Modern or New Manual Lenses.

skullfunkerry said:
That's the same as me. I've sold my 25mm F/2 now; I found that when I nailed it I had great looking shots, but it was very very easy to miss focus. The 35mm F/0.95 is much easier to focus, and again it's much clearer than I expected when I bought it. I still want to get a Fuji 35mm F/1.4 at some point though, which will probably replace the 7Artisans lens.
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It's very frustrating to miss focus, especially when you only realise when you get home as everything looked fine on the camera screen. I'd love to get the 33mm f1.4 WR. I hired it over Christmas last year and it's a stunning lens.
 
Missing focus isn't really a big issue for me, it's going to happen now and again but if I'm in doubt I may take more than one picture.

I very often use the magnified view and then it's likely a matter of going too far and dialing back. I use focus peaking sometimes if I need to be quicker but I am far happier to use peaking at wider apertures than with smaller ones as with smaller apertures lots of things can peak and when that's the case the subject may not be as sharp as it could be. With wider apertures very little peaks and therefore the subject is more likely to be sharp.

A fair few of my pictures are also taken hyper focally and some are prefocused.

Good luck with getting sharp pictures.

While I'm here. I couldn't get too close and as I only had a 35mm lens this is a 66.67% crop.

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PS.
I've decided to force myself to take the Pergear off my camera and use the TTArtisan 50mm f2 for a while :D No pictures today though as the weather is pretty unfriendly.
 
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woof woof said:
Missing focus isn't really a big issue for me, it's going to happen now and again but if I'm in doubt I may take more than one picture.

I very often use the magnified view and then it's likely a matter of going too far and dialing back. I use focus peaking sometimes if I need to be quicker but I am far happier to use peaking at wider apertures than with smaller ones as with smaller apertures lots of things can peak and when that's the case the subject may not be as sharp as it could be. With wider apertures very little peaks and therefore the subject is more likely to be sharp.

A fair few of my pictures are also taken hyper focally and some are prefocused.

Good luck with getting sharp pictures.

While I'm here. I couldn't get too close and as I only had a 35mm lens this is a 66.67% crop.

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PS.
I've decided to force myself to take the Pergear off my camera and use the TTArtisan 50mm f2 for a while :D No pictures today though as the weather is pretty unfriendly.
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Let me know how you get on with it. That's one of the lenses I am contemplating.
 
Plain Nev said:
Let me know how you get on with it. That's one of the lenses I am contemplating.
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I've already taken a lot of pictures with the TTA 50mm f2. There are some in this thread.

I can tell you that it's very compact and really a joy to use. The corners are never great and they can be a swirling mess at wider apertures but the main issue for me is heavy vignetting. My software (CS2023) needs the vignetting slider sliding to the max or there abouts to cope with it in some pictures and it seems to be at its worst when focusing at wide apertures at a distance. Oh, and another issue is that the minimum focus distance is a bit long. I overcome this with my 67mm close up filter via a step up ring.

Despite the corner quality and vignetting issues I would recommend this lens.

The Syoptic 50mm f1.1 is a much better lens but it's twice the size and twice the price. One of the nice things about this lens is that infinity is at the hard end stop and this makes hyperfocal use very quick and easy.

One thing that I always look for when buying a new lens is the first picture I'm really happy with and when I get it I think the lens has paid for itself :D I have several pictures I really like taken with the TTA 50mm f2 so it's paid for itself several times over. Mrs WW likes this one, previously posted, and she asked for it to be printed and framed.

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I do like that one and this one is another favourite of mine.

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woof woof said:
Impressive Kerry :D
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Thank you! It's a great little lens, just needs the right setting. I took it on a walk around Chelmsford a few weeks ago with a group from facebook, and there were a few shots (I think I posted them earlier in this thread) that worked really well, but a few where it was just too wide. Having never used one before apart from occasional joke photos of myself with one bulbous eye and an even rounder face than usual, it's a bit of a learning curve as to when and where to use it.
 
As I've said a lot of times on this forum, I think wide lenses can be some of the most difficult lenses to use well and I suppose that goes doubly so for fisheye lenses :D

Your use seems just about one perfect use for this sort of lens :D
 
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Petey said:
I was considering selling my Mitakon 35mm f0.95 , when this one walks in and convinced me not to sell it
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I've thought about selling lots of stuff but I never seem to get around to it partly because some kit seems to be worth little these days and in the end I normally just keep it for the once a year it might get used.

While I'm here. I didn't take any pictures today but I might as well post every picture I took yesterday :D

All Pergear 35mm f1.4.

Feeding the squirrels.

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The view towards the memorial.

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The white memorial.

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Carpet / blanket of leaves.

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Pergear 35mm f1.4 at Locke Park in Redcar.

Park bench, I liked the wave.

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I imagined these as monsters in the deep.

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Colourful carpet.

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Curious bird 1.

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Curious bird 2.

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woof woof said:
I've thought about selling lots of stuff but I never seem to get around to it partly because some kit seems to be worth little these days and in the end I normally just keep it for the once a year it might get used.
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I’m going to try and start keeping stuff from now on. I’ve had some equipment which is worth more now than when I’ve sold it in the past. Top 3 examples being a Fuji xf 27mm - Sold for about £80, 3 or 4 years ago, and now they’re selling 2nd hand for circa £280 due to a boom in Fuji; Fuji x-pro2 (lovely camera which I sold for less than £600 and they typically go for £750-800 now); and an Olympus Pen f (sold for £450 and now go for £600+). All equipment I wish I’d kept now, but refuse to purchase again because of how they’ve inflated in value. Although, in my defence I sold the equipment as I was in need of the cash. These days I’m much better off financially, so I can afford to keep my gear, where previously gear was sold out of necessity. However, I just have to my GAS under control
 
Petey said:
I’m going to try and start keeping stuff from now on. I’ve had some equipment which is worth more now than when I’ve sold it in the past. Top 3 examples being a Fuji xf 27mm - Sold for about £80, 3 or 4 years ago, and now they’re selling 2nd hand for circa £280 due to a boom in Fuji; Fuji x-pro2 (lovely camera which I sold for less than £600 and they typically go for £750-800 now); and an Olympus Pen f (sold for £450 and now go for £600+). All equipment I wish I’d kept now, but refuse to purchase again because of how they’ve inflated in value. Although, in my defence I sold the equipment as I was in need of the cash. These days I’m much better off financially, so I can afford to keep my gear, where previously gear was sold out of necessity. However, I just have to my GAS under control
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I was lucky in that I bought most of my film era lenses before prices went up and also at a time when you could still find kit in good condition at a reasonable price. You may still be able to do that with time and patience but I do think it's more of a lottery these days.
 
More Voigtlander 35mm f1.2 examples.

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Pano.

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It's a nice lens the only issues being... a bit soft at f1.2 but perfectly useable and it sharpens well, some ca, can be affected in backlit situations.
 
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I might as well post this here.

Mrs WW in a Christmas "Let It Snow" hat with flashing lights on it :D and snow outside. Taken with the Voigtlander 35mm f1.2.

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woof woof said:
I might as well post this here.

Mrs WW is a Christmas "Let It Snow" hat with flashing lights on it :D and snow outside. Taken with the Voigtlander 35mm f1.2.

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You're certainly getting the weather up there. We are a little oasis of sunny days and frosty mornings, at the moment.
 
Plain Nev said:
You're certainly getting the weather up there. We are a little oasis of sunny days and frosty mornings, at the moment.
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It's mostly gone now.

I was a bit nervous of the drive to and from Whitby but in the end all was ok. It was and has been cold though.
 
I posted the following in the Sony thread but I thought I'd post it here also as some people interested in these lenses might not visit the Sony thread...


Hmmm.

I've been very happy with my (super cheap) Pergear 35mm f1.4 but I noticed something was a bit off so I checked it against my Voigtlander 35mm f1.2 and f1.4 lenses and... Something is definitely amiss as the Pergear gives both exposure values and depth of field more like f2.2 or something. It doesn't look like f1.4 when compared to the Voigtlanders but it's not f2.8, its something between f2 and f2.8 for both exposure and dof.

Looking into the lens it does seem to be wide open at "f1.4" but there's something wrong, it's either some sort of fault or manufacturing or assembly issue or they're telling massive porkies with the claim to be f1.4 and with the markings on the lens. Either that or Voigtlander lenses have wider apertures than you'd think but I think I trust Voigtlander more than Pergear.

I've written to Pergear so I'll wait and see if I get a reply.

PS.
I've watched a few reviews and no one seems to mention this so either something is off here with my copy or if they're all like this no one else has spotted the discrepancy.
 
Just in case anyone is interested... A little more on that Pergear 35mm f1.4.

I sent it back and got a refund and bought another and it's just the same. I'm convinced that this lens has a couple of issues.

Firstly and for whatever reason the light transmission is less good when compared to my Voigtlander 35mm f1.2 and f1.4 (which are in total agreement with each other at every aperture setting) and also when compared to my Sony 35mm f1.8 (which only slightly disagrees with the two Voigtlanders at one specific aperture setting.)

Secondly even accepting that there seem to be differences when comparing the exposure values this lens gives to other lenses at the same marked aperture settings the DoF characteristics do not appear to be the same as other lenses or consistent with what I'd expect when stopping down. Something is off and not consistent as you go from one aperture setting to another.

It's a nice, compact and cheap lens but these two issues are there. I haven't really decided if I'll keep it or not but if I do keep it it'll be a day out lens only as in lower light it's just not comparable to my my other lenses and this leads to higher ISO's / slower shutter speeds which have their implications.
 
I bought a Voigtlander 50mm f1.2 in Sony mount.

It seems to be a very nice lens. Here's two picture, one at f1.2 and the other at f8.

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I took my Voigtlander 35mm f1.4 out. I haven't used this for a while but it is possibly my most used lens, ever.

Towards the vertical pier at Redcar.

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Geology.

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Beachcombers,

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Warm colour at Locke Park.

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My modern manual lens line up is now...

Voigtlander 35mm f1.2 and f1.4, 50mm f1.2 and f2.
TTArtisan 50mm f2.
Pergear 35mm f1.4 (for now.)
 
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