Nice Zeiss

[Black Pearl]

I've been plaguing a friend to dig out the Carl Zeiss T* lenses I knew he had so I could get an adapter and use them of the Fuji. I have always loved Zeiss glass and have been itching to have a play - well it happened and we went out this morning, met up with another friend and spent a couple of very pleasant hours walking in the sunshine, chatting, drinking coffee and shooting random stuff around us. These are just a few of the images and nothing spectacular but I just thought I'd share them as the lenses are interesting and I had a darn difficult time shooting with manual focus so the fact any of them are sharp is a miracle 

A nice mix of focal lengths - 50mm f1.4 (the D's B's of lenses) - a very nice 25mm f2.8 - a 200mm f4 thats had a hard life but still knocks out a canny image...

In the order they were shot as we wandered...

From one of our coffee stops...

 

[kcbrecks]

Looks like you have some new favourite lenses from these shots, they are so very sharp and detailed, especially the marina. We have got so used to Auto Focus in TTL metering it comes hard to have to do it yourself, but you seemed to have done a great job of it.

[kev7d]

Some fine results shown here. 

[Korky]

The mono of the door/jacket is the stand-out shot for me.

I think someone else (Chrissy perhaps?) has posted images of this location.

Korky

[Phil]

Love how smooth the OOF areas are.

[Black Pearl]

2 hours ago, Korky said:

The mono of the door/jacket is the stand-out shot for me.

I think someone else (Chrissy perhaps?) has posted images of this location.

Korky

Likely as she lives in Sunderland.

1 hour ago, Phil said:

Love how smooth the OOF areas are.

They remind me of the Zeiss lenses I had years back on my Contax G system. I will have a good experiment over the coming weeks but I do like them and they do render differently from the Fuji glass which is interesting.

[ChrisLumix]

Beautiful. I remember when I first realised I couldn't afford both a camera, and the Zeiss Planar T* 50mm f1.7, then rated the best standard lens in the world...  so I bought a Minolta. 

[Black Pearl]

2 minutes ago, ChrisLumix said:

Beautiful. I remember when I first realised I couldn't afford both a camera, and the Zeiss Planar T* 50mm f1.7, then rated the best standard lens in the world...  so I bought a Minolta. 

I might have access to a couple of Minolta MF primes too - just need to confirm and order a MD to Fuji X adapter.
I also have a Canon breech-lock 200mm Macro in the pipeline and hopefully a handful of random M42 oddities.

[ChrisLumix]

1 minute ago, Black Pearl said:

I might have access to a couple of Minolta MF primes too - just need to confirm and order a MD to Fuji X adapter.
I also have a Canon breech-lock 200mm Macro in the pipeline and hopefully a handful of random M42 oddities.

I do have a rather lovely Auto-Rokkor 58mm f1.4 ... but sadly no way of using it unless I dig out my failing XD7 and put a roll of fillum in it.

[Black Pearl]

It would look just as good on my Fuji as the Zeiss does...

...and while I'm on I have a 167MT to play with too...

[Phil]

18 minutes ago, Black Pearl said:

I might have access to a couple of Minolta MF primes too - just need to confirm and order a MD to Fuji X adapter.
I also have a Canon breech-lock 200mm Macro in the pipeline and hopefully a handful of random M42 oddities.

 

16 minutes ago, ChrisLumix said:

I do have a rather lovely Auto-Rokkor 58mm f1.4

You might as well be talking Chinese, sounds clever though 

[ChrisLumix]

2 minutes ago, Phil said:

 

You might as well be talking Chinese, sounds clever though 

Erm... 58mm lens for a 35mm Minolta camera, widest aperture f1.4... oops sorry, have I strayed into the wrong forum? 

10 minutes ago, Black Pearl said:

It would look just as good on my Fuji as the Zeiss does...

...and while I'm on I have a 167MT to play with too...

Didn't Yashica also make SLRs that took the Zeiss range, similar to Contax?

[Black Pearl]

Yep - same mount - the adapter I bought for the Fuji is listed as a C/Y fit. 

[FUJI]

I am very enthusiastic about using my large collection of Vintage lenses, too many to list here...

This is where the M 4/3 GX7 comes into its own.....adapters for most old lenses are available via eBay ....mine are mostly M42 or M39 Leica thread, the camera readily adapts in shooting W/O lens mode......the Focus-Assist is a  Godsend too, it puts a bright fluorescent edge around everything manually focused.

From my ex pro mate I have become a bit of an expert in using Zone Focussing to confidently shoot, without constantly re-setting, most pics are sharp within that set zone, as long as shutter, aperture and ISO are right.

During two of our recent day long shoots my only lens was a vintage 35mm set to be in focus from circa 8ft to 50 yds and beyond.....it is so easy to check with the focus assist light.

It would be great to see others using vintage glass on TIPF.....

FUJI

[Black Pearl]

I approach my shooting differently as I typically want a very narrow depth of field so each shot has to be very carefully focused - with MF lenses that means relying on the focus peaking and the Fuji's dual viewfinder setup that lets me see the full frame and a 100% crop entered over the chosen focus point. 

[FUJI]

8 minutes ago, Black Pearl said:

I approach my shooting differently as I typically want a very narrow depth of field so each shot has to be very carefully focused - with MF lenses that means relying on the focus peaking and the Fuji's dual viewfinder setup that lets me see the full frame and a 100% crop entered over the chosen focus point. 

Yes!

I do that as well BP, the only time I feel a bit frustrated with going fully manual with vintage glass is if I want to stop a stranger for a Street Portrait......with A/F its instant with no time for my subject to pose.....the vintage way takes a little more time, and can.....spoil the moment.

I agree with you too on........ Spot-Focusing......... Go back through my posts and you should find plenty of examples, using both A/F and Vintage lenses.

 

Today, I am planning to put that vintage COSINON 35 mm - 2.8 lens on, to shoot the front of that Barbershop again, so that I can make a direct comparison with the excellent performance of my beautiful little LUMIX  20-1.7 lens.

 

Vintage lenses, like vinyl records are gaining in popularity by enthusiasts, as a result S/H prices are rising especially for the very best....can I encourage anyone with a suitable camera to give vintage glass a go, you won't regret it.

 

FUJI

[Black Pearl]

39 minutes ago, FUJI said:

Vintage lenses, like vinyl records are gaining in popularity by enthusiasts, as a result S/H prices are rising especially for the very best....can I encourage anyone with a suitable camera to give vintage glass a go, you won't regret it.

Looking at the used prices the 200mm is worth around £300, the 50mm is about £350 and the 25mm can top £400.

Mind you they were expensive things new. Andy who I've got these on loan from and myself sold the 50mm f1.4 with the Contax 167MT (below) brand new to a regular customer at Jessops in Sunderland. When he died his wife donated his gear to Andy who had been a friend for years so its really nice to give it an airing and still be making images with it. The Contax is still running so I will put a roll of film through it over the next few weeks just for old times sake. 

I also have a Vivitar 19mm f3.5 and a Sigma 90mm f2.8 Macro which I will use, yesterday though it was all about the Zeiss glass.

 

[ChrisLumix]

Whatever happened to Cosina? We know about the survivors and non-survivors among Nikon, Leica, Canon, Minolta, Konica, Ricoh, Praktica, Fujica, Olympus, Pentax, Rollei, Contax, Yashica, Zenit, (I'm only talking about 35mm here - so no Hasselblad, Mamiya, Bronica, and Rollei only just qualify..), but somehow Cosina - rightly or wrongly - slipped through the net. Funny, my first decent 35mm camera was actually not a Zorki, but a second hand Cosina I bought from a pawnbrokers - beautiful camera that only functioned for one roll of film before it became electronically deceased. (No, it wasn't - a quick Google tells me it was actually a Konica C35. Nevertheless, a lovely camera which I wish had survived.)

[Black Pearl]

I believe many of the lenses we buy today regardless of what it written on them come out of the Cosina factory in Japan, certainly some modern Zeiss and Sony lenses do alone with some from the big brands.

[ChrisLumix]

8 hours ago, Black Pearl said:

I believe many of the lenses we buy today regardless of what it written on them come out of the Cosina factory in Japan, certainly some modern Zeiss and Sony lenses do alone with some from the big brands.

Really? Not dead after all then. What a sad shame that Konica and Minolta (a failed marriage in every sense) are.