Offerings to the Spirits

Burning offerings to the spirits -- NEX-5N & Zoomar Kilfitt Makro Kilar 90mm f2.8

This picture was one of the couple dozen I took last week in one of my usual lunch shoots.  I have walked through this route at least once a week.  Saw this old lady burning offerings and I quickly snapped a couple of pictures before she stared me away :)  The Chinese Qingming Festival is around this time of the year and it's a time to honour the ancestors by visiting and cleaning their graves, bringing food and offerings to them.  Some of the offerings include paper money in large denominations, paper clothes, paper cars, etc.  They are sent to the ancestors by burning them, like this old lady above is doing.  

The Fujifilm X-Pro1 EVIL Camera

The long leaked Fujifilm X-Pro1 mirrorless interchangeable camera is announced today.  There is much to like about this camera and Fuji knows what the target audience of this camera want: fast and small primes!  The camera is introduced with three fast lenses: 18mm f2, 35mm f1.4 and 60mm f2.5 macro.  A good range of lenses for this kind of camera.  But, I am more intrigued by the 16MP sensor, and the fact that the X-Pro1 has the shortest back focus distance of all the EVIL cameras announced today: 17.7mm; shorter than Sony's 18mm.

The sensor in the X-Pro1 will have no low pass filter, like most traditional digital cameras with a Bayer array sensor to remove false colour and reduce moire, and instead, false colour and moire is avoided by using an interesting 6x6 colour filter array.  Low pass filters reduces resolution/sharpness of the pictures, so in theory, this sensor should give you sharper pictures than those with low pass filter for the same lens used.  Fuji claims this sensor rivals that of the full frame sensors.  I guess we will have to wait and see.

The only drawback is the price.  At $1700 for the body only, the price is a bit on the high side.  When you add a lens, this would be at about $2200, making it one of the most expensive mirrorless cameras around (except the Leica M9, if you count that as an EVIL camera).

2012 will be an exciting year for digital cameras, especially mirrorless.  Canon has said that it will introduce a mirrorless camera system this year, in addition to the near APS-C sized sensor Powershot G1X (what's with the X in the camera name anyway?!? Everybody is using it.  Does it have magical properties or something?)  I hope Canon wont disappoint.

Cactus Flower -- NEX-5N & Zoomar Kilfitt 90mm f2.8 Makro Killar 

Old Lenses on High Density Sensors

Link -- NEX-5N & Zoomar Kilfitt Makro 90mm f2.8. Click for larger.

I have noticed that from the Canon 2Ti, some of my favourite old lenses, like the Kilfitt Makro 90mm f2.8, did not work very well on high density sensors.    Same problem on the 7D.  What looked very nice on the 11 MP 1Ds and the 5D classic full frame cameras look very lifeless and boring on the T2i and 7D.  Even tried the Angenieux Speciale Cine 210mm f2.8.  Pictures looked much better on the 5D than on 2Ti/7D.

I think that older lenses just do not have the resolving power for today's high density sensors.  They produce beautiful pictures on older cameras but not so nice on newer ones.  This is not scientifically proven, of course, so I could be wrong, but pictures do look duller and less sharp on newer cameras.  On the other hand, lenses like Carl Zeiss Distagon 35mm f2.8 (Contax Mount), and 60mm f2.8 S-Planar Makro perform about the same on most cameras.  So, perhaps, there is a connection.

Creamy, Delicious Bokeh

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Pink Tulips -- NEX-5 & Zoomar Makro Kilar 90mm f2.8 @ f2.8. Click to see larger.

If you like creamy, dreamy, delicious bokeh, the Makro Kilar 90mm f2.8 delivers.  Of all the manual focus lenses I have used, this lens is by far my favourite when it comes to bokeh, and the Leica-R Summicron 90mm f2 is a close second.  As I said before, the unique feature of this lens is the rings from highlights wide open.  These rings are gone by f2.8 f4.

Red Tulips -- NEX-5 & Makro Kilar 90mm f2.8 @ f2.8. Click for larger.

Admittedly, everyone looks at bokeh a bit differently.  There is no bad/good bokeh.  It's a very personal thing.  Aside from the nice bokeh, I like the pictures from this lens too, due to its very rich tonal rendition.  There are so much details that can be pulled from pictures taken with this lens.  The highlights roll off very gracefully that you won't see the disgusting dead white when it clips.

White Tulips -- NEX-5 & Makro Kilar 90mm f2.8 @ f2.8. Click for larger.

My copy of the Makro Kilar is not great, and getting it was purely accidental.  I was buying the Birns & Saywer 150mm f3 movie lens, and the seller said he had another lens at home and if was interested to see it.  Sure I was, and I am glad I said yes.  The condition of this lens is poor.  Very well used and quite dusty inside, and the coating is starting to disintegrate.  All that does not seem to affect the image quality one bit.  I love how the images are rendered by this lens.

Sorry about all the tulip pictures.  I like tulips :)

Zoomar Kilfitt Makro Kilar 90mm f2.8

It's ironic that for someone who doesn't take many macro pictures, I own so many macro lenses.  At one point, I had more than 15 macro lenses of many different focal lengths at the same time!  Even after getting rid of many, I still have eight of them -- Two auto focus (EF 180mm f3.5L, EF 100mm f2.8 L IS), and the rest of them are manual focus lenses.  The Kilfitt Makro Kilar is one of the more interesting macro lens.  This lens was originally a PL mount movie lens which I purchased along with another weird Birns & Sawyer 150mm f3 also in PL mount.  Both of these lenses were in pretty bad shape and obviously very well used.   The Makro Kilar has a removable mount which can be changed easily into another mount. I converted the Makro Kilar into an EF mount, using, ahem, Guerrilla glue, which has work out well.

As I said, this is an interesting lens.  It has the most unique bokeh I have seen when shot wide open.  In the out of focus highlights, you can see a circle within a circle, like the picture below:

Christmas tree ornament -- Canon 1Ds & Kifitt Makro Kilar @ f2.8. 

What this lens is terrible at, is flare.  Being a non-multi-coated lens, flare resistance is practically nil.  I am not sure if it's because the copy I have is pretty dusty inside, which will cause pictures to have a "white out" effect when shot in large apertures.  The lens is sharp at its maximum aperture, just that the contrast is very low, but there are tons of details.  In fact, this lens is actually quite a nice portrait lens when used around f2.8 and f4, the low contrast makes the skin look very nice.  I especially like to shoot black and white pictures with this lens.  It has very smooth tonal transition.

Once you stop it down around f8, it's extremely sharp with high contrast, just like most macro lenses are.

Being a 1:1 macro lens, the Makro Kilar has a very long focus travel.  From 1:1 to infinity, it takes more than two complete turns.  It's sometimes frustrating when you need to focus from one end to another extreme end, it could take a few seconds, especially on my copy, where the focusing ring is slightly tight.

Strangely, this lens is not a good match with high density sensors.  On the T2i and 7D, I could hardly get any usable pictures with this lens.  But on the original 1Ds and the 5D, this lens matches up really well and produces nice results.

In all, it's a unique and uncommon lens that's fun to shoot with and it's more than just a macro lens.  It's equally good at portraiture.  However, it may not work well with all cameras.  Your mileage may vary.

Racing Monkey Ornament - 1D IIn & Zoomar Kilfitt Makro Kilar 90mm f2.8 at f2.8.

Tequila Sunrise

Colourful Mexican Restaurant -- T2i & Zoomar Kilfitt 90mm f2.8 Makro Kilar.