GMPhotography wrote:
Been out shooting early early this morning with all three ZMlenses and what I really love and makes you so efficient in the field is setting these up with infinity at the hard stop
I agree Guy. The ZM lenses + Hawks adapter is a great combination. Being able to adjust the hard stop is a super timer saver in the field.
Hi all - for me the proof of all of the exploration of ideas in this thread, like the pudding, is in the eating. I'm just back from three days shooting in the Tongariro National Park, during which I made extensive use of my ZM 35 with the Optosigma filter, and I'm blown away by the results. I did a couple of (very early morning!) night scenes of the milky way with it, shooting at f/2.8, and while I still have to stack and assemble the images, my initial trials indicate that the detail capture is fantastic. A big thanks to all of you who have contributed to the learning here - its made a huge practical difference for me.
GMPhotography wrote:
Fred it was almost like point and shoot. I kept checking and it was always dead on. Makes it so easy.
Yep I can totally see that. My Yeenons (beautifully made Voigtlander VME copies but with no infinity adjust and no baffles) are up for sale, and a couple of Hawk's are in the mail....
DavidBM wrote:
Yep I can totally see that. My Yeenons (beautifully made Voigtlander VME copies but with no infinity adjust and no baffles) are up for sale, and a couple of Hawk's are in the mail....
Not even counting that the Hawks are only 50 grams with is about the weight of a "normal" adapter.
Fred
DavidBM wrote:
Yep I can totally see that. My Yeenons (beautifully made Voigtlander VME copies but with no infinity adjust and no baffles) are up for sale, and a couple of Hawk's are in the mail....
My solution was slightly different - I tracked down some high density plastic shim material in varying thicknesses, and very carefully duplicated the shape of the original metal shim using a fine pointed craft knife on sheets of varying thickness. After a bit of trial and error I was able to nail the infinity focus when using my metabones VM adapter. But the overall effect is the same.
Fred Miranda wrote:
Not even counting that the Hawks are only 50 grams with is about the weight of a "normal" adapter.
Fred
Wow! The Yeenons are almost double that!
Edit an hour or so later: My Hawk's Factory V has arrived!
OK I'm impressed. It's sitting on the back of my also new Summarit 75. The build is better than some online reviewers say - though maybe the levers could be a bit heavier duty. But given the weight it's great, and the baffles are brilliant - I think that might give a mild improvement with some lenses in some light. Just have ti figure out how to set the infinity lock -- they don't actually send any instructions!
DavidBM wrote:
Wow! The Yeenons are almost double that!
Edit an hour or so later: My Hawk's Factory V has arrived!
OK I'm impressed. It's sitting on the back of my also new Summarit 75. The build is better than some online reviewers say - though maybe the levers could be a bit heavier duty. But given the weight it's great, and the baffles are brilliant - I think that might give a mild improvement with some lenses in some light. Just have ti figure out how to set the infinity lock -- they don't actually send any instructions!
Actually, how do you adjust infinity on the Hawk's? Is it the two silver screws on either side of the infinity lock lever?
It is the two silver screws on either side of the infinity lock. They don't need to come all the way out either for it to slide. This is what I did to adjust infinity.
1) Set lens to infinity hard stop at maximum aperture.
2) Release lever and slightly adjust helicoid until infinity is in focus. Leave the lever in position.
3) Unscrew the two screws and slide the lock until the lever clicks in.
johnmatrix84 wrote:
It is the two silver screws on either side of the infinity lock. They don't need to come all the way out either for it to slide. This is what I did to adjust infinity.
1) Set lens to infinity hard stop at maximum aperture.
2) Release lever and slightly adjust helicoid until infinity is in focus. Leave the lever in position.
3) Unscrew the two screws and slide the lock until the lever clicks in.
So I've been working on the Elmarit-M 24 ASPH, and I've done enough close-up testing to know the 1M was the right choice for the lens. The difference on the edges is astounding. Infinity is not something I've been able to achieve. I have an old Fotodiox adapter that allowed the ZM 35 + .5M lens to get to infinity without removing shims, but it was no-go on the Elmarit. I took of the lens mount to look for shims but the design isn't so clear cut. From what I can tell, instead of using shims they used a longer helicoid than necessary and put in brass stoppers to define the hard stops on the focus. I'm assuming it possible to move those stoppers to adjust the focus for the desired effect, but how that's accomplished I'm still not sure. Once I had the mount completely removed, everything on the lens with the exception of the aperture ring was able to rotate freely, including the distance scale and front lens group.
There was about an hour there when I thought I was going to be sending pieces of a lens to DAG for reassembly, but I did get it back together and working properly.
Fitting the PCX element on the front without vignetting or forcing you to lose the OEM hood is relatively simple. If you want to use a UV filter as well, get a 55-58mm step-up ring, line the inside of the 55mm ring with flocking tape, and set the PCX element inside (should be a perfect fit). Add a thin 58mm UV filter. Alternately, you can use the back half of a series VII to 55mm adapter, same method as with the step-up ring, but here there's a nice lip to help hold the PCX in place. You won't be able to attach a filter in front of that, but it is more secure than setting the PCX inside a step-up ring. And, as I said, the close performance is much improved (better, if memory serves, than the lens on an M9), so if you can work out infinity, it's likely worth it.
The experience made me decide to just go with the Kolari UT mod. I doubt it'll give me the super-clean wide open corners I'm getting with the PCX, but I'd prefer to sacrifice a little there and get improvements with all my adapted RF lenses than go through this with any sub-35mm lens I might want to use.
Don't forget that you can add a front filter also to a modded Sony. According to HaruhikoT simulations, this should be the best solution for RF wides on digital cameras. You'd need a much weaker filter for a UT mod. unit, if compared to a stock Sony. Possibly the PCX 5m. that you use with the ZM35, would suit well the Elmarit 24 on a UT-thin filter. Besides, you wouldn't have any trouble reaching infinity with a Elmarit 24 +PCX 5m and your Fotodiox adapter.
I wonder if anyone has or can try this on the 35 loxia? It still suffers noticeable field curvature but not much smearing. 52mm threads should make it easy.
The guys from Optosigma quoted 20,000 yen to cut a 45mm pcx 5000mm. That would fit in a 46mm filter ring but theyre still too thick (3mm at the edge). Theyre going to get back to me with a quote for a 0.5mm edge thickness but they said it's likely to be prohibitively expensive at small qty.
artur5 wrote:
Don't forget that you can add a front filter also to a modded Sony. According to HaruhikoT simulations, this should be the best solution for RF wides on digital cameras. You'd need a much weaker filter for a UT mod. unit, if compared to a stock Sony. Possibly the PCX 5m. that you use with the ZM35, would suit well the Elmarit 24 on a UT-thin filter. Besides, you wouldn't have any trouble reaching infinity with a Elmarit 24 +PCX 5m and your Fotodiox adapter.
Maybe a plano-concave front filter for Sony lenses on a modded body
thrice wrote:
I wonder if anyone has or can try this on the 35 loxia? It still suffers noticeable field curvature but not much smearing. 52mm threads should make it easy.
The guys from Optosigma quoted 20,000 yen to cut a 45mm pcx 5000mm. That would fit in a 46mm filter ring but theyre still too thick (3mm at the edge). Theyre going to get back to me with a quote for a 0.5mm edge thickness but they said it's likely to be prohibitively expensive at small qty.
I don't see an easy way to adjust the Loxia 35 for infinity and on the two samples I tried infinity was pretty much spot on,
so even with a weak filter you won't be able to focus at infinity.
BastianK wrote:
I don't see an easy way to adjust the Loxia 35 for infinity and on the two samples I tried infinity was pretty much spot on,
so even with a weak filter you won't be able to focus at infinity.
Also, and this is just speculation, you'd have to think that whatever the changes were that Zeiss made to the 2/35 biogon to get the Loxia did as much as you could do without either undesirable side effects or major alteration (though I suppose adding an element might count as major alteration)
I hope if they produce a Loxia 1.4/35 as there was a vague hint I saw once that they do a thorough job of making it suit a thicker coverglass...it would be sad if it was no better than the existing Distagon with a front end filter!
Sad for who ?.. Not for the people who uses the Distagon + PCX5000 .
At last I received my PCX filters from Optosigma and I can confirm that the combo Biogon G28 + PCX1500 is way better than the lens alone. I'd say that there's an improvement in the extreme corners of 2.5 or 3 stops. I.e. G28 at F/4 + PCX1500 = 'naked' G28 at f/9-f/10. G28 at F/5.6 + PCX1500 = better than the lens alone at any aperture. I see no sharpness loss in the center, maybe a bit less contrast.
On the other part, it's amazing the lack of CA and distortion of this little Biogon 28. The only drawback is the noticeable purple-blue vigneting at the sides, I've made a couple of profiles with Cornerfix (one for F/2.8--F/4 and the other for F/5.6 and above). They work quite well for correcting the color cast, but it's a hassle going through the process of converting to DNG and then applying the profile to each DNG file.
If one day I can afford a Sony A7r2, I hope that the BSI sensor will make unnecessary the use of Cornerfix.
Now I'm not sure about sending the camera to Kolari for the UT filter. Surely a modded A7II plus PCX5000 would yield even better results than a stock A7II + PCX1500, but it isn’t clear how much the ultrathin filter will affect the performance of native FE glass, or even adapted Canon EF lenses.
artur5 wrote:
Sad for who ?.. Not for the people who uses the Distagon + PCX5000 .
At last I received my PCX filters from Optosigma and I can confirm that the combo Biogon G28 + PCX1500 is way better than the lens alone. I'd say that there's an improvement in the extreme corners of 2.5 or 3 stops. I.e. G28 at F/4 + PCX1500 = 'naked' G28 at f/9-f/10. G28 at F/5.6 + PCX1500 = better than the lens alone at any aperture. I see no sharpness loss in the center, maybe a bit less contrast.
On the other part, it's amazing the lack of CA and distortion of this little Biogon 28. The only drawback is the noticeable purple-blue vigneting at the sides, I've made a couple of profiles with Cornerfix (one for F/2.8--F/4 and the other for F/5.6 and above). They work quite well for correcting the color cast, but it's a hassle going through the process of converting to DNG and then applying the profile to each DNG file.
If one day I can afford a Sony A7r2, I hope that the BSI sensor will make unnecessary the use of Cornerfix.
Now I'm not sure about sending the camera to Kolari for the UT filter. Surely a modded A7II plus PCX5000 would yield even better results than a stock A7II + PCX1500, but it isn’t clear how much the ultrathin filter will affect the performance of native FE glass, or even adapted Canon EF lenses. ...Show more →
i'll test the the a7 UT mod + pcx 5000 on both the g28 and g21 shortly. in the mean time, if any body is interested in a pcx 1500 without the long wait time, send me a pm – i don't think i'll need one for anything with the UT.
I saw Optosigma commented on your article on phillipreeve.net
We should ask them to do a run of 100x 48mm 5000mm PCX lenses with a thinner thickness (~1mm) and coating on both sides. Then we just need to buy decent quality 49mm filter rings from someone.
...
profit.
I got my two front filters for the CV35 1.7 and the new-to-me G28. (I have had and loved the CV 35 for about a year, got the G 28 on account of this experimentation).
The G 28 won't focus to infinity with my Fotodiox Pro adapter, so I ordered a Kippon. Hopefully that will work.
The CV is a little more disappointing, as I've been using it with a Hawks V for the year. I can't set the Hawks to be short enough for this hack. I also had a Fotodiox M adapter around, and tried that, but of course no go. Going to have to find an adapter for that.
