A Quick Review: Sigma 28mm f2.8 Mini Wide II OM mount

Yep... I am into manual lenses if you ask me. I love these gems... they are sharp, they give great contrast, they are cheap. They lack IS, OS, VR, VC or whatever stabilization system though, and most are not weather proof... and they don't even have autofocus.

But if you know how to use them well... they can yield results that are incredible.

And this time round, I am shooting a Sigma 28mm f2.8 Mini Wide II OM mount... being an OM mount I needed to use a special adapter to adapt it to my EOS 7D.

Anyway, this lens is not as sharp as Olympus native 50mm or 28mm lens. It is pretty soft if you ask me. But I generally find it quite alright. It is a closeup lens too and for that price (S$40 from ebay) it is a steal.

Well as you can see... it really can take some pretty close up shots on the grasshopper. And the amount of detail it can resolve is incredible.

Focusing with this little gem is also a breeze...

One of my colleagues being caught unaware when I sneak a shot... but the darn 7D is so large that he soon realise that I am aiming at him... hence the looking up and stunned look.

Colour resolution is good, and very natural... I am not seeing any weird out of the way colour reproduction from this lens.

CA is also well control... almost cannot seen any at all.

Like all manual lens, you would need some practice to get use to... but once you got the hand of it, shooting sports is not difficult at all.

All in all... I enjoyed this lens a lot. It is not heavy, it had excellent built quality and it is an excellent value. The only problem is... it is not as sharp as I would have like. But... hey, for that money, it is a good and worthwhile purchase.

A Quick Review: Olympus OM 50mm f2.8 lens (An old legacy)

I have one of this baby laying around, taken from my dad's old Olympus OM-10. It is the OM mount lens, and so I have gotten myself an adapter from ebay.

This is an old lens... older than I am, but in very good condition and is excellent value... its focus ring is smooth and it is quite a bit heavier and larger than the Industar 50-2 lens. The grip is therefore better when compared to the Industar.

I like this lens and will not sold it for anything.

The lens is reasonable sharp.

As seen from the photos to the left, the sharpness is good for the 50mm. No problem at all.












The lens had relatively round bokeh that is pleasing to look at too.

I have taken this lens out for a spin and really like the result, CA is well controlled and sharpness is something that I have no complains about.



However, this is a manual lens, there is not such thing as AF in this lens, so it is a matter of getting use to the lens. With practice, taking shots of sports and fast moving objects shouldn't be a problem. Although I am still learning though... so no pic to post in this department.

I will come up with a second portion to include spec and a pic or two of this lens soon.

A Quick Review, Industar 50-2 50mm f3.5, a small Russian gem Part 2

Yep... as promise, I have done a brief test on the pic quality of the Industar 50-2.

It is a very sharp lens as mentioned before (if you get the correct focus). Other than that CA is quite well controlled, although not excellent.

As you can see, there are still quite abit of purple fringing at the edge of the leaves and tree trunks.




This is something that I hated... but since it is a S$20 plus lens, I find it pretty nice... and value for money.

Anyway, being a 50mm lens, I normally took close up shots and so it should post almost no problem at all...

This is a close up on the leaves. And yes... there is pretty much purple fringing going on there.

This is the type of shots that I normally took when using a 50mm... and it the Industar did retain most of the details and is very sharp... its colour reproduction is also excellent.

I kind of like the smooth bokeh that was not intruding or messy, so overall I love the lens alot.





The lens is easy to focus... especially with its buttery smooth focusing ring, that give you just the right amount of friction. My copy is a 1981 and a 1969 (I think) copy. Both are old... one is older than myself (nope I am not going to tell anyone my true age). And both didn't suffer from sticker aperture blades as many old manual lenses had suffered.

In conclusion, this is a lens that I would most definitely recommend to anyone who wanted to try manual lens. It is very very cheap and you can find quite a number of them in ebay. And it's quality is excellent... both built and pic quality.

Love mine... and I am sure you will love yours.

A Quick Review, Industar 50-2 50mm f3.5, a small Russian gem

I had two of them in my dry cabinet and had used a bit of this lens in the past. It is a small lens... very very small indeed.

The Industar 50-2 50mm f3.5 lens is a gem... and a very easy to use lens. I loved it alot. This lens is a m42 screw mount lens so you would need an adapter to mount it to your camera brand.

Spec:

Focal length: 50mm (52mm actual)
Aperture: f/3.5 (max)
Optical constuction: 4 element in three groups
Dimension: 50mm x 19mm
Weight: 65g (almost negligible)
filter size: 36mm

As per the above photos, it is not difficult to realise how small that lens is... and one of the problem with it was that it is so small and my hand is so big that many a time when I move up to tune it... my fingers simply came up and block the front element.

Another problem was that it is so small... buying or getting a filter for it is almost impossible.

But this lens is sharp... very very sharp...

But the problem is... it is not a very fast lens, wide open it is only f3.5... as you can imagine with this type of aperture, it would make taking photo is dark environment pretty difficult.

But with practice, you should be able to get much out of it.

The above photos are that of my hyper active doggie... and the lens can still take very sharp image of her.

I didn't have too much practice on outside plants and stuff yet because of the weather. But in time, I will... and until then... I can say that I love this lens alot. It is an incredible piece of glass.

A quick review of a poor man 500mm lens... the Opteka 500mm f6.3 mirror lens

A 500mm lens of any brands (that support AF and other whatsnot) will not be the cup of tea for most people... for many reasons... For me... it will break my back and make me more than S$10k poorer. So I value my back and my wallets (not making alot these days)... especially not for something that I would only use once in awhile.

So I decided to get a cheap second hand mirror lens to test out my skills for birding around 1 year ago. It was not my forte... so this lens had been resting in my dry cabinet until recently when I wanted to play with a longer range lens.

Well... this lens is light enough and small enough to be carried around easily. If you are used to a 7D... the weigh poses not restiction of whatsoever to you.

Anyway, some of the spec from the net:

Focal length: 500mm
Aperture: f/6.3 (fix - meaning, you cannot change aperture at all... of course many had claimed that by adding whatsnot, you can do it, but I am not going there).
Optical Construction: 7 elements in 6 groups.
Length: 119.5mm
Maximum dia: 98mm
Weigh: 705g
Mount: T-mount

One thing worth noting was that the lens is very thick in diameter... but feels very good in hand. It is a T-mount lens and so an adapter is needed if you wanted to mount it on your camera be it Sony, Canon, Pentax or Nikon.

Seen here is the Opteka mounted on my Canon EOS 7D.

First off... the Opteka 500mm f6.3 mirror lens was also being manufactured and carried the brand of Samyang too... that is why the lens is made in Korea (Samyang being a Korean company) and the lens is actually being designed and make by them.

The lens had a buttery smooth zoom ring that is a joy to use and so very very simple and effortless to zoom in and out.

Due to the big size of the lens (thickness wise), it needed an equally large dia filter if you wanted to add in a filter (filter size is 95mm) and so the filter is not going to be too cheap.

Anyway, the lens don't cost more than S$400 second hand (in fact I got it for around S$200).

Sharpness wise, it is quite good... for stationary object in bright daytime.

Well... sharpness is good if you can achieve a good focus on your subject and if your subject is moving, then unless the sunlight or environment is bright enough, it will make capturing of that subject a near impossible.

A failed attempt to shoot a bird... it is jumping all over the place and was very very fast. I believe that I would not have any trouble if I am using my trusty old 300mm with a 1.4x teleconverter because my aperture will still be bigger as compared to the 500mm f/6.3 lens... so my shutter speed will be good.

Another problem with this mirror lens was the terrible CA issue.

As per the photo on top, you can see very bad purple fringing on the cable and the entire outline of the crane.

Another issue with this lens is the weird donut shaped bokeh. Not sure if that is a problem... because to me... I like that unique shape.

This is a lens that gives alot at that price... but it would not be everyone's forte... I like it alot but not enough for me to be bringing it on all my travelling... and shoots.

Given the choice and if money is not an issue, I will still get a proper EF 500mm... But, if money is the issue, then this 500mm f6.3 would work very very well indeed.

So what lens to you use for street shooting?

Many newbies had asked this question... well... and so I will answer it.
Whatever works for you. And don't listen to those experts that had mention all this bullshits that you need a short lens whereby you can get more involve. Well... whatever you do that make you comfortable. Photography is suppose to be enjoyable and not suppose to be stressful. If you find that talking to your subject is not your forte, then forget it and just shoot without talking to them.

The basic law here is that when you are in a public area, you can shoot your photos at anything, unless there is a specific sign telling you not to (but you must observe if there is an otherwise law in different countries).

Anyway, just remember this basic rule, "Whatever you are not comfortable with, don't do it to other people."

My typical setup would be a DSLR with my 70-200mm f4L and my 28mm f2.8 lens. Many professionals or experts would have scoffed at me adopting the 70-200mm lens... well it is too far off and you cannot be as involved in the scene...

My point is... I don't care. I like my setup now and I am comfortable with it. So yeah.

Focal length: 100mm

Focal length: 28mm

Focal length: 200mm


Well the above three shots are taken from different focal length and I am able to achieve pleasing shots with all of them. So there actually is no limitation to whatever you wanted to do.

Macro Photography for amateur

I am not going into the science behind this... a lot of blog had been explaining it over and over again. I am just getting some setup of that I find works for me.

I would like to tell you that using a tripod is a must... but I am not going to say that. Well... lets face it this way... you are out looking for the creepy crawlie... something came up... you set up your tripod... attach your remote control, put your camera there, and by the time you are ready, our friend had ran off or fly off, or crawled off... so there is only one or two things you could do... set up your tripod already... then wait in a spot for something to happen... afterall, they say photography is a test of your patients too.








ISO: 400
Shutter Speed: 1/40
Apeture: f/7.1



But, I am not someone who wait for things to happen, I look around for interesting subject. And so I normally hand held my camera. Taking the photo above photo, this lovely plume moth simply flew into view... if I was to set up my tripod and stuff, it would have flown off again... and maybe during the setting up of my tripod, I will have disturbed it or even accidentally killed it.

When shooting of macro, my setup is usually,

1) DSLR
2) EF 100mm f2.8 macro
3) external flash

Well... this is a good setup... of course there are other alternative, like using a Raynox 250 or a closeup lens like the 500D (not to mistaken with Canon's DSLR). But I cannot bother with these setup and just get a dedicated macro lens. It had a 1:1 magnification and so I can take pretty good and detail shot of my subject close up. The Raynox or close up lenses are very good addon to your normal lenses and allow you to shoot pretty close. But remember, you would have to be very very quiet and silent in order not to scare your models into flying off.

ISO: 400
Shutter Speed: 1/30
Aperture: f/11

More important than anything else, your external flash is something that you would not want to leave home without when shooting macro shots. Note that most macro lens do not have build in image stabilizer, and a slight movement of the lens will be translated into massive blurr in your pic because of the magnification of the lens. And do note that when shooting macro, you need to close your aperture to pretty small... thus your shutter speed will be affected and so an external flash is needed for you to reach the speed that you can comfortably hand held.

ISO: 400
Shutter Speed: 1/200
Aperture: f/9


As seen in the above photo, the creepy crawlie was actually suspended on a single line of silk, and there is a slight bleeze blowing... if my shutter speed is not fast enough, I would never be able to capture this cute little fella, and it is impossible without my flash.

So flash technique is pretty important in macro photography, you must know exactly how to control it... don't bother with bounce flash and stuff like that, things happen too fast for you to think... just put on a diffuser and fire off.

Anyway, when you are outfield doing macro... do note that there are other people shooting macro too. Try not to walk too heavily, or talk too loudly. The last thing a macro photographer wanted was that he had been positioning his camera, setting focus and stuff for a while... then some idiots simply stomp past and his subject flew off... or escape.

And when you are taking macro shots, try to be observant of your surrounding... not just to spot the lovely creatures... but not to step on them. And also macro photographers like to get as close to their models as possible... so many a time, we will be on the ground... and we do not appreciate it when you step on us or on our model.