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Yashica ML 2.8/28
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 3:56 pm    Post subject: Yashica ML 2.8/28 Reply with quote

Hi folks

Got a helluva bargain today - a mint, unusued looking Yashica ML 2.8/28 with a worn but working Yashica FX-3 and a excellent condition Yashica ML 2/50. Price? 8ukp inc shipping, sometimes ebay can be a wonderful thing!

The 2.8/28 is a great lens it seems, sharp even wide open with great contrast and colour.

f8:



f2.8:



The rest are all wide open at f2.8 and each is followed by a 100% crop:

















PostPosted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 8:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's been nicknamed around here as the "Poor Man's Distagon" and for
good reason. Incredibly good deal for what you paid, Ian. It's the sharpest
28 I own, beating out (just barely) a Konica AR Hexanon 3.5/28, and is a
faster lens, too. A few pix using film, color ones are Ferrania 100 and the
last is Arista Premium 100:





Contax 137MA/Yashica ML 2.8/28 lens


PostPosted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 9:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Justed parted away with my copy which had the front element coating very badly damaged by fungae and although it did not seem to have an effect on pictures I just didn't like the looks of it.


PostPosted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 11:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

f/2.8 looked a good deal sharper than f/8. You have a Vivitar Close Focus, don't you? If so, I suspect the V is sharper.


PostPosted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 11:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have two Vivs, don't rate them, giving one to a friend shortly. Definitely not as sharp as this Yashica wide open, might coe close stopped down but definitely not at 2.8.

Could be some camera shake on the f8 shot.


PostPosted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 11:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Katastrofo wrote:
It's been nicknamed around here as the "Poor Man's Distagon" and for
good reason. Incredibly good deal for what you paid, Ian. It's the sharpest
28 I own, beating out (just barely) a Konica AR Hexanon 3.5/28, and is a
faster lens, too. A few pix using film, color ones are Ferrania 100 and the
last is Arista Premium 100:


Thanks for that info, I was thinking of getting the 28 Hexanon to use on my NEX as I already have a couple of Hexanons and a couple of Kirons in Konica AR mount too, but I think I'll just use the Yashica instead.

I like your shots a lot, great colours.


PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 12:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think you might have muddled the f2.8 and f8 shots Ian, (easily done! Smile). The shot labelled f8 has 1/250 at 100 ISO in the EXIF, and the f2.8 is 1/125 at 200 ISO, i.e. the f8 shot is 2 stops LESS exposure than the f2.8. (I'm assuming you haven't done any PP).

Even so, at f8 I would expect this lens to be sharper than this, and contrastier too, even on a dull day.


PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 12:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Not sure what went on with that f8 shot, been looking at it again and it's not as sharp as the f2.8 shot by far, strange indeed. I think we should disregard that f8 result and I'll shoot some more shots tomorrow to see what's what.


PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 12:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Could I make another suggestion Ian. The colour space you've set in the camera is Adobe RGB. This is the correct one for making prints with Adobe software, but for web use it's best to use sRGB. You'll find the colours will look a little more vibrant on the monitor.

Last edited by peterqd on Thu Sep 01, 2011 1:03 am; edited 1 time in total


PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 1:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh, do I change that in the menu on the camera?

I think I might stick to the Adobe setting as I will be making prints of some of my images when I get a printer.


PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 1:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

iangreenhalgh1 wrote:
Oh, do I change that in the menu on the camera?

I think I might stick to the Adobe setting as I will be making prints of some of my images when I get a printer.

Yes, on my 400D the colour space setting is about halfway down on menu page 2. You can change the colour space of an image in PP if you need to (at least, in Photoshop you can).


PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 1:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I use Photoshop so perhaps I should convert my pics before I upload them here.


PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 7:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

An easy way to publish with normal colours for the web is to "save for web and devices" or to untick the Adobe RGB box when saving.

I must admit, I have been saving all mine as Adobe RGB recently and forgot about it, as Firefox displays them fine. IE doesn't though.

Note about the shots, they don't look sharp. The first one in particular is totally mis-focused. Best use a tripod and don't rely on the infinity marking on the lens as most adapters are slightly too thin. The ML 28/2.8 is a very sharp lens indeed normally.


PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 8:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I agree that something must have gone wrong here. Those images don't look sharp to my eyes, either.
But I got similar results with one of the two ML 2.8/28 I had. It wasn't a good lens at all and I could not understand everybody raving about it.
The second copy was much better, but still not as good as other 28mm lenses I have.

Anyway, for the price you got this set for, it is an absolute bargain!


PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 8:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

sRGB is fine for printing on consumer printers like HP or Epson inkets for example. It was actually developed by HP & Microsoft. Adobe RGB has a wider colour gamut but you can only take advantage of it with a high-end professional printer, sometimes using 18 ink cartridges.


PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 1:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Maybe I should put a film through the FX-3 to try this lens again as well as my ML 2.8/35 as that also didn't seem very sharp to people.

It's sunny here today, I have time to shoot a few shots which I'll go do now.

I am sure there's nothing wrong with the adapter I use as my Hoya HMC 2.8/28 works great with the same adapter:




PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 2:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, I shot another series, all at f8 and I can sum this lens up in one word - crap!

Very soft, very disappointing, poor man's Distagon my arse, this is the worst 28mm lens I've tried.


















PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 3:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You didn't reply to my question about infinity. There seems to be a lot of CA going on as well, so if you shooting at real infinity (ignore the lens markings) the lens may have been tampered with.


PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 3:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes I did, I said that there was nothing wrong with the adapter as the Hoya HMC 2.8/28 in C/Y mount works perfectly with it.

Besides, this adapter has a focus confirm chip, it's not faulty technique, it's a crap lens.

Definitely hasn't been tampered with, it looks in virtually unused condition, the screws and retaining rings have definitely not been touched.

It's just a crap lens, sounds like Yashica's quality varies a lot as Lucis had a crap copy as well. I need to test my Yashica ML 2.8/35 further as well as it also looked quite soft first time I tried it.

Here is another shot with the Hoya using the same adapter:




The Hoya is a lot sharper and has a lot less CA, still the best 28mm I've tried and I paid 99p for it, I know there are better 28s out there but I'm having a hell of a time finding them!


PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 3:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

OK, but I would suggest taking the same shot from a tripod with multiple focus points anyway to check. Some lenses are just adjusted differently to others. And I would never rely on a focus confirm chip unless it's a programmable one which you have fine tuned to your own camera with your own lens.

You might not agree, but I have never owned a perfect adapter for every lens, even my 60.00 C/Y adapters hit infinity ever so slightly before the lenses indicate so. And I've had a couple that don't reach infinity at all with several lenses (as they are too thick).

Would you consider close up performance to be poor as well?


PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 4:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ian that does not look very good at all.
Does the lens have haze on it?
Have you tried it with the NEX.
I have a Yashica adaptor and will be up neer the lakes soon i am sure you live neer there or is that somebody else
i will be visiting Ulswater.
Or if you dont like it you can always post it to me under the crap lens challenge and i can clean and service it


PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 6:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Now you know why it looks mint. I distrust things described as mint exactly for that reason.


PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 6:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for all the help and advice guys.

The lens doesn't have any signs of marks on the glass, it came with a skylight filter on it which helped, it really does look mint.

I would be happy to send it to Eddie to play with, it's no use to me in this state!

I do agree about adapters, some are better than others.

I have several more C/Y mount lenses, Hoya and Tokina zooms, I will try a couple of those tomorrow with this adapter, see what the score is.

I am not sure about the close-up performance as I only shot close-ups wide open.

Tomorrow, weather permitting I'll get the ML 2.8/35 out as well as I suspect that one is similarly not so sharp.

I might put a film through the FX-3 wih these two ML Yashicas as well, see if they are still soft on film. I still have the ML 2/50 to try as well.


PostPosted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 12:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ian, sorry to hear (and see) your negative experiences with this lens,
perhaps 'Pistagon' would've been a more appropriate spelling. I'm going
to do another shoot-out between the 28 Hex and this one, just to make
sure which is sharper.


PostPosted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 1:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Katastrofo wrote:
perhaps 'Pistagon' would've been a more appropriate spelling.

Laughing

I've been trying to find a thread by member aoleg with some great pictures taken with the ML 2.8/28 to compare. The search feature is !&X*%$@ now, I finally found it with Google:
http://forum.mflenses.com/yashica-ml-28-2-8-full-frame-shots-t18892.html

Sadly I don't have any way of mounting C/Y lenses, otherwise I'd have loved to have a look at this lens. It looks like one of the elements is reversed or something.