GMPhotography wrote:
We have been keeping them in food for sure they said.
Hit and miss today I got from mail office Hoya +1 on 46mm, 58mm and 67mm, earlier I got 55mm and full set of Proxars (0.5m, 1m, 2m). Based on last few days testing and forum discussions, it seems that the close-up lens is not a solution for mitigating the thick sensor stack. So I'm equipped for rest of my life with weak close-up lenses
And after verifying that both ZM18 and ZM2/35 work with the SLB-50-3000PM and that the 50mm filter can be used with ZM18. It has 58mm filter thread, and I have 58mm->52mm filter coming from eBay at some point of time. If verified successfully I'll need to put 2nd order to OptoSigma to get another SLB-50-3000PM - also need to try ZM18 and 2/35 with Kolari v2 + SLB-50-5000PM, maybe I need also SLB-50-6000PM for Kolari v2 usage if 5000 is too strong...
Samuli Vahonen wrote:
Hit and miss today I got from mail office Hoya +1 on 46mm, 58mm and 67mm, earlier I got 55mm and full set of Proxars (0.5m, 1m, 2m). Based on last few days testing and forum discussions, it seems that the close-up lens is not a solution for mitigating the thick sensor stack. So I'm equipped for rest of my life with weak close-up lenses
And after verifying that both ZM18 and ZM2/35 work with the SLB-50-3000PM and that the 50mm filter can be used with ZM18. It has 58mm filter thread, and I have 58mm->52mm filter coming from eBay at some point of time. If verified successfully I'll need to put 2nd order to OptoSigma to get another SLB-50-3000PM - also need to try ZM18 and 2/35 with Kolari v2 + SLB-50-5000PM, maybe I need also SLB-50-6000PM for Kolari v2 usage if 5000 is too strong...
Did you do side by side corner comparisons using the OptoSigma, Hoya +1 and Proxar 1m on your ZM 25? I would love to see the actual differences between these various solutions.
I feel your pain I been trying everything on this ZM 25 spent a lot of money and I am very frustrated as as I think it's over correcting the lens and I can't tell what the heck is good or bad. Last night I put all the shims back in, I just want to get afresh start make sure my lens is okay with de centering and I ordered a PCX 2500 this morning. I'll have it next week they are coating it first. I'm just going to wait till I try it see if all is good than see if I need to send to Zeiss.
My theory don't quote me but by taking out a good amount of shims as I have done for the 25 I think it threw everything out. With the PCX 2500 I may only need to take out 1 or 2 instead of 5. I simple can't explain otherwise why my right side looked better and worse
MIRANDA1 wrote:
Did you do side by side corner comparisons using the OptoSigma, Hoya +1 and Proxar 1m on your ZM 25? I would love to see the actual differences between these various solutions.
No. I got OptoSigma delivery yesterday 20min after sunset. Next opportunity to be outside during daylight is on weekend if weather allows photography (unless by luck I got time during the week). At the moment I don't have enough step-down rings and retention rings to build more than two filter stacks = not very likely that I sacrifice available shooting time for side to side (specially as this freaking infinity shooting does not interest me at all).
My priority is to figure out G21, G28, G35, ZM2/35, ZM25 and ZM18 behaviour with standard filter stack and Kolari v2 and how they behave in my real life scenarios (=not infinity).
Based on the one time I did shoot with Hoya +1, I can tell it was much worse in my use than Proxar; when shooting subjects in my primary shooting range from 0.5m to 1.5m the lens did lack microcontrast and overall look of photos was not great. With Proxar images looked better overall, even light has been much worse when shooting with it.
Today activity was to get the shimming done for ZM2/35 + SLB-50-3000PM + Fotka adapter + A7v2: my lens had 4 focus adjustment shims, of which 3 are bronze-color and one is silver color. The silver one is really thin and bronze shims are much thicker. After indoor testing (max shooting distance ~12 meters, room temperature) I ended up removing 2 bronze and the silver one, leaving one bronze. Now the ~12 meters is 60% of distance between 5m and infinity. I estimate that it will go little past infinity, when I get to test it outdoors.
2 minute indoor testing revealed that SLB-50-3000PM did not remove the the boke issue with corners (notice the top left corner on linked photo - this was with Kolari v2, it's much worse with thick sensor stack). When center is focused to ~1.2 meters, then corners are ~3 meters => this is not going to work.
So tomorrow I'll check it with A7 Kolari v2 plus SLB-50-3000PM and SLB-50-5000PM.
Here is sim result for ZM28 I've just done. Could this help you?
Fred Miranda wrote:
Question: Is the ZM 28/2.8 a different beast? I tested it with a PCX 1.5m filter and was not that impressed and decided selling this combo. Perhaps I could try a different PCX with it. Optically, the ZM 28 is not as great as the ZM 25 to begin with though.
Wow! The stoppef down outer field performance is very diffetent between 1.5m and 2m. If you already have one of these it might be worth trying a 2m....
Here is sim result for ZM28 I've just done. Could this help you?
Yes it does! Thank you.
Astigmatism seems higher with the 1.5m and I saw that in my own real world tests. It seems that the sweet spot is adding a PCX 2m although 2.5m is not bad and could work for both ZM 25 and 28mm lenses.
Perhaps a PXC 2.5m "reversed" would yield a similar result to 2m?
We definitely need a FAQ now.
BTW: It's shocking how different the simulated MTF looks in comparison to Zeiss MTF graph for this lens. See image below:
Fred Miranda wrote:
Yes it does!
Astigmatism seems higher with the 1.5m and I saw that in my own real world tests. It seems the sweet spot is adding a 2m although 2.5m is not bad and could work for both ZM 25 and 28.
Perhaps I could have 2.5m reversed for a little stronger effect?
Thanks a million. We definitely need a FAQ now.
It is important to compare these sim results with original (Zeiss published) MTF.
My posting graphs always use perfect lens so any aberrations of master lens are not included.
Actual result should be a combination of original MTF and my simulated MTF.
The "combination" is not simple math, but roughly speaking, if sim result looks much better than original we will get very close performance to the original. If the sim shows similar contrast to original, we will get slightly worse performance than original.
Also as well as general UV filter does, PCX would induces some contrast loss due to inner reflection and slight light (T-stop) loss. They are not included in my simlation, too.
Fred Miranda wrote:
BTW: It's shocking how different the simulated MTF looks in comparison to Zeiss MTF graph for this lens. See image below:
HaruhikoT wrote:
It is important to compare these sim results with original (Zeiss published) MTF.
My posting graphs always use perfect lens so any aberrations of master lens are not included.
Actual result should be a combination of original MTF and my simulated MTF.
The "combination" is not simple math, but roughly speaking, if sim result looks much better than original we will get very close performance to the original. If the sim shows similar contrast to original, we will get slightly worse performance than original.
Also as well as general UV filter does, PCX would induces some contrast loss due to inner reflection and slight light (T-stop) loss. They are not included in my simlation, too.
Makes total sense. Aberrations play a big role on MTF performance. That's actually good news as this lens+PCX should perform similarly to the Zeiss MTF.
Do you mind checking if the 2.5m "reversed mode" would yield similar results to a PCX 2m? I may give this lens another try!
Fred
HaruhikoT wrote:
As I remember no meaningful difference, will add to the graph after I got home.
[edit] Update done. Please reload my post above.
Yes agree.
I may give this lens another go because sim shows a difference towards the corners between 1.5m and 2m PCX lenses at f/5.6.
Thanks again!
Fred
And one of the most interesting threads that I have seen on this website in a long time. Also very useful. The improved performance of my ZM 35 with a PCX 5m filter is quite dramatic.
Incidentally, I have tried reversing the filter so that the convex side faces inward, and I think that it may be slightly better. I can get decent corners @f2.8 at infinity focus. But I have not done careful comparison testing, so this should not be taken as a definitive conclusion on my part.
Fred Miranda wrote:
BTW: It's shocking how different the simulated MTF looks in comparison to Zeiss MTF graph for this lens. See image below:
I'm sure Fred and most of you know this and Haruhiko has explained it, but the language is slippery and people could get the wrong idea ---
The difference between the simulated MTF and the Zeiss graph is 'shocking' because the simulated MTF is NOT a simulation of the MTF of the lens with the filter or without!
Instead it's effectively a simulation only of the DIFFERENCE the cover glass or the cover glass plus filter makes to MTF; where the difference is relative to a *theoretically perfect lens*
The actual MTF will be much worse - it will be (not quite, but roughly) the original Zeiss MTF *made worse by the amount that the simulation differs from perfection (which is in every case quite a bit)*
What that tells us is that even the best case front of no filters will produce a result significantly worse than native performance.
That doesn't mean that the performance with cover glass isn't a big improvement, or isn't so good that in some cases the best available option mightn't be an RF lens with front filter.
But it does mean we can expect even better from a native lens with similar specs and d sign and manufacturing quality.
DavidBM wrote:
I'm sure Fred and most of you know this and Haruhiko has explained it, but the language is slippery and people could get the wrong idea ---
The difference between the simulated MTF and the Zeiss graph is 'shocking' because the simulated MTF is NOT a simulation of the MTF of the lens with the filter or without!
Instead it's effectively a simulation only of the DIFFERENCE the cover glass or the cover glass plus filter makes to MTF; where the difference is relative to a *theoretically perfect lens*
The actual MTF will be much worse - it will be (not quite, but roughly) the original Zeiss MTF *made worse by the amount that the simulation differs from perfection (which is in every case quite a bit)*
What that tells us is that even the best case front of no filters will produce a result significantly worse than native performance.
That doesn't mean that the performance with cover glass isn't a big improvement, or isn't so good that in some cases the best available option mightn't be an RF lens with front filter.
But it does mean we can expect even better from a native lens with similar specs and d sign and manufacturing quality. ...Show more →
Yes, the simulation is aberration free but it's still relevant. As HaruhikoT wrote, we would get a better idea of the real MTF performance for Sony bodies by averaging the original MTF and simulated MTF using the optimum PCX lens.
Fred Miranda wrote:
Yes, the simulation is aberration free but it's still relevant. As HaruhikoT wrote, we would get a better idea of the real MTF performance for Sony bodies by averaging the original MTF and simulated MTF using the optimum PCX lens.
Oh yes certainly! I wasn't saying it wasn't relevant! It's fantastically useful!
I doubt that we should average it though - my guess is that we should do something like lower the original Zeiss MTF by some function of the amount by which the simulation is worse than 100%.
today I got from mail office Hoya +1 on 46mm, 58mm and 67mm, earlier I got 55mm and full set of Proxars (0.5m, 1m, 2m). Based on last few days testing and forum discussions, it seems that the close-up lens is not a solution for mitigating the thick sensor stack. So I'm equipped for rest of my life with weak close-up lenses 
