LostKase wrote:
>I took off work today to try and shoot some fall
>colors. I had recently bought some out of date Fuji
>NPC 160 film. As always I took too many lenses, I have
>only shot my Tokina 500mm Mirror lens once before and
>I seemed somehow to have avoided the dreaded "donuts"
>as I did this time. I also shot a distant shot of a
>hillside but the contrast was so poor I was very
>dissapointed. This shot however came out pretty well
>in my opinion. Its no artistic masterpiece, but I was
>pleased with the resolution and contrast. The depth of
>field is a little shallow but all in all I was
>surprised by it this time. The print is a bit sharper
>than my scan. I may have to play with this lens a bit
>more.
>
Using these lenses take some practice and knowledge. The first thing we
all seem to do is to take a shot of something really far away. And the
results are all too often disappointing. Movement of the air between you
and the subject literally moves different parts of the subject image
around separately from each other and changes the focus, so sharp is
impossible. This effect is of course greatest on those nice warm, sunny
days when one feels like taking such photos.
Haze/water in the air makes contrast even lower than the lens on its own
and adds a bluish hazy look. Again, often worst on the nicest days. And
air pollution just makes it all worse. Much can be done in post
processing to alleviate this problem.
So do I always follow my own advice? Of course not! How could I resist
the almost 1000mm effective fl of a Sigma 600/8 on the 300D? Especially
hard when the subject is out on an island
<http://moosemystic.net/Gallery/MPhotos/Sigma600/pages/02_1631.htm>.
That slight fuzziness isn't the lens, it's the atmosphere. Look at the
prior pic for a 65mm fov of the same subject, a little showy, but why not?
So, take those looong shots on cold, dry days....
What else is it good for? How about smaller things that you can't get
close too, but aren't far enough away for atmospheric effects to be a
problem?
1682 first shows FF as it came from the camera, then with contrast
enhanced a bit, then my favorite crop, then full pixel
<http://moosemystic.net/Gallery/MPhotos/Sigma600/pages/05_1682e.htm>.
The full pixel shows that when you nail the focus, the sharpness is
there. The several other shots I didn't post show how it is to nail the
focus with such shallow DOF. All the critter shots are at 1600 iso, by
the way.
In 1695, the dreaded donuts show up FF (without, then with, local
contrast enhancement) but they aren't a problem cropped.
And you might get lucky and catch a couple of red squirrels "doin'
something interesting" enough that nobody will notice the donuts! :-)
Another thing they are good for is compressing subjects and changing the
relative sizes of foreground, subject and background relative to what a
normal lens would show. Here, with a 350/5.6 mirror on an OM-4, the
gladiola stalks and rosemary behind are larger and both they the grass
in front are apparently closer to the pansies and lavender than they
would appear in a more normal focal lenth shot
<http://galleries.moosemystic.net/Garden04/pages/3649_16.htm>.
>Has anyone compared the Tokina to the Zuiko or Tamron? I seem to have heard
>the Tokina is a poor performer.
>
>
Lee Hawkins' site has a summary page of Modern Photography test results
for mirror lenses
<http://brashear.phys.appstate.edu/lhawkins/photo/mp-cat-tests.txt>. The
Tokina looks pretty middle of the road, certainly not bad. I doubt if
you would see much difference between it and the Tamron in practice. I
don't know how close the Tokina focuses; the Tamron and Sigma go to 1:3
at somewhere around 5-6 ft. The Sigma has become my mirror of choice,
mostly for the longer fl. None of the majors are much sharper than
others, but the Oly stands out for contrast.
The Sigma has become my mirror of choice, mostly for the longer fl. with
very little size/weight penalty, esp. on a tripod. I think the above
critter shots illustrate a point I made without examples before. Many
long tele shots are going to be cropped quite a bit. Given cropping to
the same subject size, the longer lens will require less cropping (i.e.
less enlargement to any given output size). So a longer lens of the same
measured resolving power will have a higher effective resolution in
prints for all those kinds of shots. So if anyone wants my Tamron SP
500/8, drop me a line.
Moose
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