calum_bean

<blockquote type=cite>I once had a Contax TVS. After a few months, the whole front of the lens fell off.</blockquote>

That's some bad falloff.<p>

I'm not so much interested in mechanical vignetting (either from a lens hood or a DX lens) or photoshop. The Nikon 50 1.2 is intriguing however, especially since I don't have a 50mm prime among my SLR lenses. Doesn't it have weird coma though? I'm already looking for a broken lomo to pull the lens from.<p>

While I'm familiar with reversing a lens, I don't know anything about reversing an element, which would definately give the soft corners I'm looking for. What kind of lenses does this work on? Any other lenses or cameras with partcularly bad light falloff?

I'm looking for a lens or fixed-lens rangefinder that has the same kind of light

and focus falloff you would see on a lomo or a Noctilux, but that is focuseable

and that doesn't cost $3000. I was initially thinking of a Sonnar-type lens like

a pre-war Sonnar Opton 50 1.5, as these seem to be relatively cheap and

available, or a Jupiter-3 50 1.5, which is coated. How are these lenses

wide-open, and how much does coated/uncoated affect contrast on a Sonnar lens? I

was also thinking Sonnar because of the supposedly nice bokeh. What else might

good be a candidate for bad falloff?