Home

Please support mflenses.com if you need any graphic related work order it from us, click on above banner to order!
SearchSearch MemberlistMemberlist RegisterRegister ProfileProfile Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages Log inLog in

Announcement: New Konica website
Post new topic   Reply to topic
Home   Official News and Announcements
View previous topic :: View next topic  


PostPosted: Fri Mar 20, 2015 8:57 am    Post subject: Announcement: New Konica website Reply with quote
Hi everyone,

After many years, the English-language version of my old French Konica site is finally online: https://sites.google.com/site/tks0en/home

It’s much larger than the original and I’ve gone into greater detail about most aspects of the Konica AR system discussed in the French website. I also added many more, and most of those have to do with technical and historical issues. It is different from most sites in that it’s arranged a little bit as a book and contains roughly 250 pages of text. It’s a site for people who like to read.

All comments and suggestions are welcome. The site is very extensive and undoubtedly some errors are hiding here and there. If you see any I will be grateful for a heads-up and will be glad to correct any mistakes. Many parts of the site are still “under construction” and as time permits I will be adding to them.

Hope you enjoy it.
jj


PostPosted: Fri Mar 20, 2015 9:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
I have it bookmarked for furture reading,thanks for posting and taking time to create the website.


PostPosted: Fri Mar 20, 2015 1:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Excellent!


PostPosted: Fri Mar 20, 2015 1:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Very cool. Thank you.


PostPosted: Fri Mar 20, 2015 3:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Well done for all your hard work. I'm not a Konica fan but a little knowledge is good.


PostPosted: Fri Mar 20, 2015 3:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Congrats! Buy a good domain name like konicacamera and run your site under real domain to spread more this great informations!


PostPosted: Tue Mar 24, 2015 7:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Wow, what a great site by a true fan (in a good sense of the word). I am very impressed by all the research regarding Konica lens production: types, time spans, rarity, technical data, and what not. The lens section badly needs pictures though, I hope they are in the plans.

As a small criticism, I don't think that supporting popular myths such as "40/1.8 ‘proved in resolution to be one of the best tested on any camera, regardless of cost" is a good idea. You correctly quoted Modern Photography on that, and it's a good anecdote, but the statement of Modern photography is so way off mark that it really needs commenting.


PostPosted: Tue Mar 24, 2015 9:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
fermy wrote:
Wow, what a great site by a true fan (in a good sense of the word). I am very impressed by all the research regarding Konica lens production: types, time spans, rarity, technical data, and what not. The lens section badly needs pictures though, I hope they are in the plans.

As a small criticism, I don't think that supporting popular myths such as "40/1.8 ‘proved in resolution to be one of the best tested on any camera, regardless of cost" is a good idea. You correctly quoted Modern Photography on that, and it's a good anecdote, but the statement of Modern photography is so way off mark that it really needs commenting.

Thank you for your kind words, which are much appreciated. Much of the info on the site is based on careful observation of a great quantity of lenses over many years. All in all, it was (still is in some ways) a very rewarding project.

Yes, photos of the lenses are planned, as are many other graphic elements. But it takes time. I’ve been doing this in my spare moments, of which there never seem to be enough. But I’ll get there.

RE: The 40/1.8, I appreciate you’ve not exactly had good fortune with that lens, but I feel you are a bit hasty in blaming the lens for it. This lens’ reputation is no anecdote. Modern Photo was not the only one to lavish praise on it and referring to this is not “supporting a popular myth”. Please keep in mind that such statements are based on tests done on film, using traditional FF cameras, in the late seventies. Obviously, this lens presents some problems on many of today’s reflective sensors and this is, indeed, frustrating, but there are ways around it. Example: http://www.esperado.fr/HexanonPencake40mmF1.8.HTML

There’s really nothing to debunk here. People who swear by this lens are legion and the internet is full of examples of what this lens can do. Here are a few:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4140/4806556944_901974fdca_b.jpg (on 4/3)
http://www.getdpi.com/forum/4-3rds-cameras/6740-info-adaptor-hexanon-40-f-1-8-a.html (scroll down to see great floral pictures, again on 4/3)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/manualfocus-g/5917101928/ (this example, on APS-C, shows that it's not exactly the desired lens for portraits, but sharp it is).
I'm sure there are even better examples than these.


PostPosted: Wed Mar 25, 2015 12:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Look, I am happy with 40/1.8 for what it is: it's a decent lens with a small size and unusual focal length. So I wouldn't say that I had bad fortune with that lens. It's also true that Konica 50/1.4, 50/1.7, 57/1.4 are all sharper than it (and I suspect that 1.2 as well, once you stop it to the same aperture as the pancake). That's at least 3 sharper Konica normals that I personally have experience with and I am not even touching the lenses from other manufacturers. Now if you go back to all the debates that we had on 40/1.8 here, you'd find a number of people who give much harsher assessment to 40/1.8 than me, so I don't think I had/have some bad specimens.

It could be that the performance that we see on our digital cameras is radically different from the performance on film. In case of 40/1.8 I strongly doubt it, because it's a retrofocus lens for an SLR, so the angles of incidence for 40/1.8 is not that different from a typical SLR normal. If that were the culprit, RF normals would be the worst affected, but they perform fine, that's non-retrofocus lenses that are problematic.

My personal guess is that marketing existed long before internet and the praise of Modern Photography and other photographic journals to 40/1.8 is not much different to the praise that various audiophile journals heap on this or that piece of gear. Nobody's going to check anyway because it's prohibitively expensive and time consuming to buy all that gear and do the testing. Except now we all have hundreds of lenses and we can check them on identical cameras with focus fine tuned with 15x magnification in real time...


PostPosted: Wed Mar 25, 2015 6:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Thank you for sharing your knowledge. I have no doubt that this was a very time consuming project.

I have become a bit of a Konica fan and enjoy the results the lenses provide.


PostPosted: Fri Mar 27, 2015 2:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
fermy wrote:
Look, ....


I have been looking, for 35 years now, and in my opinion, this lens is one of the sharpest lenses of its generation. In terms of sharpness I find it comparable to the other Hexanon standard lenses you mention – with due consideration for sample variation. Based on this experience, I find it perfectly conceivable that the lens struck the people at Modern Photo as “one of the best they had seen at any price” (paraphrasing from memory now). They had obviously landed an outstanding sample. But this does not mean anyone buying a 40/1.8 would be getting the sharpest lens in existence. To expect this today is just as naïve as it was back then. But it is perfectly reasonable to expect to get a lens that will be razor sharp, unless it is defective for any reason. I’ve had half a dozen over the years and that’s been my experience. Modern Photo was a serious and respected outfit with competent and dedicated staff. I see no hyperbole or dishonesty in their assertion. And just because a lens from the seventies presents problems when used decades later on new technology is no reason IMO to call MP’s findings “anecdotal” or the lens’ reputation “a myth”. Once again, the internet is full of examples easily demonstrating that it isn’t.

Your comments about the lens’ retrofocus design and angles of incidence strike me as textbook theory. The angles of incidence may be similar to other standard lenses, but in practice, using baffles on the 40/1.8 makes a dramatic difference in the lens’ overall performance – a far greater one than in the case of the other Hexanon standards – all the theory notwithstanding. This, of course, also implies that the problem with this lens on digital sensors has nothing to do with the lens’ sharpness or with focusing technique, using x15 magnification or otherwise. I accept that many people may not wish to bother with baffles and would find the 40/1.8 too burdensome to use and undesirable. That’s perfectly understandable but in no way reflects on Modern Photo’s original appraisal of the lens.

Those are my views on the subject. If you find them objectionable, we can agree to disagree. Smile


PostPosted: Tue Jun 02, 2015 7:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Glad I just found this....I'm a new Konica fan, and this site is full of good reading and info. Thanks for the effort and sharing.

Not going to add to the debate over the quality and character of the lens in question....but all things in life will be subjective.


PostPosted: Tue Jun 02, 2015 9:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Excellent job , thank you !
One of my favorite lenses is the 24/2,8.I also love my FT-1 camera ( motor)
Post new topic   Reply to topic
Home   Official News and Announcements
Page 1 of 1