Konica 40/1.8 on GF3, night shots

Nisseliten · Joined: 26 May 2012 Posts: 332 Location: Sweden

I bought a brand spankin' new Panasonic GF3 last week for under 70 euro, and one of the adapters I ordered to go with it arrived today. I always had it in my mind that I would pair it nicely with the tiny Konica 40/1.8. And they do make a very cute couple, very well balanced.
Since I've been far too busy to do some testing, all I had was a few minutes on my walk home from work. I've heard good things about the konica, but I must confess I am not that impressed. I am willing to blame user error, but from the quick tests I did earlier today I never got it to be that sharp, even with stacked focus, high shutter speeds and/or flash. This evening I managed a few sharp shots, but I needed to stop down to f8 to achieve it. As for the GF3 it's too early to tell, it's an amazing camera and fantastically small, but one thing that already irks me is that in shutter priority mode, he does not change iso even if auto-iso is set to on. Meaning if I stick a long tele lens on this thing, I will either have to deal with the fact that the camera thinks I need a shutterspeed of around 125 on a 1000mm field of view equivalent lens, or I'll have to go full manual. And then I have to bring the camera down to adjust the settings as you can't hold the camera and change the settings with your thumb at the same time.

Either way, don't use these examples to judge neither the GF3 or the 40/1.8, as I still need ALOT of practice with the gear, my eye and the general ability to combine those two.
Taken in windy and cold weather, exposure times of between 25-60 seconds, different apertures. A glove was used as a "tripod".

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patrickh · Expire: 2011-11-18

Fine results under the circumstances - looks very promising for this combo. I have the Konica on a Nex 5 and like it very much. I have also just (yesterday) received the Rokkor 45/2 which looks like a real winner too.

patrickh

rbelyell · Expire: 2014-01-31

i wouldnt judge the lens from pictures taken in the dark. you could have a 'bad' copy, but i myself wouldnt draw conclusions from night shots. to me that camera cant handle those conditions. shoot in daylight and see what happens.
tony

Excalibur · Expire: 2014-04-21

Don't forget the Hexanon 40mm f1.8 is not at it's best WO and also will never equal the sharpness of very expensive lenses or it's brother 50mm f1.7, whether you can see the difference would be for another debate.....but I have two 40mms and they are both very good on a film camera.

Nisseliten · Joined: 26 May 2012 Posts: 332 Location: Sweden

I am enjoying this camera immensely, being the first M4/3 camera I own. The screen is just wonderful, making the focusing not that hard at all really, except my adapter is not optimized for infinity. So shooting landscapes is a bit fiddly. I think the testshots I did in daylight yesterday was a bit premature judgement. The pictures clean up alot when you transfer them to lightroom. The IQ is most certainly "Good enough", especially considering I paid more for a basic grade point-and-shoot a year ago. The best thing is tho, this thing has full manual controls, interchangeable lenses and fits in my jacket pocket. The manual focus assist is genius. Also the extra teleconverter function is really cool. At 720p filming with the 500/8 MR-telyt on it gives me the equivalent FOV of a 3100mm lens. I could take a suprisingly sharp movie of someone sitting in their front lawn drinking coffee 3 kilometers away with no light loss. Making my 180/3.4 apo-telyt an amazingly sharp 1150/3.4 lens for filming wildlife. Tho a beanbag instead of a tripod is pretty much mandatory, and you can't pan Smile

I think #3 might have been with the 60/2.8 macro Elmarit, others with the Konica 40/1.8

Can't wait to get the MD, FD and M42 adapters Smile

Edit: It actually handles long exposure noise amazingly well. The biggest issue was nailing infinity focus in the dark.

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BenediktW · Joined: 24 Jan 2008 Posts: 336 Location: Solingen, Germany

I bought the Hexanon 40mm F1,8 2 years ago and I was really disappointed of the sharpness and colours, it all had a certain unsharpness even at F4 or F5,6, which reminded me of warm wax.

The lens itself was in very good condition and looked perfectly clean inside, so I couldn´t find an explanation. But I often wrote that people liked the lens, and their photos didn´t really look different from mine.

Soon after, I bought a Minolta MD Rokkor 45mm F2, and I was shocked of the great quality, handling convenience and the superb results. Although similarly cheap, this Rokkor - if you ask me - competes with the best Nikkors, the Contax G planar and Leica Summicron 35mm.

Greetings,
Benedikt

Excalibur · Expire: 2014-04-21

Maybe you should use Hexanons on a film camera Wink

Hexanon 40mm f1.8, supermarket dev and scanned to CD.

Nisseliten · Joined: 26 May 2012 Posts: 332 Location: Sweden

The hexanon is actually surprisingly sharp, I think it's the jpeg conversion on the camera that was weird, when you get the raw file on the computer there is detail and iq that's close to the canon.

fermy · Joined: 17 Feb 2012 Posts: 1974

I think the biggest problem with Hexanon 40/1.8 is hype. It was billed as one of the sharpest lenses ever by buhla.de, so when I got mine and it turned out less sharp and contrasty at large apertures than most of my 50, I was disappointed thinking that I've got a duff copy. After seeing many similar complaints, I am now reasonably confident that that's how this lens is.

On the other hand, taken for what it is, without "sharpest ever" expectations, this is a sweet little lens. There is also not much competition at 40mm and if one compares it with 35mm lenses rather than with ubiquitous cheap and excellent 50, the lens is a great bargain too.

Nisseliten · Joined: 26 May 2012 Posts: 332 Location: Sweden

I'm rather falling in love with the combo, especially since the GF3 has excellent long exposure noise levels and I am approaching 6 months of complete darkness. I can put it in my pocket, take it out whenever I feel an inspiration and just put it on something. I took these the other night while doing some light painting with it, 60 sec exposure at 160 iso and F/8-11 something. The first one is a practice frame with me as a ghostly apparition, and the second one has no noise reduction added. Taken with a gorillapod. There really is scary amount of detail everywhere in the RAW file. Is the Konica the sharpest lens around?. No. Is it sharp enough? Yes, especially considering the size of it.