warren_kato

I have a Hartblei 500/5.6 mirror lens that is so-so. I get better results with the Pentax 300/4 and 1.4x converter. The Pentacon 500/5.6 is a whopper of a lens (non-mirror) but is pretty sharp and is not too expensive if you can find one. Back to the 300mm/4--its one of the sharpest lens I have ever used. Even at f4 it is sharp corner to corner and little or no light fall off in the corners.

Look for posts by Mike Hatam (sp?). He tested multiple copies of wide Zuikos, Zeiss, and Nikon against Canon wides. In summary, from my recollection, the Zeiss lenses just edged out the Zuikos but not by very much. He like one of wide Nikon zooms as well. Sorry, but I don't remember the forum he posted these on but it not on p.net here.

I would sidetrack you a little and suggest the E-330 which has live view and a tilting LCD. I find this a wonderful thing with macro shots. As far a lens go, the 11-22 (22 to 44 equivalent) and 50/2 macro are some of the sharpest lens I have ever owned.

Hmm, the problems with the OM2 body sound weird with all 3 problems appearing at the same time. I would just pick up another body if cleaning it carefully with a toothpick and cotton swabs doesn't do the job. A small bit of machine oil on the end of a toothpick might help on the rubbing surfaces. If the aperature and shutter controls are difficult, check the cover on the bottom of the mirror box. I think I had one in an OM10 get crooked and it messed up the camera for a while. Oh, and you're using some of my favorite OM lens---good choices.

 

As to the Tamron, a great lens, but what can happen is that if you try to focus too close sometimes, the set screw stopping the focus extension might get loose. There's a very coarsely threaded helical threads that operate the focusing mechanism. There's usually a rubber cover that hides this set screw on the lens barrel. Find the screw, loosen it, reach infinity focus again and tighten the screw. I've done this on other lens but this is generally the way these things work.

The real life truth is that there is not a yes/no answer. Remember back in the film days when you had a choice between Kodachrome and Ektachrome or Fujichrome, you picked the film trading resolution for grain and noise. If you really wanted detail, you picked Kodachrome 25, Pan X or Pan F, all fine grained films. It's the same with sensors, given a fixed sharpness for a particular lens, the more pixels, the better. The only exception is that if the lens is terrible, it doesn't matter how many pixels you have. But with H and RZ lens, it does.

I think what you need is a "T" flange adapter -- which is the female part of a T mount bellows and goes on the front of the bellows. You therefore might look around for an old no-name bellows for the mount in the front. Nikon should be easy to find.

I have the E-300 and the 50 macro and would recommend that you try to borrow both of the cameras under consideration and try them out in the field (or in the alley behind your store). You should also consider the flash systems unless you just use deflectors and diffusers. Olympus has a ring flash and a dual macro flash (not available yet?-?) but I think Canon has fancier stuff. I don't know what the viewfinder is like for the 20D but I have troubles with the E-300 viewfinder (which, I think, is the same as the E-300's). It is kinda dark to focus manually, which you tend to do a lot of with macro. I have the ME-1 magnifier, which helps a lot. You should also consider right angle magnifiers for each system. I am considering the E-330 for it's live MOS display. I think it will give you view of the photo as stopped down but with normal viewfinder (LCD screen) brightness (Wow! and 10X magnification as well). I am always crouching or kneeling so it should help a great deal. I would consider the 11-22 (giving a 22-44 full frame for 35mm view)instead of the 14-54 for landscape photography.

You usually have to underexpose as other posters have advised. I think what is happening is that if all the detail in the white areas are crunched up in the shoulder of the exposure curve, there is no contrast in the white areas making it appear that they aren't sharp. What I did in the attached is to underexpose it a couple of stops and then steepen the white areas of the photo in PS to give it more contrast in just that limited area.

 

http://www.120scan.us/i/P6040286a.jpg

 

Hope this helps, but my suggestions require that you either scan or are using digital.

 

Warren

If Alphonse were here, he'd be laughing out loud but he's no longer a photonet member. He gotcha!! Read his other posts about licking the insides of his Leica shutter cavity and cleaning his Noctilux with pumice.

 

Warren

Must be in the same vault with the Pentax 645D. As each day goes by, as photogs have bought into other digital systems, the market niche shrinks until there is no longer of market. I have hopes for Pentax because I am holding on to seven lens but I can't hold on forever.

Thanks but the Oly numbers are a little misleading in that if you compare at 20 lp/mm you also have to remember that the sensor is twice as small. So you would have to score 40 lp/mm to be the same.

 

Yes, the digital Zuikos are tested at 20 lp/mm and 60 lp/mm. Canon tests at 10 and 30. PhotoDo tests at 10, 20 and 40. Popular Photo used to test at 30 lp/mm. Also the digital Zuikos are tested wide open and would probably be a little sharper stopped down one stop.

 

<<As best I can tell, the Oly fisheye lens has excellent specifications for a fisheye. Though we are not told what aperture setting was used in testing, at what I take to be 20 line pairs per millimeter (lp/mm) (the blue line) the lens scored 93 in the center and 73 at the edge of the frame. Compare this to Photodo's testing at 20 lp/mm of the well-rated 35mm f/2.0 AFD Nikkor, which score 92 in the center and 85 at the edges af f/8.0- and that was a 35mm focal length lens you'd expect to have much better edge sharpness: >>

I have three 645 bodies and 11 lenses for P645. Should I dump them all for Canon? I think not, at least for the time being. The 1DSMk2 still has some problems with wide angle. It is a little scary to think that my ancient 21/3.5 Oly Zuiko is one of the better lenses for the Canon and this angle of view. I would rather bet on a new P645 digital body and one great 28mm superwide for the P645.

The only other significant difference is that the NII has the capability of using 16 or 15 frames per roll. The "N" can only do 16 shots per roll which sometimes places a bend in the film back where the next picture is to be shot. If you shoot fast or use small apertures, it is not important.

Maybe it has to do with internal focus, which often shortens the focal length when focusing at closer distances and which uses optic to focus. The 75, 150, and 200 are older designs that focus by racking out the lens on a helicoid. If you extend it too much then it begins to exceed the design parameters of sharpness and uses too much metal to extend the lens. The newer 150/2.8 and 200 might be different. I don't know.

The BLM site lists "recommended" guides.

 

https://paria.az.blm.gov/index2.html

 

But it appears as though all October and most all of the November reservations have been taken.

If it has an elliptical ball, would not the best position for travel be full angulation to one side? I like to hike with the camera back at a 90 deg. angle to the tripod and it fits over my shoulder. I guess a non-ArcaSwiss would be best??

In the latest issue of Outdoor Photography, the cover photo is of an

arch in the Alabama Hills, Calif. It was taken by Dennis Flaherty

and, earlier, Mark?? Muench. Does anyone know how to get there? Even

better, the GPS coordinates.

 

Warren

Don, you should have gone to Amboy, Sheephole Pass and Kelso Dunes with the Bob Allen group. I would have hated to lose you. BTW, what part of Caspers did the mountain lion find you in?

 

Warren

I don't know if this will work for your monopod, but, with my P645, Slik Pro ballhead, and Velbon CF, I angle the camera back at 90 deg. so that the tripod and camera back form a 90 deg. angle. With the legs extended, the whole thing just balances on my shoulder (no hands--unless it is bumpy). I can walk for miles this way.

 

Warren

Before I bought a 300/4 EFIF, I had adapted a P67 300/4. Actually, the size and weight penalties are very small for the P67 lens. But as far a sharpness is concerned, the EDIF lens was very much sharper than the P67 lens until about f8. The EDIF lens is very very sharp wide open across from center to edge. The P67 at f4 is not up to the format's capabilities for sure. Because the adapters are $75 to $100 for P67 toP645, I would just wait for a user EDIF rather than mess with adapting anything.

I have the 35mm super wide and love it. It does have about 2.8% distortion per Photodo. And there is another thing that you should be aware of. If you are going to use it on the P645N, any manual focus lens that have a fractional maximum f stop opening will flicker between settings, i.e. the 35/3.5 or 150/3.5. This should be remedied with the new 35mm and the 150/2.8.

There is an excellent thread on the regular photo.net list

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001Ba4&topic_id=23&topic=photo%2enet

 

ALso toward the bottom Craig Yull has a comparison page that is interesting.

Why don't you just use the 35mm wide angle (equivalent to a 21mm for 35mm film). It should be the equivalent of about a 75mm shift for the P645 (which does not exist) or the equivalent of a 35mm shift for 35mm film. You just won't get to use the full frame.

It's neither the action nor the reaction that bothers me, but essentially the hypocrisy of "the famous nature photographer using natural light" using artificial means of producing his photos. While all of his photos are beautiful (having been to his gallery), and I would have aspired to be like him, I am deeply disappointed to have been fooled. It is almost as if we were to find out that Ansel Adams never entered the darkroom and was working with a beta version of Photoshop.

I think I might have the predecessor to this lens, a Vivitar Series 1, 100-500. There was another one made by Cosina with the same zoom range. They both performed about the same as I recall. Mine is very sharp at the 100mm end with diminishing performance at the 500mm end. With good technique, tripod, and high shutter speed, you can get acceptable 5x7s at the long end but it is very difficult. I might get it out again and use it with the new Provia F pushed a couple of stops. It might be a good lens to practice your long lens technique. If you scan the newsgroups, most pros using this length end up with $400 tripod head and $400 tripods before they are satisfied with their technique.