Meyer-Optik Telemegor 400mm f5.5 - Photo Set

At one point I was crazy about East German lenses I went nuts buying them. Meyer-Optik and Pentacon lenses were my main focus, and the Telegegor 400mm f5.5 is one of them lenses that I still have. Though I like the lens, but like many of my very long lenses, it never gets used often and the reason I still have it, is because it's not worth much selling it. It's not a rare lenses by any means. I have seen variations of this lens in Exakta and M42 mounts a few times at the camera shows. The price has gone up somewhat but it's still an inexpensive lens.

Optically, it's not the sharpest lens you can find in this focal length, and wide open it's a bit soft and vignettes, as you can see in the first picture. There is a unique quality to this, and some other Meyer lenses. At wider apertures, the image exhibits a blend of sharp and soft quality, which in some pictures, looks really nice. In actual use, this lens, without a tripod, is very difficult. When I used it with my 1Ds or 1D II, it was much easier because I had a cross-split screen installed, but on the 5D II, which as a stock focusing screen, it's hard to tell in focus, or slightly off. Live-in is pretty useless in strong light. Another negative, is that the closest focusing distance is 6 meters (20 ft), so close-ups are out of the question.

So, it's a pretty inexpensive 400mm lens, which has good enough image quality for causal use. If you are a sharpness freak, the Canon EF 400mm f5.6 is your best option, if you shoot Canon, but what fun is that when the camera/lens does everything for you? Besides, there is practically no characters to speak of from images captured with modern lenses. They all look very similar, but not some decades old manual focus lenses :)

Weather Station - Meyer-Optik Telemegor 400mm f5.5. Click for larger.

Bird Dance - Meyer-Optik Telemegor 400mm f5.5. Click for larger.

Love Talk - Meyer-Optik Telemegor 400mm f5.5. Click for larger.

Tree - Meyer-Optik Telemegor 400mm f5.5. Click for larger.

The Giant and the Midget. On the right is a Pentacon 50mm f1.8.

Carl Zeiss Jena Visionar 109mm f1.6 Shoots Tommy Thompson Park

It took me a while, but I finally got the Visionar 109mm f1.6 mounted on the Yeenon Helicoid. This is one big lens with a non-standard filter thread around 77mm, but not quite 77mm.  The same is true for the rear mount; it's not quite 62mm, more like 63mm. I had to file the inside of the 62mm to 52mm step-down ring, and then use JB Kwik to welded it together, just like the 92mm f1.6 lens.

This lens has uneven illumination. One side is slightly darker than the other. This is more apparent when doing post exposure compensation. Although image circle covers the APS-C sensor (and maybe even 35mm full frame), the edge is very soft. This lens is suitable for certain subjects but not others.

I decided to ride my bike to Tommy Thompson Park (sometimes called Leslie Spit) and shoot with this lens but got up too late and by the time I went there, it was already 9:30. Too much light for a fixed aperture f1.6 lens. Consequently, most of the photos were over exposed. Good thing I shot RAW and was able to recover from the over exposure.

This is the bird migratory season and there are thousands, maybe tens of thousands of birds of all kinds there. In fact, Tommy Thompson Park is one of the largest migratory ground for some of the birds. Talked to a birder and he told me few species of birds that were almost endangered have come back in good quantities, and he even saw egrets this year. Unfortunately, you are not allowed to go near the bird nesting ground, but if you have a very long lens, you can still get some good shots. If you have never been to Tommy Thompson Park, you should pay a visit, and go early in the morning. It's open only on weekends and holidays, though people go on weekdays too.

Sailboat - NEX-6 & Carl Zeiss Jena Visionar 109mm f1.6. Click for larger.

Bird Island - NEX-6 & Carl Zeiss Jena Visionar 109mm f1.6. Click for larger.

Reflections - NEX-6 & Carl Zeiss Jena Visionar 109mm f1.6. Click for larger.

Bird Paradise - NEX-6 & Carl Zeiss Jena Visionar 109mm f1.6. Click for larger.

Guarding the nest - NEX-6 & Carl Zeiss Jena Visionar 109mm f1.6.