Group: Administrator
Post: 770 (71 liked)
Join date: August 2016
Status:
|
|
on Sept 8, 2021 16:29:12 GMT
Posted: Sept 8, 2021 16:29:12 GMT
I know that Sigma made at least two versions of this lens -- supposedly one Scalematic, the other not, but mine is a Scalematic, but slightly different than yours. Mine is also a YS mount and a 77mm filter thread, and has the Scalematic "rulers". But on mine, AT MAJOR MARKS, the VERTICAL scale is in RED, and the HORIZONTAL scale is in GOLD. Also, mine lacks the green and red lines on the barrel. And interestingly, it lacks the DOF scale. The serial number has the SIGMA mark and 700447 -- two digits shorter. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
|
|
Group: Member
Post: 435 (15 liked)
Join date: July 2016
Status:
|
|
on Dec 15, 2021 11:46:14 GMT
Posted: Dec 15, 2021 11:46:14 GMT
Wow, this 135/1.8 looks like a behemoth. But otherwise way cool. Thanks for showing.
|
|
Group: Administrator
Post: 1,370 (301 liked)
Join date: February 2017
Status: Failed treatment for L.B.A. and G.A.S,
|
|
on Jun 18, 2023 17:42:31 GMT
Last Edit: Jun 18, 2023 18:24:59 GMT by lumiworx
I had no idea it would take this long to update this thread with progress on the hood fix for the Lenzar. I just couldn't bring myself to paying $60-85 USD (w/o shipping) for a Contax 82/86 adapter ring, and trust me, there wasn't any joy in trying to accept a cheaper substitute with a budget aluminum step ring that I could hear grinding away when threading in. The hesitance in paying higher prices doesn't stop at the cost alone. As it turns out, the 82/86 ring has only one purpose in the Zeiss/Contax world, and that is to pair a Softar filter with the Zeiss 300mm f/4 Tele-Tessar, so for me, even though I own that lens, it would never get used for its intended purpose. Patience finally paid off and a single seller in Japan put 2 of these rings up for sale at a more reasonable price for each than their usual amount. A short wait later, and the hood replacement setup is complete. As biggles3 suggested earlier, the Contax ring joined with a #5 hood was the perfect combination at the correct depth for the lens. The old and 'new' hood setup... Lens/Hood combo, adapted to a Sony NEX-F3. Camera body is 11 ounces (312 grams), Adapter/Lens/Hood is 2 lbs 3 ounces (988.5 grams)... Sample shots w/ new hood - taken with the setup above at minimum focus distance, at f/1.8 - f/5.6 - f/16 - standard PP... I should note that this lens has a tendency to render colors on the warm side by about +35%, so if used on film, it might need a cooling filter to compensate, or have your lab adjust ifor it in prints. One last sample to show the compression effect at long distances on a crop sensor, and roughly equivalent to a 200mm FoV... @ f/5.6... These new shots and latest samples are all in the previous testbed gallery for the Lenzar, here: testbed.lumiworx.com/#16305266636789
|
|
Group: Moderator
Post: 2,039 (562 liked)
Join date: April 2014
Status: Long, long time Contax and Yashica user; glad to be here and hope to contribute.
|
|
on Jun 19, 2023 11:48:40 GMT
Posted: Jun 19, 2023 11:48:40 GMT
Thank for the test shots lumiworx - it's undoubtedly a very fine lens. It's interesting to hear your thoughts on its colour rendition; whatever the constituents of its multi-coatings may be, it does not appear to have any issues with contrast. This is one of the lenses I'd like to try on a Fuji sensor with all those film emulsion options it can offer.
|
|
Group: Administrator
Post: 1,370 (301 liked)
Join date: February 2017
Status: Failed treatment for L.B.A. and G.A.S,
|
|
on Jun 19, 2023 15:40:54 GMT
Last Edit: Jun 23, 2023 21:03:43 GMT by lumiworx
This is one of those lenses that I wouldn't normally recommend to a casual film shooter, because IMO, they do require one to consider its quirks -or- resign themselves to disappointment. It may be a multi coated lens, but given it's era of manufacture, it's an HR and not an AR type. Essentially for this lens, that means that there's a tendency to really bloom in reflections and highlights -and- it doesn't bloom as just white, but an added bright pink/peach halo or banding. It's fairly obvious when enlarged, but it has a unique separating effect at display sizes if left in, as-is. Here's a 1:1 screengrab of the last sample photo in Lightroom 5.7's Develop tab. The histogram easily shows the pronounced bloom, and every highlighted edge and reflected hotspot in the photo shows the effect it lays over everything. There's also the lone single-color slider showing only the yellow saturation level at -35, with every other color left at their zero settings. For those unfamiliar with LR's color sliders, they range from -100, to zero, to +100, so they'd be interpreted as percentages at a 1:1 ratio. Another set of controls that aren't visible are the CA correction controls, and they are already activated at both the purple and green end of the spectrum, but they offer no third range to separately cover the pink/peach bloom. These issues can be fixed in a digital workflow to some extent, as the bloom can only be diminished and not entirely eliminated... well, without a considerable amount of fine tuning, or a second pass after converting from raw. With film, there may be a hoop or two to jump through, and certainly I'd think that a simple print order at the corner drugstore will not deliver well rendered photos. Automated processing won't make the custom corrections needed, and I'm unsure what slides would look like. You also mentioned contrast biggles3 , and to be honest, even with the now-proper hood coverage, contrast could still be better. Contrast in LR had to get a boost by somewhere between +20 and +32 for all the samples I shot. Again, that's really not an issue in digital, but it might need some extra consideration with color film. B&W film is an entirely different kettle of Lenzar fish. These lenses were absolute favorites of newspaper photogs I new in the days before color printing was the norm, so for those guys, it was film choice and development tricks that made it a non-issue for them. Before / After processing... EDIT: I did try an extreme measure to try correcting for the bloom, and it did correct a lot of it... by manually setting the 'purple' fringe color range from '8-36' to '8-100'. That maxed it out - which could cause an extreme overlap in hues - so that same setting would certainly affect the subject matter if it had a fair amount of purple content like grapes to lilacs.
|
|
Group: Member
Post: 285 (39 liked)
Join date: April 2014
Status:
|
|
on Jun 20, 2023 9:17:33 GMT
Posted: Jun 20, 2023 9:17:33 GMT
Love the effort you've put in to this evaluation
|
|
Group: Administrator
Post: 1,370 (301 liked)
Join date: February 2017
Status: Failed treatment for L.B.A. and G.A.S,
|
|
on Jun 20, 2023 17:32:23 GMT
Last Edit: Jun 20, 2023 17:52:11 GMT by lumiworx
Love the effort you've put in to this evaluation Thank you for the kind comment, Bob. These lenses had a very quiet but cult-like following in newspaper photojournalism in it's later B&W era, and I was hoping to understand a little of what made them a staple in kit bags - at least among the regional photogs I'd run into on a daily or weekly basis in lower Michigan. I would assume that the usability of these night-friendly underdogs leaked out to other print shooters over time, and may have found them a home with other pros as well. Whatever little I've managed to sort out from this mini journey was totally driven by curiosity and my fond memory of a simpler photographic time in history when B&W film ruled in the press room.
|
|
Group: Administrator
Post: 770 (71 liked)
Join date: August 2016
Status:
|
|
on Jun 21, 2023 15:08:30 GMT
Last Edit: Jun 21, 2023 15:10:12 GMT by xkaes
There is a similar, in some ways, Sigma lens that appeared under different labels as well -- the Sigma XQ 300mm f.4 with a 77mm filter thread. I already have a Sigma 300 APO f4.5, but this was available in mint condition with a Nikon mount for $20. The label was SPIRATONE, but otherwise the same. I sold the Nikon mount for $10. Still don't know what I'll do with the other 300mm I have -- you know how that goes..............
|
|
Group: Administrator
Post: 1,370 (301 liked)
Join date: February 2017
Status: Failed treatment for L.B.A. and G.A.S,
|
|
on Jun 21, 2023 22:09:36 GMT
Posted: Jun 21, 2023 22:09:36 GMT
xkaes ... It's easy to see the resemblance in the milled grips and the oh-so-apparent barrel screws. If both grips were pyramids instead of the added mix of straight grooves, I would certainly think it was a Mitake rebrand.
|
|
Group: Administrator
Post: 770 (71 liked)
Join date: August 2016
Status:
|
|
on Jun 22, 2023 19:49:02 GMT
Last Edit: Jun 23, 2023 20:54:20 GMT by xkaes
We'll you caught me. That actually isn't my Spiratone 300mm f4. I don't have a picture of my lens, so I grabbed one off the web. I didn't notice the straight milling on the focusing ring on that Sigma 300mm, but otherwise it looks the same. This Sigma is exactly like mine -- with the pyramid milling -- except my Spiratone lacks the SCALEMATIC scale. (The 135mm f1.8 was produced with and without the SCALEMATIC scale as well.) Perhaps the MACROTEL version (above) focused closer. I don't know.
|
|
Group: Administrator
Post: 770 (71 liked)
Join date: August 2016
Status:
|
|
on Jun 22, 2023 20:11:58 GMT
Last Edit: Jun 23, 2023 20:55:20 GMT by xkaes
On further investigation there were TWO Sigma 300mm f4.0 lenses. One was labeled MACROTEL, which had an extra milled ring toward the front to focus closer. Here's a shot of it. My Spiratone just has a plain barrel in that spot instead, but otherwise is the same. And from the two pictures above there were two versions of the MACROTEL model -- one SCALEMATIC and the other not.
|
|
Group: Administrator
Post: 1,370 (301 liked)
Join date: February 2017
Status: Failed treatment for L.B.A. and G.A.S,
|
|
on Jun 23, 2023 19:34:56 GMT
Last Edit: Jun 23, 2023 20:59:51 GMT by lumiworx
... Perhaps the MACROTEL version (above) focused closer. I don't know. That makes sense to me too. Seems that everybody had catchy buzzwords from the PR folks, but I don't know if I recall all of the ones used by Spiratone. I'll look and see if I have them somewhere. My best recollections... Minitel = compact telephoto, like 300mm/500mm Cat/Mirror models Macrobel = 2 rail macro bellows w/o a lens Macrotar = Wide-ish angle lenses w/ close focusing for bellows or tubes, i.e., 35mm MacrotarMacrotel = close focus 'Macro' telephoto - usually 85mm/135mm/200mm Plura-coat = multiple coatings, of 2 or more layers, for multiple focal lengths. Portragon = Soft portrait lens, 100mm Sharpshooter = 400mm reflex telephoto kit, w/ 2x and pistol grip, and shutter cable EDIT to add... Curvatar = Wide-angle AUX lens Mirrotach = 90 degree mirrored right-angle AUX adapter I also came across some forum threads that compared a number of these fast 135's, and found one that contains optical diagrams for the Spiratone, Sigma XQ, and a Soligor version, and details on the Porst model. One other thread elsewhere, with the Polaris model... www.pentaxforums.com/forums/10-pentax-slr-lens-discussion/30355-who-made-polaris-lenses.htmlAnd one more with 2 optical diagrams, on the 'Spiratone Plura-Coat' version by Mitake (same as the Lenzar MC)... allphotolenses.com/lenses/item/c_3560.html
|
|
Group: Administrator
Post: 770 (71 liked)
Join date: August 2016
Status:
|
|
on Jun 23, 2023 21:01:15 GMT
Posted: Jun 23, 2023 21:01:15 GMT
The Sigma Macrotel 300mm f4.0 definitely focuses closer. The front ring -- which is lacking on the Sigma NON-Macrotel 300mm f4.0 version, and my Spiratone version -- rotates, and some of the glass moves much farther forward, as shown in the photo above. There's even a magnification scale that goes to 1/4X. I doubt that Spiratone sold the Macrotel version, and I don't miss that feature on the one I got -- for 20 bucks.
|
|