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Help me replace my Lomo OKS and Fuji combo.
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 11, 2020 1:56 pm    Post subject: Help me replace my Lomo OKS and Fuji combo. Reply with quote

Hello MF shooters. The short version of my situation is this – I have an absolute perfect digital combo, but I want to shoot film and am not sure how to get same results.

Long version goes as follows:

After 10 years of shooting I was able to find my favorite lens. It's a Lomo OKS 7-28-1, a copy of cooke speed panchro Ser II. It's a 28mm f 2.2-2.4 lens (they had varying processes and apertures differ). It's designed for a 22x16 film area but works well on my Fuji X-E2 (it even covers a 1:1 sensor portion on my full frame S1H). I have adapted the lens to PL and use a PL adapter to mount it on fuji.

It's a perfect combo for me. Perfect. I love everything about it. Mechanics on the Lomos are usually terrible, this one is no exception, but I just taped the aperture with gaff tape wide open and shoot it like that. Some of my best pictures came out of this lens. It's not terribly sharp, has somewhat low contrast, is flare-prone and the whole barrel rotates when you focus it, but all these quirks just add to it's mojo. I can't help but always take it with me, it's a setup that I always carry around for dailies and also when I travel.

The focal length is perfect what what I shoot, I tried a 35mm as a daily runner and it was too narrow, 22 was too wide, and I realized 28 is my favorite all-rounder.

The one and only issue I have with this setup is that it's not film. I really want to replicate this shooting experience on a film camera but I cannot get the results I want.

On a fuji sensor this lens has an equivalent of a 42mm lens on a 135mm film. I own a Contax G with 45mm planar which is quite close in terms of focal length, but it's a totally different lens, totally different look – much sharper, more contrast, no mojo.

I also own a contax T2 with a 38mm 2.8 lens, again close in terms of focal length, and again, it's a very different feeling, also the camera is very limiting with it's 1/500 shutter speed.

So I am on a lookout for the lens-camera combo that would yield same results as my fuji-lomo does. I would appreciate any recommendations.

About the OKS – it's a 9 elements/7 groups design.


I understand that for 135mm film such a design to achieve 40mm/2 design is redundant, so most probably I will not be able to find a lens that would have similar characteristics. But I am not opposed to sacrifice compactness and go up to 6x45 design using a 70mm lens, or a 7x6 cam with a 80mm.

I would appreciate any suggestions regarding this. Thank you![/img]


PostPosted: Tue Feb 11, 2020 5:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi there. I don't know about that lens. If you could post some pictures taken with it, it would be easier to help.
Maybe you want to look at medium format wide angles adapted to full frame.


PostPosted: Tue Feb 11, 2020 8:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

blotafton wrote:
Hi there. I don't know about that lens. If you could post some pictures taken with it, it would be easier to help.
Maybe you want to look at medium format wide angles adapted to full frame.


Sure, here's a dropbox link to a folder, all pictures are shot with this the X-E2 and this lomo (some would be cropped to square because I post them on instagram).

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/uwlgt1712l2q42d/AADLwIJ_Fe0GRoYg0WTMOtR2a?dl=0


PostPosted: Tue Feb 11, 2020 9:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

What about a dirt cheap minolta body and a 45mm f2?


PostPosted: Tue Feb 11, 2020 10:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I was going to say medium format lens with focal reducer on 135 film camera. However, simply stopping down your film camera lenses should render a similar less"sharpness" and less "contrast" you seek. The larger lens with focal reducer will do the opposite.


PostPosted: Tue Feb 11, 2020 11:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Very nice gallery. My first thought was it looked similar to the the MIR-1 37mm 2.8. I will post some flickr links. It will probably be hard to find the exact lookalike, but I see the we can take away any planar designs and modern coatings from our quest. The best thing is to look at samples from others to find the right thing.

Fullframe

MIR-1 37mm
https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=mir-1

It may be worth to look at vintage fixed lens rangefinders and zone focus cameras. I'm thinking Olympus Trip 35, 40mm lens.

Medium format

MIR-38 65mm
https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=mir-38%2065mm

MIR-3 65mm
https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=mir-3%2065mm


PostPosted: Wed Feb 12, 2020 12:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

visualopsins wrote:
I was going to say medium format lens with focal reducer on 135 film camera. However, simply stopping down your film camera lenses should render a similar less"sharpness" and less "contrast" you seek. The larger lens with focal reducer will do the opposite.


I was looking into it and it seems there's no 135mm camera that can take focal reducers and medium format lenses. All focal reducers are for mirrorless cameras.


In general I was looking closer at the design of the 28 and talked to Ilya Volkov from Moscow optical Workshop, and he mentioned this is a variation of a distagon design, so I'm looking at 40-45mm wide angle lenses for medium format cameras to use with no reducers. He also suggested to look up what the OKS was copied from so I'm researching that as well.

I appreciate everyone's thoughts.


PostPosted: Thu Feb 13, 2020 2:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Single coated glowy vintage look.....schneider curtagon28 or an old leica 28 summaron if you have money.... There are some older German 28 as well that have that look... I think enna made one.

There is a zeiss contaflex 32 distagon that I have but it's a very sharp lens....with great character


PostPosted: Thu Feb 13, 2020 10:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gatorengineer64 wrote:
Single coated glowy vintage look.....schneider curtagon28 or an old leica 28 summaron if you have money.... There are some older German 28 as well that have that look... I think enna made one.

There is a zeiss contaflex 32 distagon that I have but it's a very sharp lens....with great character


The issue is I am looking for an equivalent AOV on 135mm film, which would be 42-43mm. I am OK to go with 40-45.

So I was looking up 40-45mm MF lenses and it seems apart from Hasselblad Distagons all of them are based on different designs, a lot of Biogon-related designs too. Even with the hasselblads, only the oldest giant C version has similar design to the OKS. Not sure that lens is what I would choose for my daily driver.

Here's a google doc where I'm doing my research https://docs.google.com/document/d/1czXFq2ISG8OFAuP1bJhN-CEcVH3-6ZuL2LU1BfXaiWU/edit?usp=sharing