JohnDizzo15 wrote:
Nice! Did you happen to receive it yet?
Lens is here, just picked up TAP over the weekend, but haven't taken it all out for a spin yet. It's weird bokeh week as I also picked up a Lensbaby Composer Pro w/ Sweet 35 for fun. Will be a nice change from the documentary stuff that is my usual MO
JohnDizzo15 wrote:
I'd say that at or very near wide open, it has it's own look. Not 100% sure of what type of comparison you were looking for specifically. So I'll go the simple route for now by ranking them in order of preference and perhaps adding a blurb about each.
The Sigma Art and Canon are tied for first place with me as far as general look and usability goes.
1. Sigma Art 50/1.4 - Very sharp. Great isolation and microcontrast. Bokeh pretty good. Functionally worked very well on the Sony bodies I have had. Even better now since there is eye-AF in green mode on the A9 with it.
Canon 50/1.2 - My favorite overall for look and usability (just doesn't AF outside of central portion of the frame). The copies I've had have been very usably sharp at 1.2. Great subject isolation and general rendering. Also loved the flare handling on it
2.Sony FE 50/1.8 - Oddly my favorite general use lens for the A9. I love the rendering and images I get out of it. It focuses quickly in all modes including eye-AF. It is also super light and compact.
3. 7Artisans 50/1.1 - My favorite of the MF 50s that I now own. Has its own look wide open. Handles flare like a champ by maintaining decent color and general rendering even with the soft haze. Bonus is that I get some AF with the TAP. It's also about the size of most of my old 50/1.4 lenses which is great.
4. Contax N 50/1.4 w/ Conurus Canon AF mod - AF works really well with the A7R2 and A9. Pretty decent microcontrast. Somewhat cateye but interestingly swirly bokeh. Busy for some people but interesting to me. Soft at 1.4 but gets decently pretty quickly when stopping down.
5. Mitakon 50/0.95 - Best isolation of them all. Interesting flare that some people seem to like but is not really my cup of tea. MF ring works great but still not easy to get a high hit rate wide open. Similarly soft wide open like the 7Artisans but still usable. Significantly heavier and larger than the 7A and doesn't have a way to achieve AF.
6. Zenitar ME-1 50-1.7 - has two-bladed aperture for square bokeh when stopped down. Wide open, it is already pretty sharp. But the whole point of the lens is the square bokeh. lol.
7. Various Helios 58/2.0s - 44-M4 is my favorite of the bunch since it strikes a good balance of swirly bokeh yet usably sharp wide open. Also a bonus that it can AF via TAP.
8. All of the other M42 screw mount lenses - takumars, mamiya sekor, porst, rikenon, etc seem to have a pretty similar look not worth mentioning individually for my personal tastes.
These are just quick thoughts off the top of my head. There's obviously a lot more to it. But there aren't that many hours in the day. ...Show more →
Thanks... this is a great summary. I agree with you on the Canon 50L which I owned during my Canon days and the Sony lens these days (I actually have the FE 55 though) so I'm pretty sure I have similar taste to you when it comes to 50mm lenses.
I've been looking for an interesting character 50mm lens for awhile. I actually purchased the Mitakon but returned it... I found it very difficult to focus manually and it was way too heavy to pack around. Hence, I like the sounds of this 7Artisans lens with the TAP. I've ordered this combo and will try it out. It will be largely for family candids and portraits like you've been using it. With the a7RIII I also have on order, I'm hoping it's focus performance is good.
elizabeth77 wrote:
Lens is here, just picked up TAP over the weekend, but haven't taken it all out for a spin yet. It's weird bokeh week as I also picked up a Lensbaby Composer Pro w/ Sweet 35 for fun. Will be a nice change from the documentary stuff that is my usual MO
Awesome!! Excited to hear your thoughts and see some images from both. You now have me looking over the specs of the Lensbaby and considering EF adapter stacking on the TAP to gain some form of AF. Having a hard time imagining how that would work though. But the gears are turning. .
I actually previously had a brief moment of excitement with the TAP and the thought of mounting one of my TSE lenses that the TAP could support (weight-wise). Then realized that none of the TSE lenses are even mildly close to being within the suggested weight limit.
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virtualrain wrote:
Thanks... this is a great summary. I agree with you on the Canon 50L which I owned during my Canon days and the Sony lens these days (I actually have the FE 55 though) so I'm pretty sure I have similar taste to you when it comes to 50mm lenses.
I've been looking for an interesting character 50mm lens for awhile. I actually purchased the Mitakon but returned it... I found it very difficult to focus manually and it was way too heavy to pack around. Hence, I like the sounds of this 7Artisans lens with the TAP. I've ordered this combo and will try it out. It will be largely for family candids and portraits like you've been using it. With the a7RIII I also have on order, I'm hoping it's focus performance is good....Show more →
Congrats on the pickups. Should be some good playtime coming your way soon.
With regard to the focusing performance, it only consistently achieves it around the central area (imagine the rule of thirds grid) and not very well beyond it. I have set a custom button for AF/MF toggle and zoom for when I need to compose outside of that area though so it has been more than fine. Within the central area, eye-AF works decently well along with the available focusing modes.
Activatedfx wrote:
REALLY nice colors, and very sharp! But those bubbles... lol
Thank you, @Activatedfx.
Those were all around 1.3 or 1.4ish. And yes, those ever so prevalent bubbles with this lens. lol. I do agree, sometimes I would just rather have them not show up in certain images.
I had fun with this lens even if there appears to be a ghost orb in the first photo! The first is at f/2 (while moving), the second is wide wide open. I'm not finding as much bubbliness wide open although admittedly I tested this a lot in low light and haven't tried to push flare.
Check out the foliage bubbles on the far right!
These are all OOC w/o post and only resized. You can see vignetting as I have done no correction, but it doesn't bother me. What I am liking is the soft glow and dreamy feel particularly in low light wide open. The subjects could be sharper here, that was a choice as I was playing around and enjoying the feel.
I really need to work on resizing. I get a bit frustrated when I see pixels and I resist.....Color & B/W. All of these on the a9. These are also wide open. I like the glow.
I just received my TAP and Lens. Mounted it and played around a bit - not much time though at the moment. The AF with TAP seems great even on my a7RII. I can’t wait to try it on my RIII when it arrives.
While plying around I set the lens to infinity focus, but it seemed like the minimum focus distance was further than I was expecting...
Question: does the TAP have enough travel to go from minimum distance to infinity with this lens or do you have to adjust the lens focus position a bit to cover the full range? Can you actually improve minimum focus distance with the TAP by setting the focus at say 1m and pushing the lens out further with the TAP?
@elizabeth77 - Glad you got to get out and run the combo a bit! Love the rendering in those shots (especially the one of the man walking and the one of the hostesses). Agreed re the glow and vignette. Not really cons so much as contributors to the look most of the time. The other thing I like about the look is that they seem to sharpen up nicely when you want them to be but then still possess some of that softness/glowy look which is interesting (to me - especially in BW like what you have exhibited).
@virtualrain - Thanks! Awesome re the receipt of the combo. Glad to hear that it is AFing well on the R2. Can't wait to see some stuff.
Re the MFD question. At closer distances, the focus distance setting on the lens itself is definitely a factor you have to account for (for any lens mounted on the TAP). Once you play around with it a bit, it makes more sense and becomes more intuitive. I just remind myself to think of it as kind of a pseudo-focus distance limiter like on my tele lenses.
I really like the colour you're getting from your Sony. Are these AWB or did you adjust post?
And for this type of lens (artsy...) the sharpness is perfect. It still is crazy that this lens cost $370!
I have the lens mounted on my M today, and will play with it for a while. It is 6-bit coded (a Leica thing to tell the camera what lens is mounted) but it does not reliably pick it up. But this time I remembered to set it manually so maybe that'll fix the magenta borders I've been getting.
Desmolicious wrote:
I really like the colour you're getting from your Sony. Are these AWB or did you adjust post?
And for this type of lens (artsy...) the sharpness is perfect. It still is crazy that this lens cost $370!
I have the lens mounted on my M today, and will play with it for a while. It is 6-bit coded (a Leica thing to tell the camera what lens is mounted) but it does not reliably pick it up. But this time I remembered to set it manually so maybe that'll fix the magenta borders I've been getting.
Thanks, @Desmolicious. AWB in cam and then post in Capture One with their film styles (then WB adjusted to taste). I most often use the Fuji 160C or 400H. Totally agree regarding the sharpness and price. It is definitely usable at 1.1 if properly focused and processed.
Hoping for the best with regard to mounting on the M today. Looking forward to seeing how it goes.
Yeah, I tried again with the manual lens coding, and no difference. This lens does not work well shot wide open with digital Leicas. Smearing along the outside 1/4 of the image with magenta tint. Stopping down it does go away, but then what's the point of using this hunk o glass?
Nothing like what you're getting with the Sony. But it does work really nicely with Leica film cameras, so that's where I will be keeping it.
Desmolicious wrote:
Yeah, I tried again with the manual lens coding, and no difference. This lens does not work well shot wide open with digital Leicas. Smearing along the outside 1/4 of the image with magenta tint. Stopping down it does go away, but then what's the point of using this hunk o glass?
Nothing like what you're getting with the Sony. But it does work really nicely with Leica film cameras, so that's where I will be keeping it.
That sucks that it has problems on Leica digital. Glad that it does perform well on film for you though. Wondering if there is more info out there about said smearing from anyone else.
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