I just looked through all my pics on flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/footstool67/sets/72157623748711334/with/4494133778/)taken with my 80mmf1.9 and i shoot with it WO mostly and i saw nothing like this.I will be taking it to NYC soon and will look for it .My thoughts on your lens is something is amiss.Does it look like its ever been opened before? Also have you used other Mamiya lenses with the same adapter? If this is the only lens you have used with the adapter then i suspect the adapter could be some of the problem if not all.It can be frustrating when you look forward to shooting with a sweet piece of glass and it doesn't turn out the way you intened.Keep trying and asking questions.I am sure with the help you get here you will get to the bottom of it
-Jim
If it's that bad, I'd also suspect a #/%(%¤=& idiot has tried to do a C&C in his own little garden shed - or a misalignment caused by physical trauma. The only way to tell for certain is to do a controlled direct comparison with another specimen...
There's two solutions:
1. Whack it on the side with a hammer while slowly turning the lens around for a full 360º to shake the lensesback into their seats
2. Let someone do a proper C&C (unfortunately this costs about the same as buying another one...)
I only recommend option (1) if you have a magical hammer (and those are rare).
theSuede wrote:
If it's that bad, I'd also suspect a #/%(%¤=& idiot has tried to do a C&C in his own little garden shed - or a misalignment caused by physical trauma. The only way to tell for certain is to do a controlled direct comparison with another specimen...
There's two solutions:
1. Whack it on the side with a hammer while slowly turning the lens around for a full 360º to shake the lensesback into their seats
2. Let someone do a proper C&C (unfortunately this costs about the same as buying another one...)
I only recommend option (1) if you have a magical hammer (and those are rare)....Show more →
My 110/2.8N and 150/3.5N both showed up yesterday; I havent really used them, but off the handful of test shots, the 110 renders nicely, and the 150 is very sharp. I havent torture tested them, but I'm not seeing either the purple fringing or the red/green CA I experienced with the 80/1.9N. I might not get a chance to really try them out until Sunday or Monday (and by then there may be a 145 SF in my possession - at this point, i think I need to actually buy a Mamiya). If anyone is actually in NYC, esp. Manhattan, and would like like to shoot/compare, drop me a line.
If you like the 150/3.5, the 2.8A will impress. The new D version even more so, but alas is not usable on a DSLR.
As with Jim et al, if the fringing is that bad, I think something is amiss with your 80. I've used two copies of the C version of the 1.9 (albeit on a 1Ds2) for a couple of years, and have never had an issue with CA/fringing (also a pet issue of mine). One of the many reasons I moved to M645 after years with other alt glass was the CA control that ranges from very good (basic non-A or ULD glass) to exceptional (A or ULD glass) to essentially non-existent (APO units).
Sigh, I was afraid I'd be buying the 150/2.8A MF and the 120 Macro. There are worse fates. To show that my confusion and complaints are reasonable (or perhaps to demonstrate that they are not) I'm putting up some shots off the RAW/DNGs; full size, 80% JPG, sRGB.
Rather than link them and cause slow headaches for some, I just put them in a directory with filenames that indicate the salient point (whether a problem or success). Note that files are 1.5-5MB. Clearly some of these shots are OOF (if I use the viewfinder, I've already ballpark prefocused and usually have less than half a second to adjust; you do what you can) and that exacerbates the issue.
Alipstad, there's a very obvious pattern in your shots: all of them that show CA fringes do so on edges where the background is burnt out solid WHITE. The only exception is the two men with the dark pants, which is the opposite (nearly black), but it creates the same condition of extreme contrast where CA is bound to show up.
I think your shots look pretty good overall, but with such strong overexposure you're simply asking for it; any fast tele (except the most expensive apochromatic lenses) will show CA in such situations and at such a wide aperture.
On the upside, with such burnt out backgrounds you can easily desaturate the edges without disturbing any detail in the background. The fringes will still be there though but they'll be grey and less obtrusive.
Shot at F2.8 or F4, with tilt used for good to keep the shallow plane of focus along the centres of the balls in the trumpets. Note that the hood is out of focus underneath the trumpets. http://www.johnjovic.com/images/Gallery/l_316_1000.jpg
Not sure which aperture was used here (I wasn't taking notes), but tilt was used for evil here, making the plane of focus a little more shallow than it really was. http://www.johnjovic.com/images/Gallery/l_317_1000.jpg
Clearly - most of these pictures were taken in the first two days of owning the lens, where good pictures take a back seat to figuring out how to "break" the lens. The street shots were to see if I could get away with using big long throw lens for that type of shooting; I've had better success shooting faster and longer lenses, hence the experience in OOF borders - this will stay a portrait lens. Funny enough, most of my sharp shots are scale focused by estimation, rather than with the viewfinder.
Athena on my windowsill (where she likes to sit and watch the city go by) is a typical backlighting test, intended to test the resilience against CA and to give me an idea of the latitude a lens offers. I can also take the shot from my desk.
I've done this with a number of fast teles - just the other day, I shot off -
85/1.9 Sup Tak
110/2.8 Mamiya
150/3.5 Mamiya
90/3.5 Kilar
105/2.8 S-M-C Tak
105/2DC Nikkor
75-150/3.5 Series E
40-80/3.5 C/Y Zeiss
-and the 80/1.9N. Nothing has the problems the 80/1.9 has. Some can have fringing under known circumstances (85/1.9 Tak and 105/2DC, I'm looking at you). What is curious to me is the minimal color issues in "Athena_Perfectly_Fine" vs "Athena_Purple_Fringed," and others. Clearly high contrast situations are dangerous, and there is an issue with apochromaticity, especially out of the subject plane. However by all rights, that image ("Pefectly Fine") should show more issues, having plenty of light dark high contrast edges including those outside of the subject plane.
My big issue is this - as a portrait lens, whether with white backdrops, or a strong flash to illumiate deep black skin (thinking about Anton Corbijn's Miles Davis photo here) contrast, especially in borders, especially on OOF regions is a common need in subject isolation. I find this lens, whether by design or by sample, to be distinctly bad at this.
Finally, the Infinity_Focus_Halo doesn't overexpose (I just checked the historgram). To be sure, it was under contrasty light and wide open, but there you go.
It just seems to me that this lens needs way too much hand holding. I've used my 105/2 as a street lens and it is doable. The 80/1.9N... ? I'm not getting rid of it just yet - it can turn out some wonderful images - but it is nigh useless outside of a controlled environment and I am very disappointed with the CA issues.
alipstadt wrote:
What is curious to me is the minimal color issues in "Athena_Perfectly_Fine" vs "Athena_Purple_Fringed," and others.
The difference is the positioning of the focal plane. The CA fringes only occur around the focus transition. In the Athena_Perfectly_Fine, I'm guessing that the edge of the fur is too far away from the focal plane to show CA. The focal plane is in front, on the dog's face and you see there is actually only some CA on her whiskers.
Gotta love how smoothly the M645 glass transitions. Keep showing me more like these and that craving for a Mirex will be returning in no time. I'd love to get my hands on one to try sometime ... of course that would probably be the end of any doubt ... and my bank account.
@Rusty: A Mirex will set you back about as much as a 200 APO. I went for the 200 APO now, but definitely gave the Mirex a thought. I may get it later; I'd love to play with it i.c.w. the 35/3.5 and 80/2.8 (which don't have yet).
It's a pity that Contax 645/Hasselblad MF lenses are so damn expensive; easily three times the cost of the mirex for a Distagon 35/3.5...
AhamB wrote:
@Rusty: A Mirex will set you back about as much as a 200 APO. I went for the 200 APO now, but definitely gave the Mirex a thought. I may get it later; I'd love to play with it i.c.w. the 35/3.5 and 80/2.8 (which don't have yet)......
I held off buying the Mirex for over 12 months as it is obviously quite expensive for an 'adapter' if you look at it that way, which I don't. I think it's a transformative little tool and worth every cent for my type of work but would probably be a waste of money for most purposes. I essentially photograph products, just large ones (cars), so the tilt control is particularly useful to me. It might be interesting to see how Hasselblad lenses perform as you can use a Hasselblad to M645 adapter to fit the blad lenses to the Mirex. That might be a slippery slope though...
You know, I would like to buy the 200 APO some day but I keep telling myself not to as it will just gather dust like my Leica R 180/2 and R 180/3.4. I'm not sure I have a use for another 180-200 APO! Actually, I'm sure I don't. But hey, how many of the regulars on the Alt forum, you know who you are, 'need' their little collections? Maybe like a drug addict needs a hit.
