Samuli Vahonen
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
|
Hello all,
At lunch break, while fetching 3.4/35-70 from customs (lens + freight=312EUR and I had to pay 96EUR custom fees!!!! That deal did turn out to be very good...), I shoot Leica 80-200 and could not believe my eyes after opening the images at computer. I set up the camera in car, then went outside put camera to tripod, focused 80mm f/4 - shot f/4, changed aperture to f/22 and shot, and change aperture to f/11 and shot. Only first photo was in focus (infinity target was sharp), but when lens got cold it was no longer sharp at f/22 and f/11 shots. Also the focal length had become few mm longer - I'm 100% sure I didn't touch zoom ring (I'm using tripod ring so accidentally I could not have done it), but I have to re-check this at weekend when I have more time to play with camera gear. Maybe it's not so great idea to use metal in lens construction...
What comes to magenta spot, on the f/22 and f/11 photo there is little visible. I shoot few other f/4 to f/22 series and at f/8 the magenta tinge in middle of picture is slightly visible, and f/11 little more and f/16-22 clearly visible. I'll have to give Eclipse cleaning to sensor and see if this happens again. However this magenta spot being exactly center of sensor I doubt that this behaviour will change. Also would like to shoot long distances in "normal" temperatures, but I'm afraid it's not possible for few months.
Also started thinking that this magenta spot cannot be IR, isn't IR on "warmer" than visible light. Maybe it's UV hotspot?
However, I would like you to take it easy, I did buy this lens since I needed 180-200mm lens - where it performs perfectly - also haven't seen any 200mm shots the magenta center spot. I'm not sending it to service or back to pdmphoto. As long as I live (or I find better lens) Carl Zeiss Makro-Planar T* 2/100 will be always with me. It can handle all 100mm cold landscape shots, so I'm not worried about 80-200 wide end performance, which however turned to be way more than I ever expected. I wonder how good this lens is when there is no freezing temperature moving all the lens elements to random positions, well that will be seen at spring and summer.
While freezing cold, I better use my Zeiss lenses they don't seem to have problems with cold weather.
Conner999 wrote:
Interesting. I assume the next step will be trying an IR filter on the lens to confirm your suspicion? I wonder if might be a lubricant droplet, free from Canon, etc., on sensor (as per PDM) helping the IR issue along. As we all know, there are enough variables with adapted lenses to keep you amused troubleshooting when something rears it's head.
Yep, did try with IR filter (Hoya R72). There was no hotspot, excellent IR performance. However there was huge reflection from snow.
Conner999 wrote:
Nice clarity to the photos. How you you find focusing re: VF pop? The MTFs for the 80-200, especially around 135mm suggest it should be very good.
Yes, clarity and brilliance is something hard to believe. And it's not just websize thumbnails I presented here, it can be seen at 30" 2560x1600 full frames and even at 100% crops. I'm impressed that they didn't ruin 5DmkII with too blurry anti-alias filter.
What comes to focusing - I still fill that the focus ring is too loose, when getting used to the looseness it's little easier but difference to Zeiss is enormous (specially ZF). When I forget that issue I find the focusing from live view very easy, specially after setting JPG settings so that sharpening is set to full - even without 5x or 10x zoom I can focus to objects, which have fine texture (the sharpening makes the texture much lighter due to sharpening artefacts and scaling). I got today Eg-S screen for 5DmkII so viewfinder focusing is limited to crappy standard screen, which I find useless, so no comments yet about 5DmkII. On Sunday I used 1DmkIII with Ec-S screen and I was able to focus with viewfinder accurately to objects 50 meters from camera (the screen started to "live" when subject was in focus), it was really slow but I could do it. Based on my experience with Zeiss class (f/2 and f/2.8 so not really comparable) I find this lens harder to focus through viewfinder than Zeiss.
On my use this lens will be used for tripod work only, and I see no reason why I would punish myself by using viewfinder instead liveview. So for me it's OK.
--
Samuli Vahonen
http://www.vahonen.com
|
. The light was really boring and flat (and it was snowing), but somehow Leica managed to bring the pictures alive. Also I shoot so late that I had to use 23000K color balance (in the car pictures below), any other lens I have ever shoot would have rendered scenes shoot today very dull looking. 
