On 7/11/2016 2:50 PM, Chuck Norcutt wrote:
Throw those Canon focus confirm adapters in the junk bin
I don't seem to have much of a distinction between "stuff" and 'junk", Chez
Moose.
One of my too many projects is soft focus lenses. This review shows what I'm talking about pretty well right at the top.
It's also useful as it shows the problem with the LenBaby Soft Focus Optic. I have one, and find it only gives something
of a look I like with the 'colander' aperture disks, yet they give fits with small, bright highlights, which happen all
too often away from a portrait studio.
The other classic way to soft focus is uncorrected spherical aberration.
So I went looking through the odds and ends, trying a couple of older or off brand lenses. It turns out that an elderly
(ca. 1970) Tamron Adapt-A-Matic (pre Adaptall) 28/2.8 is pretty good (i.e. bad in a good way) at wider apertures. At
f2.8, it "glows". F4 is pretty nice soft focus, f5.6 less so. It does have half stop clicks, but I've not explored them
as yet.
It's the earlier version, big, heavy, with bulbous front element. As one site describes it, "These Adapt-A-Matic lenses
feature somewhat simpler optical designs compared to lenses produced in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Why? Because the
optical designs within these Adapt-A-Matic lenses predate the computer era! Thus these lenses truly represent the
accumulated knowledge and experience of the optical designers who created these optical designs using pen, paper and
slide rules."
Instant elevation from junk to good stuff.
There must be a couple of focus confirmation adapters in there somewhere. But at the moment, I'm interested in a lens I
can take the glass out of, for a diaphragm only.
and get an E-M1 (after the new one comes out, of course).
Unless the E-M1 II has some compelling new capability, I'd snap up an E-M5 II. Prices are already down a lot. A wildly
capable camera at bargain price.
Junk N Stuff Moose
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What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
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