Here are three from a recent concert by my favorite band, Low. I'm new to taking concert photography, but I'm pretty happy with these photos and how the Contax Planar 50mm f/1.7 performed in this environment.
The rest of the images from this show can be found in my Flickr album, The Current Does Duluth.
A couple of shots with the a7r and Hassy S-Planar 135 on Mamiya Auto-Bellows N. First is a single shot wide open at 1:1, shifted to correct framing, no tilt. Second is a 13-shot pano, f/16 at 1:1, no shift but some tilt.
carstenw wrote:
Pretty damn cool! Do you have a photo of your setup?
Sure. I had an old one posted previously, but that was before I had all the adapters to be able to do the circular panos. From left to right, it’s cheap Chinese B50 hood, S-Planar, Hassy to M645 adapter, Mamiya Auto-Bellows N, Kipon M645 to EF shift adapter, Ommlite EF to E adapter, and a7r.
Finally, here’s a couple with Planar 80/2.8, both full rotational panos and cropped. This one does not get to infinity. The second shot is as far away as I can get from the subject at f/16 and get it in focus.
What a neat Frankencontraption. I guess no part is by coincidence here. Does the Hasselblad bellows not have tilt/swing?
I have something similar going, but without shift: A7, F to E adapter, Contax to F adapter, Contax bellows, M39 to Contax adapter, RMS to M39 adapter, Zeiss Luminar 63mm f/4.5.
carstenw wrote:
What a neat Frankencontraption. I guess no part is by coincidence here. Does the Hasselblad bellows not have tilt/swing?
I have something similar going, but without shift: A7, F to E adapter, Contax to F adapter, Contax bellows, M39 to Contax adapter, RMS to M39 adapter, Zeiss Luminar 63mm f/4.5.
No, Hassy never made bellows with movements. From what I can tell, that's limited to Contax, Minolta, and Mamiya.
What do you think of the Luminar? I haven't tried any of their other macro heads but I'm planning to eventually.
freaklikeme wrote:
No, Hassy never made bellows with movements. From what I can tell, that's limited to Contax, Minolta, and Mamiya.
What do you think of the Luminar? I haven't tried any of their other macro heads but I'm planning to eventually.
It's clearly quite a good lens, but it is also hard to use. The aperture ring on my copy is quite sticky, so turning it risks loosening the lens in its adapter It is at its best wide open, apparently, but it has very little depth of field there. I have tried it at various distances and magnifications (<1:1 to near 10:1), and it seems competent everywhere. Not razor-sharp, but quite sharp. Stopping it down gets more DoF but less sharpness. The main problem is the focal length. At these magnifications you are really close to your subject, so for anything moving or alive, you need a longer focal length, so I use my ZF/2 100/2 with tubes for that.
I am not really an accomplished macro photographer, which is one reason I bought it. I want to try it out. I haven't really had loads of free time yet, though, so I am not very far...
carstenw wrote:
It's clearly quite a good lens, but it is also hard to use. The aperture ring on my copy is quite sticky, so turning it risks loosening the lens in its adapter It is at its best wide open, apparently, but it has very little depth of field there. I have tried it at various distances and magnifications (<1:1 to near 10:1), and it seems competent everywhere. Not razor-sharp, but quite sharp. Stopping it down gets more DoF but less sharpness. The main problem is the focal length. At these magnifications you are really close to your subject, so for anything moving or alive, you need a longer focal length, so I use my ZF/2 100/2 with tubes for that.
I am not really an accomplished macro photographer, which is one reason I bought it. I want to try it out. I haven't really had loads of free time yet, though, so I am not very far......Show more →
I know what you're saying about the working distance. When looking at some very impressive things I've seen shot with 12-24mm lenses, all I could think was, "How did you light that with less than fifteen millimeters between the lens and subject?" And the crazy amount of focus stacking people do to keep from stopping down makes me cringe.
I definitely don't consider myself accomplished, or much of a macro photographer, really. I rarely go higher than 1:1. I'm more a close-focus shooter who appreciates having the movements on the lens side and the ability to adjust framing or use the entire image circle on the camera side.
sebboh wrote:
the g45 is way better in sharpness and contrast (ok there is a limit to how much better a lens can be than the 50/1.7) with a little better bokeh (still sucks beyond 1.5 meters). basically from f/2 to f/8 the the g45 is a little more than a stop better than the c/y eg. the g45 is slightly better at f/4 than the c/y at f/5.6. also, the ergonomics of my g45 are better than those of any c/y lens (due to some custom modifications) .
A G45 came up on the B&S forum at a good price, soon after this exchange and I went for it. I just got it today and took it on a hike. I'm pretty pleased and would agree with your assessment about it being ahead of the C/Y 50/1.7 by about a stop, with the exception of mid-range bokeh. The difference in performance at f/2 is huge - I look forward to getting to use f/2 in a lot more than I do with my C/Y 50/1.7.
My C/Y 50/1.7 has an uncanny ability to get a bit of background back in situations where I really wouldn't expect it. I figured it was placebo at first, but in the comparisons I've done with my Canon FD 50/1.4 SSC and Nikkor 50/1.8 AI, it seems to not be a figment of my imagination. The G45 doesn't seem to have this magic. How much this matters to me is yet to be seen.
arduluth wrote:
My C/Y 50/1.7 has an uncanny ability to get a bit of background back in situations where I really wouldn't expect it. I figured it was placebo at first, but in the comparisons I've done with my Canon FD 50/1.4 SSC and Nikkor 50/1.8 AI, it seems to not be a figment of my imagination. The G45 doesn't seem to have this magic. How much this matters to me is yet to be seen.
What do you mean by "get a bit of background back"?
It is at its best wide open, apparently, but it has very little depth of field there. I have tried it at various distances and magnifications (<1:1 to near 10:1), and it seems competent everywhere. Not razor-sharp, but quite sharp. Stopping it down gets more DoF but less sharpness. The main problem is the focal length. At these magnifications you are really close to your subject, so for anything moving or alive, you need a longer focal length, so I use my ZF/2 100/2 with tubes for that.
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