P. Angenieux 45mm f2.8 Lens from Tiranty ST280

Got the Tiranty ST280 last week, and the sole reason was for the lens.  I really don't care much if the camera body does not work, but I love French lenses.  All the French lenses I have used produce exquisite and beautiful bokeh, and this 45mm f2.8 is no exception.

I removed the main lens from the ST280, which was quite easy to do, but the aperture and focusing rings are another story.  I decided to just use my Yeenon 18-33mm focus helicoid instead, and it worked out quite well.

Went to Allan Garden yesterday and shot some flowers; wanted to see what the bokeh is like.  When I downloaded the pictures and looked at them on the screen, I was wowed and captivated by how beautiful the bokeh was.  The French sure knows a thing or two how to design lenses that produce mouth watering bokeh.  Wide open, the lens shows some astigmatism on distance objects, but I have not noticed the same effect with close up shots.  The center of the lens is reasonably sharp wide open, but with low contrast.  Stopping down improved sharpness markedly and the astigmatism is gone by about f4, at least at the middle of the frame.  The long edges aren't great even at about f8, but passable.  You will be disappointed if you care about the edge sharpness.  But I think the strength of this lens lies in its gorgeous colour and bokeh rendering.  Seriously, I could lose myself in it.

All lenses below were taken with the Angenieux 45mm f2.8 and Sony A7:

Shooting with a 100-Year-Old Lens

The 100-year-old lens was removed from a damaged Kodak Premonette Jr, made in 1913. It took me a little while to find the parts to mount it on my Sony A7 and went out for a shoot.

This lens is very tiny and has no aperture or focal length markings on it, but I think it's maximum aperture is somewhere around f11, and the focal length is probably 125mm. With a maximum aperture this small, there are some challenges shooting handheld, even in broad daylight. Thanks to the high ISO capabilities of today's digital cameras, I was able to just set the camera on Shutter Priority and let the camera select the appropriate ISO. You have to admire the patience of the photography forerunners who had to take multi-minute exposures with this camera, and the frustration they had to endure when things moved.

I wasn't expecting stellar performance from this 100-year-old lens, but it still surprised me, considering it age. No, it won't win any sharpness contest, but it's pretty good.  If I enlarge one of the pictures to 8x10, I doubt anyone can tell it from one shot with a modern kit zoom lens.  If anything, I think the distortion correction is even better than the cheap zooms of today.

One thing that I noticed is that the colours are somewhat subdued. It also lacks contrast, and sharpness is just OK, but one needs to understand that this camera was made to be affordable; expectations should be adjusted accordingly :)

Although the lens is recessed and does a pretty good job of shielding the stray light, I do wish I could mount a lens hood on this lens, because flare is still a big problem in many situations. Also, this lens should be used with a tripod to fully extract the performance from it. I suspect that it would perform a bit better if a more stable method of shooting was used.

The lens is no better than even the average quality lens of today, but when you are shooting with a lens this old, you will treat it and shoot it with a totally different mindset.

Lens from Kodak Premonette Jr. that was made in 1913, so it's slightly more than a 100 years old.

Fire Truck Maintenance - Sony A7 & Kodak Premonette Jr. Lens. click for larger.

Morning Walk - Sony A7 & Kodak Premonette Jr. Lens. click for larger.

Bokeh - Sony A7 & Kodak Premonette Jr. Lens.

Gooderham Flatiron - Sony A7 & Kodak Premonette Jr. Lens.

Leica-R 28mm f2.8 Elmarit on Sony A7

It's been quite a few years since I have had this lens and I have been using it on and off on various cameras, including Canon full frame, APS-H (1.3x crop; Canon 1D, 1D II, 1D III), and many other APS-C sensor cameras and none produced satisfactory results. The edges were just mushy, even on small sensors.

Imagine my surprise when I put this lens on the Sony A7. It was nothing like the pictures before and even the edges are very sharp. I don't know why this is. Perhaps the A7 has some edge enhancements on the sensor, or the lens just works better. Frankly, I don't really care how it's done, but I am very happy that this lens is working so well on the A7. I do wonder, how it is on the A7r.

f2.8 - Sony A7 & Leica-R Elmarit 28mm f2.8. Click for larger.

Metal Art - Sony A7 & Leica-R Elmarit 28mm f2.8. Click for larger.

The Duke - Sony A7 & Leica-R Elmarit 28mm f2.8. Click for larger.

Gooderham Flatiron - Sony A7 & Leica-R Elmarit 28mm f2.8. 

Schneider-Kreuznach Retina-Curgagon 28mm f4 Revisited

Out Shooting -- NEX-5N & Schneider Curtagon 28mm f4.

Last time I wrote bout the Schneider-Kreuznach Retina-Curtagon 28mm f4 when I used it on the Panasonic G1, and I didn't have much nice thing to say about it.  I decided to try it again on the NEX-5N and see if it fares better.  Well, indeed it seems to be slightly better at the corners, even on a larger sensor.  Still it's not a very sharp lens, but definitely good enough for a lot of people. I like the colours out of the Schneider DKL lenses.

Gooderham Flateron -- NEX-5N & Curtagon 28mm f4 @ f8.

Kiron 24mm f2.0 Lens in Olympus OM Mount

I like Kiron lenses.  No nonsense design, well made, and optically good though not phenomenally good.  They only have one fatal flaw -- oil in aperture blades after a few years of use.  I had a 28mm f2 Kiron lens that had oil in the blade.  This 24mm f2.0 also had oil in the blade.  In fact, it's so bad that aperture can not be closed down manually.

Bought this lens from the last camera show for $25, thinking that it's worth fixing it for $25 for such a wide and fast lens.  I finally got the courage (and time) to open it last weekend.  It sat in two small plastic bags for a whole week, because I could not remove the rear element group.  The aperture blades themselves are even harder to get access to.  At the end, I decided to remove most of the parts except the front elements group and the apertures.  The rear group of lens came off after some considerable effort.  After removing the rear group, I had access to the apertures.  They were almost soaked in oil.

Since I could not remove the blades, I did the only thing I could -- dabbed lighter fluid on the blades as they were and then rapidly open and close the blades many times.  This allowed the lighter fluid to flow to both sides and dissolved the oil.  Repeated this a few times and finally the blades were free of oil.  The lighter fluid evaporates without much residue.  Cleaned up the lens elements and put the rear group back, and reassembled the lens.

The hardest part was adjusting infinity focus.  There are two parts where you need to be careful.  When putting back the focusing helicoid and adjusting focusing screws.  First time after I put it back, it could not focus to infinity.  After about three tries, I was very close.  The lens now focuses slightly past infinity, which is ok.  I now know where it I could adjust it more finely and I will get it just right the next time.

Took the lens to work but it rained at lunch time and therefore didn't get a chance to do any shooting.  On my way home, I decided to drop by the Gooderham Flatiron.  It was raining but not too badly. I had a nice Konica 24mm lens hood on the lens to shield the rain (and flare).  It was difficult focusing because rain kept falling on my glasses.  Didn't get a lot of keepers, but happy to have a few.

I noticed today that the street lights across from the Flatiron are turned off every 10 minutes or so, for a couple of minutes.  This is a very nice consideration for the photographers, because when the lights are on, with wide angle lenses, you will get flare and unwanted lights that distracts from the beauty of the Flatiron.  Next time you are there, just wait a few minutes for the lights to go off, and then take your pictures.

Very happy with the sharpness of the lens.  Slightly soft at f2 but hey, it's an old lens and 24mm wide angle!  Stopped down to f2.8 and it feels like a completely different lens.  At f4, it's excellent.  It's hard to judge colour at night, but it looks OK to me.  Even the edge is very good, on full frame.

Will post some day light shots when I get a chance.

All pictures were shot hand held at ISO 1600 f2.8, except the first one at ISO 3200 f4 on the Canon 5D.  Click on the picture to see a larger version.