Photo Equipment Repair Advice Needed

When our beloved gear falls to the ground, our heart will sink with it, usually both break on impact.  Anyone who has done any out-of-warranty repair work will know how expensive it is to get photo equipment repaired.

Last June my D810 with the AF-S 28-70mm f2.8 fell to the gravel ground when the tripod toppled.  It was a short fall as the tripod legs were not extended, and both camera and lens didn't seem to suffer any damage, and both were working.  But few months later, the lens would not focus; it just racks to infinity and stays there.  Of all the wide angle lenses I have used, the AF-S 28-70mm f2.8 is my favourite.  I had used the Canon 28-70mm f2.8L, as well as 17-35mm f2.8L, 17-40mm f4L, 16-35mm f2.8L and 16-35mm f2.8L II, and none of them were as sharp as this one.  I have gotten some very fine images from this lens with the D810 and I really want to get this lens fixed, but I keep putting it off.

Frankly, Nikon repair costs scare me.  Their estimate and repair cost often is half cost of a new lens, and I am left with two choices for repair in Toronto: Toronto Camera Service or Sun Camera Service.  Both have very good reviews.

Toronto Camera Service is very close to me, but I have never dealt with them before.  One the other hand, I have good experience with Sun Camera.  I once sent the 24mm f1.4L to Canon to remove a large piece of metal shaving from inside the elements and Canon sent it to Sun Camera, which is an authorized Canon Repair centre, and they did a really good job.  I also had my Canon 135mm f2.8 Soft Focus lens that was dropped with broken AF switch and wouldn't focus, and they fixed it for $99, that included cleaning the lens elements that had a lot of dust, which I think is very reasonable.  But, they are just so far away from me.

If you have ever repaired an Nikon AF-S 28-70mm f2.8 lens, how much did you pay for the repair?  I want to get a ball park figure before going for an estimate, which carries a fee from both repair centres.

Sugar Beach in the Morning - Fujifilm Fujinon 4.5cm f1.9 Rangefinder Lens on Sony A7.

Adapting Long Lenses on Sony E-Mount - Part VI

Part V is here

Putting it all together

So far, we have talked about all the parts required to mount longer lenses.  In this last installment, we are going to mount the Ross London 5 inch f4 Wide Angle Xpress lens, as an example how everything fits together. The 5 inch lens (equivalent to about 127mm) is not really that long, but fits in kind of a sweet spot; a Goldilocks focal length if you will, and I really like this lens (and the focal length).  Besides, I have been shooting with this lens in the last few days and it's already setup, therefore less work for me :)

The flange to sensor distance of this lens is roughly equivalent to its focal length.  This provides plenty of space to mount this lens on pretty much any current lens interchangeable digital camera, this includes all Sony E-Mount (or NEX-Mount).

Preparing the lens for the helicoid

The first thing to do, is to assess if the lens can be mounted on the helicoid. Some are easy and some are very difficult to do. Any lens that allows a standard filter size, like 49mm, 52mm, 55mm, 58mm, etc,. to be attached to its rear, would be the easy ones. The Ross London 5 inch f4 lens is one of those.  It allows a 55mm filter ring to be attached with just a little bit of work.  What we want to do is to epoxy a 55mm filter ring to the rear, and then screw the lens to the tube/helicoid for focusing.

The rear of the lens is just slightly too large to allow a 55mm filter ring to pass through.  We need to file the filter rim slightly with a Dremel grinding tool until the filter ring can go through.  Once it does, we can apply epoxy to the filter ring to attach itself to the lens.  Be sure to check that the filter is perfectly aligned, or else we will get pictures with one side sharp and one side soft.  Once the epoxy is set, it's ready to be used.

Mounting the lens on the helicoid

Now that the lens has a 55mm thread and ready to be mounted.  It's time to decide what combination of helicoid/tube/filter rings to use to get the lens to focus as closely as possible, but also able to focus to infinity.  The distance between the lens and the sensor is not long enough to stack two Vivitar 2X macro teleconverter helicoids; it's just slightly shy of infinity focus. This means I will be using just one helicoid, and extension tube/filter rings. As it turns out, all I needed was on extension tube and I didn't need any filter rings.  With the Vivitar 2X Macro Focusing helicoid and the filter rings, the minimum focus distance is about 5 feet, which isn't too bad, considering most old lenses have very long minimum focus distance.  If closer focus is needed, you can add two or three filter rings to extended the space between the lens and the helicoid.

Well, there you have it. Mounting a different lens just means adding or removing extension tubes/helicoid.  Hope you find this mini-series useful and helpful.  It has been a fun exercise for me.  Good luck if you are trying it out.

All the parts together from left to right: 1 mm thick M42 to E-Mount adapter, 42mm-62mm step-up ring, Vivitar 2X macro focusing helicoid, extension tube, lens with 55mm mount.

All screwed together

On camera

With Hood

Sample picture: Sony A7 & Ross London Wide Angle Xpress 5 inch f4

Kilfitt Makro Kilar 40mm f2.8 D APO

Ever since I got the Kilfitt 90mm f2.8 Makro Kilar many years ago, I wanted its older sibling, the Makro Kilar 40mm f2.8. This lens is not easy to come by locally, and when it's available, the price tend to be too much for my liking.  A little while ago I saw one online for about $150, which I think is reasonable, so I bought it.

The Kilfitt Makro Kilar 40mm is the world's first macro lens for 35mm photography.  Kilfitt also made the world's first zoom lens called the Zoomar, and that's why all variable focal length lenses are now called zoom lens :)

The lens is in very good shape, much better than the 90mm f2.8 Makro Kilar, with very clean optics and it comes in a fixed Exakta mount. The 40mm f2.8 Makro Kilar usually came with interchangeable mounts, and Exakta is the only fixed mount on this lens. With the Sony A7, the mount isn't a problem, unlike in the olden days when we have to worry about the flange distance on the Canon EF mount.

Happy Together - Makro Kilar 90mm f.28 on left, and 40mm f2.8 on right.

The Makro Kilar has two versions and both has the 1:1 or 1:2 magnification ration. I believe early lenses were f3.5 and later ones are f2.8. The D designation on the lens signifies a 1:1 magnification, and the E 1:2.  I have the D version and it focuses down to 5cm.  Mine has the three colour dots on the front of the lens and this indicates APO design.  I am not sure if all Makro Kilar 40mm has this design or not.  It's very compact and much smaller than the 90mm f2.8 version.  The lens front element is very recessed, providing some shielding for stray light, and usually does not require a hood.

While the compact size is nice to carry around, it's use as a macro lens is not. To achieve higher magnification ratios, I had to shoot very close to the subject, which I really don't like. In my opinion, 40mm is too short as a macro lens; 90mm - 100mm is a good compromise, and 180mm is a bit too large.

The lens is very sharp even at full aperture, but contrast suffers a bit, but it's very sharp stopping down. The bokeh from it is very nice indeed, and with the help of its 10-bladed aperture, it should be equally nice stopping down a little, as it retains the circular aperture.

My copy of this lens has a slight decentering problem. The left side of the lens is softer than the right side.  This is usually not a problem shooting macro, unless it's used for copying flat documents, so I am not really too concerned.

In all, I think it's a nice little lens to carry around as a general purpose lens, with its 1:1 macro capability, it should shine when you need to take close up shots.  Very happy with it so far.

Bokeh - Makro Kilar 40mm f2.8 D & Sony A7. Click for larger.

Milkweed - Makro Kilar 40mm f2.8 D & Sony A7. Click for larger.

Morning light over Sugar Beach -  Makro Kilar 40mm f2.8 D & Sony A7

Rodenstock Heligon 50mm f2 - Photo Set

I really like this Rodenstock Heligon 50mm f2. It's so small, and yet beautiful to look at and take pictures with.  No complains with the optical quality.  Below are few more pictures taken with it.

All pictures below taken with Sony A7 and Rodenstock Heligon 50mm f2:

Canon FD 20mm f2.8 S.S.C on Sony A7

I feel like the Sony A7 has given me a totally new set of lenses, even though they are still the same ones I used on the camera bodies with smaller sensors. Wide is now truly wide and it's liberating!

Last time I looked at the Pentax-M 20mm f4, the tiny, pancake like lens that's one of my favourites. It performed very well on the A7, considering its age. My other 20mm lens, the Canon FD 20mm f2.8 S.S.C, is a stop faster, but how does it stack up against the Pentax? I wouldn't do a extensive comparison in this post, because I intend to shoot them side by side in a later date.

The Canon 20mm f2.8 vignettes very heavily at f2.8, but it's still very sharp, and even the corners are very respectable. The picture below was how it came out from the RAW file. I would say at least 3 stops of light loss in the periphery. It's definitely not desirable in most situations, unless you want vignettes in the picture.

Downtown toronto - Sony A7 & Canon FD 20mm f2.8 @ f2.8. Click for larger.

But, the vignette mostly goes away by f5.6. At about f8, the lens is very sharp and the corners are relatively sharp, but not as good as the centre. I would say it's on par with the Pentax-M 20mm f4.

Very wide angle lenses are hard to control, and I am terrible at it. The fact that it captures so much information in the frame, finding a balanced composition is not an easy task to me.

Untitled - Sony A7 & Canon FD 20mm f2.8 @ f5.6. Click for larger.

Last Rays - Sony A7 & Canon FD 20mm f2.8 @ f8. Click for larger.

Sugar Beach - Sony A7 & Canon FD 20mm f2.8 @ f8.

Sugar Beach in Infrared with Pentax-M 28mm f2.8

I recently acquired a very cheap Pentax-M 28mm f2.8. There are many variations of this lens in the Pentax family, and I was especially interested in comparing it to the Pentax-K 28mm f3.5 which I have for a while, but hardly used.  But that has to come later.  I put this lens on the Infrared modified Canon 20D ran through a few dozen frames and like most Pentax primes, it's an excellent performer; I was not disappointed.  The Pentax-M 20mm f4, which I used pretty much exclusively on the 20D IR camera, is extremely sharp, but pictures coming out of the Pentax-M 28mm f2.8 is indistinguishable from the 20mm f4, except the angle of view of course.  Judging from memory, it's on par, if not better than the K28mm f3.5. Very nice lens indeed, and the best part is that this lens is reasonably cheap.

All pictures below were taken with Canon 20D IR and Pentax-M 28mm f2.8 at around f8-f11.

Super-Multi-Coated Takumar 50mm f4 Macro - A photo Set

When I first started using manual focus lenses on Digital SLRs, my very first lens was the Super-Multi-Coated Takumar 35mm f3.5 in M42 mount. That jewel-like little gem was as beautiful to behold as it was optically excellent. I was hooked. Over the years, I collected and used most of the M42 Takumars, from 17mm f4 fisheye to the monstrous SMC 500mm f4.5. My collection has reduced somewhat, but still have quite a few Takumars, including this 50mm f4 macro.

There are quite a few versions of this lens. The earlier version, non Super-Multi-Coated, was a true 1:1 macro lens.  Later ones, can only focus as close as half life-size (1:2). Used for macro work, these lenses are sharp as heck, but they are also pretty good as a general purpose lens in good light. As you can see, these pictures below are not used in macro mode, but they are still very sharp.

Lunch Break - E-M5 &Super-Multi-Coated Takumar 50mm f4 Macro. Click for larger

Smoke Break - E-M5 &Super-Multi-Coated Takumar 50mm f4 Macro. Click for larger

Green Crane - E-M5 &Super-Multi-Coated Takumar 50mm f4 Macro. Click for larger

Reflections - E-M5 &Super-Multi-Coated Takumar 50mm f4 Macro. Click for larger

Contrast - E-M5 &Super-Multi-Coated Takumar 50mm f4 Macro.