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+--- Thread: Laowa (Venus) 105mm f2 STF (/showthread.php?tid=922)
Laowa (Venus) 105mm f2 STF - davidmanze - 01-22-2016
Quote:Yes, that is why there is such a big difference between f-value and T-value. The apodiation element is the cause.Thanks BC!
No automatic aperture is not a big deal with this lens, as it will mostly be used wide open or close to wide open. Just like it is no big deal with my adapted 55mm f1.2 lenses for instance. The purpose of the lens is portraits with shallow DOF and smooth bokeh.
Does the Nikon AF105mm DC (defocus control) lens use the same principle and how does the adjustment ring work? Personally I would much rather get a S/H copy of that lens as it has it all, it's one of Nikon's sharpest and best built all metal lenses and a built in lens-hood.
Laowa (Venus) 105mm f2 STF - davidmanze - 01-22-2016
Quote:One can really discuss if AF on portraits is a major necessity and I think it all comes down at how dynamic a setting in a portrait session changes. In a studio, with ready lit background and the "portrait chair" one could weld the focus ring ... Out in the wild, photographer and model tend to move. I'm not certain AF will always be better than manual focus - by the way, "better" is what? More precise? Quicker? An aid like optical glasses for people with eye problems? The older I get the more I tend to trust a good AF, especially at night.Manual focus is fine in a studio where the subject isn't moving, but at wide apertures how you get good eye focus on "live life" is beyond me, but then I've got more glasses than spec savers!
As Laowa stated, phase detection AF is useless, we have to look at contrast detection (that's how Fuji's autofocusing their APD version) which brings up the question - is that a DSLR lens?
"Shooting wide open all time" is a statement I will not even remotely discuss. What sounds ridiculous to me might just be the thing for somebody else. Now, the Nikon lens is a quite dated version, no update in sight, and the Fuji... I could get one as a left over for 150 francs less but even then, I don't intend to spend more than 1k on a DX-only thing. I don't see this lens as something the market was longing for ages.
....Talking of all manual....
My first SLR was a "Zenith 3M"...... bought new for £13 19s 6d, it had the industar 50mm F3.5 uncoated lens in the "39mm leica mount".....I think 3M stood for "three times manual".......no mirror return and manual diaphragm........ now that was really painful, the 70% viewfinder was dim and even darker at the edges (non fresnel) and you absolutely had to focus wide open....then you had to take the camera from the eye and brace yourself holding the focusing ring still while you fought with the stiff no click narow aperture ring mounted on the focus ring itself to stop down........if you were lucky the subject hadn't gone home, you could then click the shutter..........kershlock.....and everything went black!....it brought a new dimension to the word clunky.....took good pictures though.....Wow I had an SLR!..... I thought it was the bees knees..... see here!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gl61E5lIdQ
I couldn't afford the case.
They made 760,000 of them, incredible, not so cheap either
http://www.ebay.fr/sch/i.html?_pgn=1&LH_PrefLoc=2&isRefine=false&_nkw=zenit-3m
Photographic reminiscences.......waving a sixty watt light bulb over the negative clipped to my Johnson enlarging box to make postcard prints.......
http://www.ebay.fr/itm/Vintage-Johnson-Jumbo-CARTE-POSTALE-dagrandissement-n-2-pour-negatifs-35mm-/231431504829
.............. and the Johnson exposure calculator... then 4s 6d......available here...
http://www.ebay.co.uk/bhp/exposure-calculator
Those were the days!............hummm.....err...or were they?
What we take for granted now!
...I digress where was I?
Oh yes, how's the Fuji project going JoJu?
Laowa (Venus) 105mm f2 STF - Klaus - 01-22-2016
Quote:OK Klaus thanks!Oh, I think you meant the manufacturer MTFs ...
Laowa (Venus) 105mm f2 STF - Brightcolours - 01-22-2016
Quote:Thanks BC!No, Nokkir's DC lens does not use a similar technique. It moves an element to either make the background or the foreground bokeh smoother. And it allows you to muck things up by setting the DC ring to a setting for a different aperture, making everything blurry.
Does the Nikon AF105mm DC (defocus control) lens use the same principle and how does the adjustment ring work? Personally I would much rather get a S/H copy of that lens as it has it all, it's one of Nikon's sharpest and best built all metal lenses and a built in lens-hood.
Laowa (Venus) 105mm f2 STF - davidmanze - 01-22-2016
Quote:No, Nokkir's DC lens does not use a similar technique. It moves an element to either make the background or the foreground bokeh smoother. And it allows you to muck things up by setting the DC ring to a setting for a different aperture, making everything blurry.Ah right, it's another 6 element count lens.
Laowa (Venus) 105mm f2 STF - Studor13 - 01-22-2016
In a former life I trained to fly a tandem paraglider (on the fondue side of where Joju lives) and when I was buying the glider I asked the guy how fast it flew. He said "Look, I don't bother anymore with whether they fly 23, 24, 25, 26km/h anymore. I just say that they are not particularly fast, fast or quite fast. When you are actually flying, there are a whole lot of factors involved. The absolute top speed has very little to do with whether or not you are going to land the thing safely with your passenger".
I think the same thing can be said about lenses. Somewhat sharp, sharp, and seriously sharp. What else do you need to know?
As for them105mm f2 DC, I find that it is not as sharp wide open as the 105mm f2.5 AIS wide open. However, at f3.2 to f8 the 105mm DC is seriously sharp. And great bokeh to boot!
Laowa (Venus) 105mm f2 STF - JJ_SO - 01-22-2016
Quote: Oh yes, how's the Fuji project going JoJu?
Quietly, but with lots of surprises. I'm just at home and recovering from a surgery. Before that, I got a metabones adapter for Nikon lenses on the Fuji. Great thing, manual focus aid is extremely helpful. So, for 105 mm macro and 40 mm macro and 85/1.4 there's now a second harbor to dock in. Great. Of course, the little body behind a 150-600 looks odd and needs very patient subjects.
But the best part is yet to come. Fuji announced together with the really new X-Pro2 a simple update of the X-E2 and is not calling it X-E3 (because that one might be seen on photokina or not), but just X-E2s. Now, instead of buying that body with some helpful upgrades. I just can download the new firmware for the X-E2 and get the same features (although I kind of hesitate to applaud too early). Is that possible? electronic shutter up to 1/32.000, from 49 focus points up to 77, new tracking mode, face and eye detection, together with a new menu layout, no further need to use the "macro" button because it happens automatically - why not? But an increase in AF sensitivity from 2.5 EV to 0.5 EV? Without new hardware?
How cool is that? Did we Nikon users ever got a real cool new feature just by firmware update? Honestly, I don't remember more than bugfixes.
Laowa (Venus) 105mm f2 STF - davidmanze - 01-22-2016
Quote:Quietly, but with lots of surprises. I'm just at home and recovering from a surgery. Before that, I got a metabones adapter for Nikon lenses on the Fuji. Great thing, manual focus aid is extremely helpful. So, for 105 mm macro and 40 mm macro and 85/1.4 there's now a second harbor to dock in. Great. Of course, the little body behind a 150-600 looks odd and needs very patient subjects.That is indeed cool, with Nikon to get all that you have to buy three new models, same as Pentax they give you a new FW but it's just so you can buy a new lens.
But the best part is yet to come. Fuji announced together with the really new X-Pro2 a simple update of the X-E2 and is not calling it X-E3 (because that one might be seen on photokina or not), but just X-E2s. Now, instead of buying that body with some helpful upgrades. I just can download the new firmware for the X-E2 and get the same features (although I kind of hesitate to applaud too early). Is that possible? electronic shutter up to 1/32.000, from 49 focus points up to 77, new tracking mode, face and eye detection, together with a new menu layout, no further need to use the "macro" button because it happens automatically - why not? But an increase in AF sensitivity from 2.5 EV to 0.5 EV? Without new hardware?
How cool is that? Did we Nikon users ever got a real cool new feature just by firmware update? Honestly, I don't remember more than bugfixes.
How about the AF and it's performance? which was kinda what started the ball rolling!
Laowa (Venus) 105mm f2 STF - JJ_SO - 01-22-2016
Well, it's not "flawless under all conditions", of course. I mean the body costs like 1/5 of a D810. But since manual focus in stills is so easy, I do that a lot. The lenses I got were in the first row of lens releases from Fuji, therefore no miracles in focus speed, but lots of keepers in terms of accuracy.
Here's what owners of X-E2 will get on February 4th: http://www.fujifilm.com/products/digital_cameras/x/fujifilm_x_e2/features/page_08.html
dave, if you like to have a glance: click
Laowa (Venus) 105mm f2 STF - Rover - 01-22-2016
The blue stripe makes it look like an Olympus lens.