch on the lens if an inappropriate adaptor is used. I checked mine (I focussed to infinity to see if the inner barrel would extend past the adaptor into the body of the camera - it didn't). Everything working, fitted and ready to go. All I need now is an opportunity to snap away.

The next day.

As serendipity would have it the wife goes: 'Want to go to the market love?' (This is the outdoor market in Birmingham's Bullring). 'Sure.' Now's my chance to test the lenses.

It was a good shoot with some interesting material to aim at. I was very pleased with these lenses (after-all at £5 a pop, who wouldn't be?) There's a little fringing, and the contrast is a bit flat for my tastes, but hey, I've got Aperture (Apple's digital darkroom) so I can correct if required (as I have in the pics below). For my money, I reckon I got a bargain.

I bet by now you're wanting to see. Well I'll let the pictures tell their own story (check out the bokeh).

The Good Old Days

I've been away for a while...but I'M BACK!!!

A bit excited tonight. As you'll know I have recently acquired (through the generosity of my family) a Canon 550D. Great camera. In order to compliment this I purchased the 10-22mm UWA lens. Again a great piece of kit. Expensive, but great pictures. Well there's not a lot of change left, but there's enough for a small purchase.

So I'm down on the 'bay and doing a bit of trawling when I come across a really inexpensive way of getting good quality lenses (some of you will already be aware of this approach.) Remember in the old days before digital (yes there was such a time)? When we had manual camera controls, light meters and women... (ahem, no need to go there). They were good times (or maybe my recollection has been distorted by fungus, scratches, dust etc.)

I think you know where I'm going with this.

After a number of searches and discovering the Carl Zeiss lenses are still expensive and profuse. I finally found what I thought was a good bargain to bid on: a Revueflex camera that comes bundled with three Revuenon lenses. I know, I know, I hadn't heard of that brand either but it was supposed to be in perfect working order so what's not to like?.

The lenses are a 35mm f/2 (calculates to 56mm on the Canon); a 55mm f/2 (88mm); and a 135mm f/2.8 (216mm). F/2.8!!! That's pretty fast for a 135mm. How much should I bid then? I asked myself (mainly because everyone else had gone to bed). I decided my maximum bid for three lenses should be forty quid, set up my auto bid, sat back and waited.

Now you must remember at the time of setting up the bid the price was at £2.10 (or something around that) with 2 days to go. So I checked before going to sleep (what red-blooded male doesn't take his iPod Touch to sleep with him?) and it hadn't changed. "Ok." I thought. "check tomorrow." and I did. Again no change. Still there was another 10 hours to go and after all I wasn't too fussed if I was to lose the bid.

The day went (a good day at work I might add - maybe more of that another time) and I got home. Checked the 'bay and there it was: 10 minutes to go and still no different. The upshot was that I got myself a kit of lenses for £22 including postage. They're M42 mount so I bought a lens adaptor for £12 and there you have it: three lenses for under thirty-five smackers.

So tonight more research (and God's graciousness continues). Turns out these little babies are actually pretty good lenses (will post test shots as soon as I can). Made in Japan by a company called Tomoika (?) who also made the infamous, and above mentioned, Carl Ziess lenses on the same production line. More research still, and I found a great site that shows how to take lenses apart, clean them and successfully put them back together again (so even if they're not 'in perfect working order' I can try and do something about it).

One drawback is that not all the functions of the camera will work using these lenses with the adaptor and I'll have to use manual settings quite a bit. But I do that anyway, so no real loss there (and it'll be good to blow the dust off my spot meter and get it going again). Ahhh yes, bring back those good old days when it took more than a microsecond to set up the camera and shoot.

What a day.