Steve Spencer wrote:
Basically, there are tons of options for Sony A-mount. Maybe not quite as many as Canon, but still lots of choice. Personally my main concern would be lack of tilt/shift options, but that is not a not-too-$$ issue.


Don't forget about the Mirex adapter. Here's their website (in German). It lets you use either Mamiya 645 lenses or Hasselblad 6x6 lenses on the alpha lens mount. I have one and am quite happy with it. It's painfully expensive, $600-700 USD, plus requires communication with a German firm whose specialty is engineering and machining rather than customer service, but it works quite well. The nice thing about the adapter, and what makes the price a lot more forgivable, is that once you have it, you can use it to adapt multiple focal lengths into tilting and shifting. Manual focus Mamiya 645 glass is pretty cheap these days, too, so you could potentially get four T/S focal lengths for ~$1550: $700 adapter, $400 for a 35/3.5, $200 for a 55/2.8, $100 for an 80/2.8, and $150 for a 150/3.5 lens. Yes, that's still a chunk of money, but it's a lot of flexibility. Considering the price of one or two Canon or Nikon T/S lenses, even used, I think it's a good value.

I think I remember sonyalpharumors announcing that Samyang was planning on making a T/S 24mm for the alpha mount. I don't know if it's been released yet.

I kind of like the idea of either going to or using m42 mount, since I could still use the lenses on my Canon body (planning to keep 1D3).

Hmmmm. I already have Jena 135/3.5. I wonder if CY35-70 can go to m42?? Then fill in with the A mount 24 and 85 for a bit of speed, and I'd have a hellacious kit for people pics and landscape. Or at least I'd feel that way...

CZJ Biotar 58/2! Try and get the one without the preset aperture- it's a PITA.

freaklikeme wrote:
CZJ Biotar 58/2! Try and get the one without the preset aperture- it's a PITA.

That would be a fun lens, too. Bucketloads of character!!

I guess Leica 35-70 would be an option... Isn't that what you are using, MyFreakyFriend??

mco_970 wrote:
freaklikeme wrote:
CZJ Biotar 58/2! Try and get the one without the preset aperture- it's a PITA.

That would be a fun lens, too. Bucketloads of character!!

I guess Leica 35-70 would be an option... Isn't that what you are using, MyFreakyFriend??


Indeed, the 35-70/4. I love mine. It's very much the "modern-draw" ASPH lens and a kick-butt walk around lens. The macro mode works out to about 63mm with close to 1:3, I think, so you're not going to get into the interior of a flower without a tube, but you can get some nice flower shots. Little distortion at the wide end but from 37mm on, it's fairly perfect. LoCA is minimal wide open, gone by 5.6, which is where you'll find all around peak performance but, honestly, it's so good at f/4, you'd be hard pressed to see the difference. And it's not a stupid f*$(#!&# push-pull.

timballic wrote:
ricardovaste wrote:
Some people just can't focus is well enough (patience, skill, eye problems), and often that combines to people calling it 'soft' or 'useless at 1.2'. I have experienced some that have a glow at 1.2, but the detail is still there, but of course I personally prefer glow-less as it's just a cleaner picture that way.



mco_970, forgive me an "aside", not to hijack the thread, but I thought all 58/1.2s "glowed" at 1.2. mine certainly does. Are the later rubber sleeve one's less prone to this? Mine is a "yellowed" optics, metal ribbed style.

The A99 with that angled LCD is certainly a draw...If I didn't have so much EF and EF adapted glass......

it certainly has a glow wide open (spherical aberration) and there are lots of sharper lenses wide open (even f/1.2 lenses). it is definitely quite usable wide open though and a lot of people that complain about it simply can't focus it.

there doesn't seem to be a noticeable improvement in sharpness from the metal focus ring version to the rubber from my experience and the accounts of others. paul (cogitech) seems to have found that the very sharpest copies were actually thoriated versions. having said that, the unthoriated lenses or thoriated ones that have been treated with ultraviolet to remove the yellowing definitely have better contrast and are a bit brighter. i suspect that the rubber focus ring versions with later coatings might also have slightly better contrast.

in any event, here's an example of typical rokkor 58/1.2 performance wide open in a worse case scenario (bright back lighting) on a NEX-7, which has much higher pixel density than say the d800:

mhespenheide wrote:
Steve Spencer wrote:
Basically, there are tons of options for Sony A-mount. Maybe not quite as many as Canon, but still lots of choice. Personally my main concern would be lack of tilt/shift options, but that is not a not-too-$$ issue.


Don't forget about the Mirex adapter. Here's their website (in German). It lets you use either Mamiya 645 lenses or Hasselblad 6x6 lenses on the alpha lens mount. I have one and am quite happy with it. It's painfully expensive, $600-700 USD, plus requires communication with a German firm whose specialty is engineering and machining rather than customer service, but it works quite well. The nice thing about the adapter, and what makes the price a lot more forgivable, is that once you have it, you can use it to adapt multiple focal lengths into tilting and shifting. Manual focus Mamiya 645 glass is pretty cheap these days, too, so you could potentially get four T/S focal lengths for ~$1550: $700 adapter, $400 for a 35/3.5, $200 for a 55/2.8, $100 for an 80/2.8, and $150 for a 150/3.5 lens. Yes, that's still a chunk of money, but it's a lot of flexibility. Considering the price of one or two Canon or Nikon T/S lenses, even used, I think it's a good value.

I think I remember sonyalpharumors announcing that Samyang was planning on making a T/S 24mm for the alpha mount. I don't know if it's been released yet.


I remember having it on my Canon. Operating it was a bit cumbersome.

Happy shooting,
Yakim.

Of all the 58/1.2's I've handled, I've seen one maybe two that have a very clear "glow" to them, almost like someone has rubbed Vaseline on the front element, or it's been dropped and something isn't quite right inside. All the others, and the one that I use, render like any other Minolta glass of this type (example on first page) - warm colours, buttery bokeh, low contrast, plenty of detail. I think if we start saying every 58/1.2 has a "glow", you can say every fast aperture lens made before digital has a "glow". It's SA's are no more pronounced than the 35/1.8 Rokkor, 35/1.4 Minolta, 85/1.4 Minolta etc etc.

That's just my $0.02 on the topic.

Sounds like one man's "glow" is another man's "no-glow"
We'd need comparable examples to clarify, and this isn't the thread for that.

ricardovaste wrote:
Of all the 58/1.2's I've handled, I've seen one maybe two that have a very clear "glow" to them, almost like someone has rubbed Vaseline on the front element, or it's been dropped and something isn't quite right inside. All the others, and the one that I use, render like any other Minolta glass of this type (example on first page) - warm colours, buttery bokeh, low contrast, plenty of detail. I think if we start saying every 58/1.2 has a "glow", you can say every fast aperture lens made before digital has a "glow". It's SA's are no more pronounced than the 35/1.8 Rokkor, 35/1.4 Minolta, 85/1.4 Minolta etc etc.

That's just my $0.02 on the topic.

yes, every fast aperture lens has a glow, except for a few aspherical designs.

timballic wrote:
Sounds like one man's "glow" is another man's "no-glow"
We'd need comparable examples to clarify, and this isn't the thread for that.

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1104043/0?keyword=f%2F1.2#10536033