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Archive 2016 · Does my camera, (Sony A7ii), need a Kolari modification?

  
 
igmolinav
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Does my camera, (Sony A7ii), need a Kolari modification?


Hi,

Does my camera, (Sony A7ii), need a Kolari modification if used
with wide-angle lenses?

I am using a Canon 35 mm f/1.5 manual focus lens at the moment.
I plan to use a Contax C/Y 25 mm. f/2.8 as soon as I get an adapter.

A photographer in my city whom I have met for some time has
offered me to use some of his Leica M glass.

He has the following lenses that I would really like to use:

Leica 28-35-50 Tri-Elmar f/4
Leica Elmarit 24 mm. f/2.8
Leica WATE 16-18-21 mm. f/4
plus the 25 mm. C/Y above mentioned.

Have you had any experience with any of these lenses ??

Is it possible to use those lenses with the Sony A7ii camera as if
they were mounted on a digital Leica. I mean without getting any
negative effects in the images, or should I consider an eventual
Kolari modification that may help me out to get the best image
quality from those lenses ??

Thank you in advance, kind regards,

igmolinav : ) !!!




Sep 24, 2016 at 05:52 PM
freaklikeme
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Does my camera, (Sony A7ii), need a Kolari modification?


The Canon 35/1.5 didn't pick up any huge performance improvement on my modified a7 versus my unmodified a7II. Ditto the ZS (M42) 25/2.8, which is roughly the same design as the C/Y.

I love the Elmarit-M 24/2.8, but I didn't find it any more usable on the modified a7. It does pick up some edge performance on the a7rII, but still not enough that it would make me want to use it over the excellent Loxia 21.

I've never used the Tri-Elmars on the modified camera, but the WATE wasn't bad on my unmodified a7II. A f/8, all three focal lengths looked decent.



Sep 24, 2016 at 07:17 PM
naturephoto1
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Does my camera, (Sony A7ii), need a Kolari modification?


The Leica M WATE 16mm, 18mm, 21mm lens should prove to be fine on your A7II. It is one of the few M mount WA RF lenses to do well on a stock A7 series camera. It would provide a slight amount improvement with the Kolari Modification, but unless you had additional M mount WA RF lenses it would not be worth the cost of the modification.

I have never had the Leica M 24mm f2.8 Asph lens to comment on how it would perform on a Kolari modified A7 series camera.

As you and I have been discussing however, the Leica M 24mm f3.8 Asph lens does perform extremely well on my A7rM V3 camera. I would not use that lens on a stock camera however. Below are some images taken with my A7rM V3 camera with my M 24mm f3.8 Elmar Asph lens. This is an excellet performing lens on my modded A7r and the performance at this focal length is as is the case of the Leica M 21mm f3.4 should be close to the performance of the Loxia 21mm. The 2 Leica lenses are smaller and lighter than the Loxia 21mm, but they are not native. By the way, the A7r cameras are the most problematic for usage without the modification. The images were processed with CornerFix and LR6 and were shot at f11 for DOF.

Rich





A7rM V3 Leica M 24mm f3.8 Elmar Asph ISO 50, f11, 0.5 seconds







A7rM V3 Leica M 24mm f3.8 Elmar Asph ISO 50, f11, 1/15 seconds




Sep 24, 2016 at 07:54 PM
Luvwine
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Does my camera, (Sony A7ii), need a Kolari modification?


This like will answer some of your questions:

https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2016/07/guide-to-leica-wide-angle-lenses-on-sony-a7-series-bodies/



Sep 24, 2016 at 11:37 PM
wfrank
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Does my camera, (Sony A7ii), need a Kolari modification?


The problems concern only rangefinder lenses with back element close to the sensor - giving steep light ray angle at far ends. That's when the top layer of the Sony sensor messes about. I.e. no Contax C/Y lenses should be of problem in that regard. But for the Contax G range, problem starts with 28/2.8mm and all below. Contax G 45/2 is superb, still the distance of back element is much closer than any Contax CY. The Contax G 21/2.8 and G 28/2.8 not only protrodes back from the lens, they even pass the adapter. These can not be used. Both severe blur and heavy corner smearing is the result.

No such thing can occur with Contax CY as the needed to leave space for a flipping mirror. A lens such as the CY 25/2.8 should produce as good as on an original SLR - or actually in many cases 2-3 stops better as the body introduces stabilization.

I only use FE or Contax (CY) so I have not much on Leitz, but from what I've seen all is well with the WATE. I'd own it if it wasnt above what I like to spend on lenses.



Sep 25, 2016 at 04:39 PM
igmolinav
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Does my camera, (Sony A7ii), need a Kolari modification?



Hi,

Thank you very much for your excellent comments : ) !!!
I may come up again with related questions. Hopefully,
I can refer them to you in the future. It will be exciting
to try the lenses and show you some pictures as soon
as possible. As a student, I still have one month of field
work, before I go home to try the lenses.

Have a very nice day, kind regards,

igmolinav : ) !!!



Sep 28, 2016 at 01:30 AM
igmolinav
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Does my camera, (Sony A7ii), need a Kolari modification?



P.S. I forgot to ask how good do these lenses handle distortion
at the focal lengths of 28, 24, 21, 18 and 16 mm. when
photographing buildings no higher than sixty feet or buildings
up to four or six storeys high. Of course, at 28 and 24 mm.
I am guessing that distortion is at a minimum. However, at 21,
18 and 16 mm. I wonder how bad it is. In the city I usually live
buildings are up to three storeys high. It would be difficult to
imagine how bad distortion can be up to four to six floors with
those lenses.
Thank you again, very kind regards, igmolinav : ) !!!



Sep 28, 2016 at 09:17 AM
Luvwine
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Does my camera, (Sony A7ii), need a Kolari modification?


Distortion on architectural shots usually falls into two types: positional distortion (usually keystoning) caused often by tilting the camera up to capture the whole building from close by and distortion caused by lens design. The latter is usually easily correctable by software in post processing--lightroom has many lens profiles to correct these distortions and vignetting. The positional distortion is really not distortion at all as it is a function of one's position relative to the subject matter. However, it is usually more of an issue than lens distortion in that one must either accept the distortion as part of the image (often a good idea for artistic reasons), use a wide enough lens to be able to keep the focal plane perpendicular to the subject (and then possibly crop foreground elements one does not want in the photo), or get a specialized lens called a "shift" lens that often allows for correcting for positional issues optically. Another method is to correct for the positional distortion in photoshop, but this is a bit more challenging and can either degrade the quality of the image somewhat or cause the need to do a lot of cropping or both.

Architectural photography has its own set of challenges and it is hard to give a quick answer as there is no substitute for experience.

The distance you will be from these buildings will ultimately determine how wide a lens you might need. In my experience, wider is usually better, however, especially if you do not have a shift lens.



Sep 28, 2016 at 11:44 AM
rico
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Does my camera, (Sony A7ii), need a Kolari modification?


As mentioned, reverse-telephoto SLR WA lenses avoid the ray-angle problem of RF lenses (with more symmetric designs). As an extreme case, my CZ FD16 C/Y (fisheye) works perfectly on an unmod'ed A7ii.


Sep 29, 2016 at 12:12 AM





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