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Explore the world of vintage lenses through repair notes, real test shots, and detailed archive threads packed with images.

Explore the world of vintage lenses through repair notes, real test shots, and detailed archive threads packed with images.
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Konica Hexanon AR 3.5/28 7-element EE version
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Posted: Sun Nov 06, 2011 2:49 am
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Posted: Sun Nov 06, 2011 2:49 am
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Orio wrote:
Prices of Konica lenses will surely rise now that there are digital cameras that can mount them.
With Canon EOS they don't reach infinity so I am cut off from them.


Yes, they are rising fast, as are M39, Minolta MD and Canon FD, M4/3 and NEX users must be the reason. However, for the price, Hexanons are still total bargains, Zeiss quality for a fraction the cost, Rokkors are supposed to be excellent too, I just bought a 2/45 Rokkor for 11ukp as an alternative to the Hexanon 1.8/40 (which is now fetching 50-60ukp on ebay) as a pancake lens, I already have the Pentacon 2.4/50 pancake but it's not a great lens, people say the Rokkor 2/45 is superb.

With a brand new NEX-3 for 180ukp on ebay (and there are loads of them) it's worth getting one just to be able to use those lenses that won't work on EOS and the NEX produces wonderful images. It fits in a pocket too and with a small lens like a Hexanon 1.8/40 or Rokkor 2/45 it's not that big a combo. I like to use my Industar-61 when I want to travel light with just the NEX and a lens in my pocket.


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Posted: Sun Nov 06, 2011 11:11 pm
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Posted: Sun Nov 06, 2011 11:11 pm
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Fantastic shots, Ian...especially the last series. Thanks for sharing.


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Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2011 12:39 am
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Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2011 12:39 am
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Cheers, I tried my Canon FD 2.8/28 S.C. today and it's nowehre near as good as this Hexanon, it's a good lens, but this Hexanon is really special imho. When used with the NEX it's a dream combo so that has really helped improve my landscape shots.


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Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2011 4:49 pm
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Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2011 4:49 pm
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I've been picking up Hexanons when I see nice ones, so far I have
28/3.5, 52/1.8, 57/1.4, and 100/2.8
I intend to use them on NEX7 till something better comes along.

Nice series


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Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 5:42 am
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Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 5:42 am
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Nice collection lightshow, when you get a NEX you will definitely enjoy them!

NEX-3 is a bargain now, 170-180ukp for brand new ones in ebay.

I wanted to visit Seathwaite Tarn today to capture the sunset over the water, sadly I didn't make it that far due to timing and had to shoot from the foot of Walna Scarr a kilometre or so below the tarn but it's quite pretty there and I managed to capture some quite atmospheric sunset shots, the warmth and low angle of the light worked quite well methinks. I used a Cokin A 160 CPL on the lens for these shots apart from the waterfall which I used a cheap chinese ND8 filter to blur the water with longer exposures.












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Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 5:42 am
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Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 5:42 am
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BTW, can anyone tell which shots from that series are HDR and which aren't?


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Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 9:54 am
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Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 9:54 am
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Has the stitching caused the stuttering clouds Ian ? In the pictures with clouds there seems to be areas where the pattern is repeated, but the ground is perfect. Which would be a shame as they are excellent, and where you have used HDR it's subtle enough to be unnoticed.

I've just looked at them magnified, and I think it's the HDR that's causing it, the low cloud is moving very fast and the three exposures are picking it up at slightly different points. The high cloud is unaffected.


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Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 10:57 am
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Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 10:57 am
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Absolutely correct, the clouds were moving hence the stuttering effect, shame really, it spoils things a bit.

Because it was tricky light due to near sunset, HDR was the only way for most of the shots.


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Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 11:32 am
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Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 11:32 am
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iangreenhalgh1 wrote:
BTW, can anyone tell which shots from that series are HDR and which aren't?

they are all hdr except #2#3


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Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 11:38 am
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Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 11:38 am
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Lloydy wrote:

I've just looked at them magnified, and I think it's the HDR that's causing it, the low cloud is moving very fast and the three exposures are picking it up at slightly different points. The high cloud is unaffected.


This is one of the reasons (aside from having local control) why I prefer to manually blend layers in photoshop instead of having a machine do the mixing for me.


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Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 11:40 am
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Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 11:40 am
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Perhaps a bit of blur / smear tool might do the trick ? It would be a shame to have very good pictures wasted.


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Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 5:01 pm
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Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 5:01 pm
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poilu wrote:
iangreenhalgh1 wrote:
BTW, can anyone tell which shots from that series are HDR and which aren't?

they are all hdr except #2#3


Almost, 4 isn't HDR either, the colours are due to the angle and colour of the sunlight, it was a minute or two before sun disappeared behind hills.


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Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 5:03 pm
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Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 5:03 pm
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Lloydy wrote:
Perhaps a bit of blur / smear tool might do the trick ? It would be a shame to have very good pictures wasted.


I tried blur, looked wrong, I think the clone stamp tool is the way to fix it, I will try when I have time, have a few hundred shot from todays Ravenglass-Gosforth-Wastwater-Wasdale-Eskdale adventure to work on tonight and only managed to process two thirds of what I shot yesterday at Seathwaite. I need an 8-core PC with 8 gigs of RAM for these big HDR panos.


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Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 4:42 am
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Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 4:42 am
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Possibly picking a single exposure for the sky and processing it separately for the highs and lows then blending or using auto bracketing and faster frames per second should limit cloud crawl.
nice shots anyways.


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Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 8:18 am
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Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 8:18 am
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It's very cleverly done Ian, but I can't say I'm a fan of HDR. The pictures look artificial to me, like scenes from an animated movie. Now you're gonna say that's the whole idea! Smile


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Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 4:31 pm
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Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 4:31 pm
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Actually that's not the idea, I'm trying to be realistic, more like the way the human eye sees a scene than a traditional photograph depicts it, not easy but I am slowly getting there, I have a new series shot yesterday to post, some of those look very realistic, I will post them as soon as I finish processing them, it takes a long time to assemble an image from 40 exposures - stitching 8 5-shot HDR images.


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Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 10:40 pm
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Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 10:40 pm
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Here is yesterday's series with the Hexanon 3.5/28, think these are a bit more realistic looking.
















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Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 10:42 pm
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Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 10:42 pm
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So many great pictures! Congrats! Some of them require more saturation in my opinion, but most of them just stunning!


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Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 10:44 pm
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Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 10:44 pm
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Yes, there is room for tweaking, for sure, but after 24hrs of work putting them together (nearly all are stitched from many exposures) I have had enough and need an early night! I will play with ACDSee and see what improvements I can make.

There is still a series shot with my Tokina 17mm of the same subjects to finish processing...

I need a faster PC!


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Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 10:59 pm
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Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 10:59 pm
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Holy cow, you've nailed the HDR technique alright!


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Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 11:01 pm
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Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 11:01 pm
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Cheers Graham, it took a lot of work to get it right and I think I've about worn my eyes and PC out doing so!


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Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 11:07 pm
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Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 11:07 pm
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It would be easy, but wrong, to judge those pictures in the same way that we would judge a picture showing the same view but taken in one shot. It would be interesting to see some comparison 'single' shots Ian, I think it would make your efforts that much more appreciated. I'm not being critical, I think they're very very good, but the difference, without that comparison, is kinda hard to judge.


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Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 11:25 pm
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Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 11:25 pm
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That's a good point David. Sadly I've deleted all the RAW files but when I shoot another series I will do as you suggest. To my eyes, the difference is massive. You have to remember this series was shot on a horrid, dull gray day with intermittent rain, there was no blue in the sky to the naked eye, single shots looked dull, flat, not good. If you look at the panorama facing out to sea with the fishing boats, that shot is not HDR, it's very flat and the sky is just flat gray, but I did this deliberately as I wanted a stark, minimalist look. As you probably know, Cumbria in November is dull, wet and windy, HDR would seem to allow better photography in such circumstances and for me, that is a great thing as 6 months of the year can be horrid up here.

I did keep this example from the Seathwaite series. First is a single 10 second exposure with an ND8 filter, second is a 6 shot HDR with same ND8 filter (cheap 3ukp Chinese plastic one).




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Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2011 10:54 am
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Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2011 10:54 am
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Yes, you can see the difference, the first shot on its own would be ok, maybe not worthy of hanging on the wall but it's ok. The second has detail and vibrance, the detail on the wet rocks in the shade is all there. It's a big difference. It's interesting to see that comparison.


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Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2011 11:45 am
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Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2011 11:45 am
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You're just getting better and better Ian!

Regarding the 7-element version: could we specify serial number range perhaps? Mine is 7182720. All metal.
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