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Rapid Rectilinear on 5D
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 28, 2007 6:39 pm    Post subject: Rapid Rectilinear on 5D Reply with quote

There is no hope of sunshine before Wednesday or Thursday, and I just had to try to do some shooting despite the cloudy weather. Well, it meant 5D at ISO 1000 and exposure times between 1/30 and 1/80 s, not too good with a 180 mm lens, hand-held. I got a few decent shots in the Botanical Garden but nothing else really worth showing. I've put some of the garden shots at http://galactinus.net/vilva/retro/eos5d_rr2bg.html .

I didn't use a lens hood, yet there is discernible vignetting in some of the shots. It turns out the throat of the Edixa bayonet bellows is slightly too narrow for the FF 5D! Here is an example, see the lower corners of the photo:



Well, I can live with that until I get another bellows with a wider throat.

After these, mainly bokeh shots I'm rather impatiently waiting for the sunshine to get an opportunity to see how this lens performs in better light and under high contrast conditions.

Veijo


PostPosted: Sun Oct 28, 2007 6:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi Veijo. Your site is a real treasure. Thanks for your hard work.


PostPosted: Sun Oct 28, 2007 7:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This lens seems to give an "artistic" rendering to an image.
Nothing I would look for in a lens, but it has a certain effect.
Looking forward to seeing the better-light-results...


PostPosted: Sun Oct 28, 2007 9:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

poilu wrote:
Hi Veijo. Your site is a real treasure. Thanks for your hard work.


I join Poilu in thank you, Veijo... I went into the MF business the day I reached your site. "Old lenses on my 350D?", I said then. And spent a lot of time looking all the lenses you tried.
And after yours, I found this one, so a big thanks also to Attila for keeping it up and running!

Best regards,
Jes.


PostPosted: Sun Oct 28, 2007 9:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Veijo is an "institution" in the world of manual focus lenses, it's thanks to his site (and to Bjorn Roerslett's) that I found out about the possibility of mounting old lenses with adapters.


PostPosted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 6:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

LucisPictor wrote:
This lens seems to give an "artistic" rendering to an image.
Nothing I would look for in a lens, but it has a certain effect.


The bokeh of this lens is probably of the Gaussian type, which is softer even than a neutral bokeh. Consequently photos with e.g. grass, like the one displayed above, are much less restless as there are no sharp or bright edge outlines in the bokeh of OOF grass. I think this is the most distinguishing feature of these lenses. Having a lens like this gives one a choice and also helps to understand the behaviour of one's "normal" lenses. There is no perfect lens. Every lens misbehaves under some circumstances or in some respect. When extreme sharpness and contrast aren't absolutely necessary, an older lens may be the better behaved choice, and the photos taken with them are often quite malleable - within limits, of course. These photos may also stand out among the blandly sharp multitude. With a very good lens one has to get everything just right in order to produce an outstanding photo, mere technical excellence is often just too commonplace.

Veijo


PostPosted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 7:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

vilva wrote:

The bokeh of this lens is probably of the Gaussian type, which is softer even than a neutral bokeh. Consequently photos with e.g. grass, like the one displayed above, are much less restless as there are no sharp or bright edge outlines in the bokeh of OOF grass. I think this is the most distinguishing feature of these lenses. Having a lens like this gives one a choice and also helps to understand the behaviour of one's "normal" lenses. There is no perfect lens. Every lens misbehaves under some circumstances or in some respect. When extreme sharpness and contrast aren't absolutely necessary, an older lens may be the better behaved choice, and the photos taken with them are often quite malleable - within limits, of course. These photos may also stand out among the blandly sharp multitude. With a very good lens one has to get everything just right in order to produce an outstanding photo, mere technical excellence is often just too commonplace.
Veijo


This post should be placed on the main page of this forum so that everyone who enters should read it.

_


PostPosted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 7:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wanted to add that these old lenses often are resolving well although they do not appear sharp. Lack of apparent sharpness is often to attribute to low contrast (which in turn has often to do with lack of coating). But contrary to resolvance, contrast can be increased via software.

_


PostPosted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 9:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Both excellent points - lens design for primes hasn't significantly improved over the last 50 years, but I find multi-coatings have improved a lot whilst build quality has declined!


PostPosted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 10:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Richard_D wrote:
Both excellent points - lens design for primes hasn't significantly improved over the last 50 years, but I find multi-coatings have improved a lot whilst build quality has declined!


The design of Rapid Rectilinear is from 1866, Cooke Triplet was patented in 1893 (although triplets had been used in astronomy since 1765), Zeiss Planar was designed in 1896 and Tessar was patented in 1902. High quality aspheric lenses were presented to the Royal Society in 1667 (yes, in the 17th century!), and apochromatic correction (APO) was invented in 1867. So 50 years is nothing. High speed and wide angles are still difficult, especially in combination, but mostly the old designs are doing well enough for practical photography. A well built and coated Cooke Triplet would be a killer at f/5.6, just look at my test photos with an uncoated and slightly damaged one. I'd also like to have a coated RR - despite the optical aberrations.

Veijo


PostPosted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 12:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

vilva wrote:
Richard_D wrote:
Both excellent points - lens design for primes hasn't significantly improved over the last 50 years, but I find multi-coatings have improved a lot whilst build quality has declined!


The design of Rapid Rectilinear is from 1866, Cooke Triplet was patented in 1893 (although triplets had been used in astronomy since 1765), Zeiss Planar was designed in 1896 and Tessar was patented in 1902. High quality aspheric lenses were presented to the Royal Society in 1667 (yes, in the 17th century!), and apochromatic correction (APO) was invented in 1867. So 50 years is nothing. High speed and wide angles are still difficult, especially in combination, but mostly the old designs are doing well enough for practical photography. A well built and coated Cooke Triplet would be a killer at f/5.6, just look at my test photos with an uncoated and slightly damaged one. I'd also like to have a coated RR - despite the optical aberrations.

Veijo


I think Biogon was one of the last design invented/patented (which was variation of another design patented in mid-40s). The sorce of my information is this page,

http://www.panix.com/~zone/photo/czlens.htm

I am going to start other thread about design in link section...


PostPosted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 2:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

vilva wrote:
LucisPictor wrote:
This lens seems to give an "artistic" rendering to an image.
Nothing I would look for in a lens, but it has a certain effect.


The bokeh of this lens is probably of the Gaussian type, which is softer even than a neutral bokeh. Consequently photos with e.g. grass, like the one displayed above, are much less restless as there are no sharp or bright edge outlines in the bokeh of OOF grass. I think this is the most distinguishing feature of these lenses. Having a lens like this gives one a choice and also helps to understand the behaviour of one's "normal" lenses. There is no perfect lens. Every lens misbehaves under some circumstances or in some respect. When extreme sharpness and contrast aren't absolutely necessary, an older lens may be the better behaved choice, and the photos taken with them are often quite malleable - within limits, of course. These photos may also stand out among the blandly sharp multitude. With a very good lens one has to get everything just right in order to produce an outstanding photo, mere technical excellence is often just too commonplace.

Veijo


Yes, but we must not forget that often this special character of a lens is a consequence of a suboptimal aberration correction, such as the famous "Leica glow" of the old Leica lenses which is not more than that but really has a aesthetical value.

Extreme sharpness and extreme contrast are mostly exclusionary. That means that a lens that is optimised to render extremely sharp will most probably not produce a very high contrast and vice versa.

Every modern lens design is a compromise and sometimes they are able to find a best possible solution.


PostPosted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 2:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

LucisPictor wrote:

Extreme sharpness and extreme contrast are mostly exclusionary. That means that a lens that is optimised to render extremely sharp will most probably not produce a very high contrast and vice versa.


Hm... I'm not convinced about this exclusivity.
Sharpness is not a measurable quality but a psychological impression that results from the interaction of two objective factors: resolvance, and contrast.


PostPosted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 5:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That's right, Orio. But often sharpness is used as a synonym of resolution.
And I refer to this definition.

Let's continue with a quote:
"For the optical designer contrast and resolution are in conflict. Increase one and you reduce the other. Various lens makers have differing philosophies in the regard. Historically, for example, Zeiss was reputed to design their lenses for maximum resolution, while Leica apparently tended to favour maximum contrast. It is design decisions like these that account in part for the differing "looks" of different lens brands."
(See: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/understanding-mtf.shtml)

Any MTF chart will show that a lens cannot provide perfect resolution and perfect contrast.

Of course, following your definition, sharpness is a subjective result of a perfect set-up of these two aspects.
Then my comment is no longer valid.