Sony RX-1: The Perfect Photographic Companion

When the Sony RX-1 was first introduced, the general reaction was of disbelieve, of the almost impossible engineering  and of the price.  This mighty little machine is a pinnacle of engineering.  A full frame camera in such a small package, with a fast, great lens attached.

Surely, this is not a camera for the mass market.  It's a piece for Sony to show off its engineering prowess, to silence the doubters that a full frame camera can not be made so compact, and that Sony can do what many people considered impossible.  I have seen the sample pictures from this camera, and I am awed by the image quality.  I also saw the Zeiss branded 35mm f2 lens in its flesh, apart from the RX-1. What a beauty to behold!  I couldn't help but salivating while looking at it.  It not only has the looks, but can also delivery the goods.  When paired with the RX-1, it's like a proverbial match made in heaven.  Sumptuous and delicious bokeh, laser-like sharpness when needed; a camera made for creating art in the dim and the darkness.

If I could afford this luxurious wonder, it will be my constant companion, a device that I will never leave home without.  We will shoot the streets, and see beyond the dark, but it will not be my main camera.  My main camera will always be lens interchangeable, but the RX-1 will be the camera when the pictures call for a 35mm vision.   

The RX-1, a marvelous invention, a beauty that evokes lust and the urge to hold and behold, alas, remains a dream for most of us.  

Motorcycle - NEX-5N & Rodenstock Omegaron 50mm f3.5 Enlarging Lens. Click for larger

Why I Have So Many Lenses

It dawned on me the other day, why I have so many lenses.

So many people are obsessed with cosmetics of the lenses that sometimes they take 45 minutes looking and re-looking at a lens that they are buying.  I know this because I sell my share of stuff on Craigslisst.  Sometimes I am tempted to say it in my post, that if you have a near disease-like requirement on cosmetics and neatness, please do not contact me.  I, on the other hand, buy lenses to make pictures.  I don't much care about cosmetics, or a few scratches here or there on the front element, as they hardly affect the image quality.  The problem comes when time to sell some of these lenses.  I really don't want the hassle of sitting there for an hour for someone to complain and whine about how this is not good and that looks bad.  So I just keep them.  Most of them aren't worth much anyway.

Perhaps, to reduce the number of lenses I may buy, I should acquire the same nick-picking attitude to make the seller mad, so that they would not sell it to me. But, in the mean time, I have hundreds of mostly worthless lenses sleeping in boxes.

Glowing Maple Leaves - Canon 1D Mark III & EF 200mm f1.8 @ f1.8. Click for larger.

New Canon Lenses - 24-70mm f4L IS and 35mm f2 IS

Rumour has it that Canon will be introducing the EF 24-70mm f4L IS and the EF 35mm f2 IS lenses in the next few days.  The 35mm f2 IS, like the 24mm f2.8 IS and the 28mm f2.8 IS before it, replaces its ancient predecessor,  the EF 35mm f2 that uses the Arc form motor.  The introduction of the 35mm f2 IS is easy to understand, but many people will no doubt wonder, why a 24-70mm f4 IS when the 24-105mm f4 IS already exists?

I owned the 24-105mm f4L IS for a few months, and while it was a very good lens, the distortion at the wide end should not be this bad for an L lens, in my opinion, and it's not exactly the sharpest lens in town.  I think it makes sense if Canon can make the 24-70mm f4L IS lighter but with the same optical quality as the more expensive 24-70mm f2.8L II, and sell it at the same price as the 24-105mm f4L. It would be a great lens for full frame.  The 24-70mm f2.8L IS is a stellar lens, optically.

More interesting is the 35mm f2 IS.  I also owned the non-IS version for a little while and liked it a lot.  I even did a comparison of it against the 35mm f1.4L, here.  Again, the price of the new lens is a bit ridiculous at about $900, more than twice that of the lens it replaces.  Hopefully, over time, the prices will come down and settle down to around $500 to $600.

Downtown Tower - NEX-5N & Rodenstock Rodagon-WA 60mm f4.

New Life on an Old Lens

The Taylor-Hobson Ortal 3 Inch (75mm) f2 TV lens was a nice find for me, but it has a very short lens to sensor distance and I couldn't make it work on DSLRs.  Having no focusing mechanism, the only way to make it work is through a focusing helicoid.  I first got it to work on the original generic focusing helicoid on the NEX-5, but helicoid and the lens don't jive well together.  This lens is extremely heavy for it's focal length and aperture, and the focusing helicoid is kind of flimsy made.  After some use, the helicoid developed more and more play and eventually starting to wriggle. So, it hasn't been used for a little while.

The Yeenon helicoid came to the rescue.  The Yeenon helicoid is nearly identical to the diameter of the Ortal 75mm f2 lens so they actually look really nice together, and they work wonderfully together as well.  The only problem I have, is that the aperture ring is very large/wide, and it sits ahead of the focusing ring.  Even after some use, I invariably turned the aperture ring when I really meant the focusing ring.  Small niggle, but annoys me.

I am really liking this lens.  Very sharp at f2 and with wonderfully saturated colours.  Really looking forward to shooting with it more.

Brunch Talk - Sony NEX-5N & Taylor Hobson Ortal 75mm f2 TV Lens. Click for larger.

It's always sad to see the fall going away, along with the beautiful and vibrant colours.  The temperature is getting colder  I can already feel the chill in the air.  Better get used to it.  I think it's going to be a long and cold winter.

End of Autumn - Sony NEX-5N & Rodenstock Rogonar 50mm f2.8 Enlarging Lens

Happy Halloween

This year's Halloween falls on a weekday, and a very rainy and cold day at that.  Consequently, not many kids were out trick or treating. Despite the bad weather, Megan and William did go out and had lots of fun and yummy candies for dad :)

House - NEX-5N & Canon new FD 50mm f1.2 @ f1.2. Click for larger

Using Enlarging Lenses with a Focusing Helicoid on Sony NEX

Unlike projection lenses, enlarging lenses have sort of a "standard" mount.  Most of them have a L39, or 39mm thread mount at the rear.  This is a good thing, because L39-M42 adapters are widely available and very cheap.  If the helicoid you have has an M42 mount on both ends, that's all you really need, if the focal length fits your helicoid.  The majority of helicoids on the market have this configuration and it makes a lot of sense.

Here are the reason why I chose something different: the helicoid with a M42 mount, and 52mm opening: 1. Some of my lenses have very large rear openings and 42mm is not large enough to accept the lens, and a 52mm opening gives me a better chance that the lens would fit.  2. I choose the M42 mount because it's interchangeable.  You can buy the helicoid with specific mounts like NEX E-mount, M43 mount, or Canon EF mount, etc.  With an M42 mount, I can use this helicoid on more than one camera system (I have NEX, M43 and EOS mount cameras), by simply screwing the helicoid onto an M42 adapter, or a c-mount adapter with M42 inner threads.  It has its compromises, of course.  For one thing, when used with enlarging lenses, I would need a M42 to 52mm step-down ring.  This would increase the thickness of the helicoid by about 3mm.

The picture below shows how I normally connect the enlarging lens to my camera.  For this particular lens (Rodenstock 50mm f2.8), it works almost perfectly, infinity focus is just slightly beyond infinity.  So, what happens if your enlarging lenses are longer than 50mm?  Very simple, just add 52mm filter rings.  The last picture shows an 80mm enlarging lens with 3 filter rings added to compensate for the longer focal length.  For very long lenses, like 150mm, it's better to buy a longer helicoid, or use extension tubes instead of filter rings.

It maybe worth mentioning that the c-mount to NEX adapter with inner 42mm thread is now hard to find.  So, it maybe be better to buy a helicoid with the mount of the camera you are using it on, instead of an M42 mount.

How the pieces are put together. Click for larger.

All connected.  In real life, the labels won't line up nicely like the picture. Click for larger.

Mounted to the camera.  Click for larger.

With extension rings (filter rings) for longer lenses. Click for larger.

Review: Yeenon 18-33mm Focusing Helicoid

If you read my blog for any length of time, you would know that I am a big fan of DIY lenses.  Projection lenses, enlarging lenses, odd ball lenses are my past time favourites, and all these lenses need a focusing helicoid, as the lenses themselves do not have a focus mechanism.  My first focusing helicoid was a converted Vivitar 2X Focusing macro teleconverter, which I wrote about it here. But, this home made helicoid is too thick (long) for wider angle lenses, so a thinner helicoid is needed.  I ordered two generic ones from eBay: a 12-17mm and a 17-32mm, which I covered here.  These two are widely available on eBay from many sellers, but they are essentially identical.  Typically they are selling for about $40 each, much cheaper than the time I bought mine. Sadly, they are very badly made.  Even when new, they have some play between the focusing and the mount. After only a few months of use, they have become wobbly, and pretty much unusable.  I did get a lot of use out of them, so it's not a total write-off.  I began searching for a better replacement, but couldn't force myself to forking out more than $100 for a different one.

There are basically four different makes of helicoids readily available on eBay.  They are: the generic ones that I bought and bad quality; one from Hawk Factory in Taiwan, which has good reviews, but at about $130; one sold by Fotodiox at $120, and the other, which I bought and I am reviewing, is a Yeenon 18-33mm, at $57 (free shipping if you offer to pay the asking price on eBay).  I chose the M42/52mm version, so that I can use it on NEX, Micro 4/3, and Canon EOS through the M42 adapter.

The Yeenon helicoid took exactly one month to arrive from China.  It came with a (relatively) nice box, and even a guarantee.  I could feel the difference in built quality as soon as I held it in my hand.  Much better than the generic ones I bought.  The Yeenon is slightly larger in diameter.  This has a negative effect on the NEX-5N, as the focusing ring touches my middle finger that grips the camera, while focusing. Also, there is still a very slight play between the focusing and the mount, just enough to feel it.  It's not a big deal, but nevertheless lessens the joy of using it. The focusing is relatively smooth, but a bit too much resistance.  I am sure with use, it will loosen up.

So far I have only used it for a week, but I enjoy it much more than the ones I had before.  It's not as good as the Vivitar 2X focusing helicoid, but very close.  I just hope that the build quality will hold up and last more than a few months.

The Yeenon 18-33mm helicoid. Click for larger

Face Off - Left Yeenon 18-33mm; right generic 12-17mm. Click for larger

Side by side. Click for larger

Intense colours - NEX-5N & Schneider-Kreuznach Componon-S 80mm f4. Click for larger.

Symphony of colours - NEX-5N & Schneider-Kreuznach Componon-S 80mm f4 @ f5.6

Sunset at Port of Toronto

We have been having a lot of rain the last few days, but yesterday evening we saw a beautiful sunset, which is a treat.  More rain is expected in the next few days, thanks to Hurricane Sandy.

Sunset at Port of Toronto - NEX-5N & Wollensak Raptar 50mm f1.5. Click for larger.

A Bit of Good News

Early this week I emailed Sun Camera in Vaughn and asked if they still repair the Canon EF 200mm f1.8L, and they said they still repair this lens.  So, today I packed the lens and was ready to drop it off at their repair centre.  On my way out, I thought, let's try it one more time.  Mounted the lens on the 1D III and when I turned the focus ring, it moved!  I then tested the AF and it also worked.  I don't know how the lens just healed itself but I don't care.  This has really made my day.  I can use my favourite lens again.

Sally - Canon 1D Mark III & EF 200mm f1.8L @ f1.8. Click for larger.