Canon FD 500mm f4.5 Vintage Lens
Canon FD 500mm f4.5 L Vintage Lens and the Sony A7 II
The Canon FD mount had some great lenses. The Canon FD 500mm f4.5 is no exception. Let’s see how this lens performed in some real world applications.
The Canon FD mount had some great lenses. The Canon FD 500mm f4.5 is no exception. Let’s see how this lens performed in some real world applications.
It is has been a few months now that I 100% switched from Adobe Lightroom to Capture One. After using Capture One for my raw workflow, I can’t believe it took me so long to fully convert. Below is my journey and the top 5 reason I love Capture One.
When full frame mirrorless digital cameras started being manufactured a few years ago, it breathed new life into a vast amount of vintage film camera lenses. There are many pros and cons to using vintage lenses on modern digital cameras. In this post I am just going to focus on my top 5 pros and cons.
Beverly Hills Community Services gave me a great opportunity to lead a photography tour at the Greystone Mansion City Park. The tour was one of a handful that were done in place of the Beverly Hills Art Show. Unfortunately, the Art Show had to be canceled due to the current status of the world. Keep reading to see how the tour went.
Over the last year I have shifted to using more and more vintage lenses with my Fuji GFX 50s. Having access to vintage medium format lenses that provide sharp and distinctly different looks compared to modern digital lenses has been a joy. Lenses from Carl Zeiss Jena for the Pentacon 6 lens mount in particular have been great to shoot with. Using vintage lenses on modern digital cameras breathes new life into these amazing tools. Therefore, I felt required to try some of the Pentacon made lenses. The Pentacon 500mm f5.6 lens is the first of these lenses that I am writing a review for. Let’s see how this lens performed in some real world applications.
The possibility of using a modern digital medium format camera like the Fuji GFX 50s with almost any vintage medium format lens ever made is exciting and just makes my creative juices start to flow. One of these vintage lenses is the Carl Zeiss Jena DDR Sonnor 300mm f4. There were so many legacy lenses produced. Therefore, their are many to choose from. There are many pros and cons to using vintage lenses on modern digital cameras which I won’t go into here, but a separate post on that topic is coming.
The Jena DDR 300mm lens I tested has the Pentacon Six mount. It is the most modern version of the lens, therefore it has multi coating. The older versions only had a single layer or no coating. This is the 3rd Carl Zeiss Jena DDR lens I have reviewed. So far, these lenses have all been outstanding optically, well constructed, and super fun to create photographs with.
When full frame mirrorless digital cameras started being manufactured a few years ago, it breathed new life into a vast amount of vintage film camera lenses. One of these vintage lenses is the Carl Zeiss Jena DDR Sonnor 180mm f2.8. This was expanded when Fuji released the affordable GFX 50s medium format mirrorless camera. There are many pros and cons to using vintage lenses on modern digital cameras which I won’t go into here, but a separate post on that topic is coming.
The Jena DDR 180mm lens I tested has the Pentacon Six mount. It is the most modern version of the lens, therefore it has multi coating. The older versions only had a single layer or no coating. This lens is considered by many to be the crown jewel of Pentacon 6 Carl Zeiss lenses and an amazing portrait lens.
Lets start with the obvious here. The Flashpoint R2 eVOLV 200 is a variance of the Godox ad200 and is sold at Adorama in the US. This system appears to check all the boxes a photographer would want in a flash system. It is small, portable, and at 200 watts of power brighter than a modern speed light at about the same size. There are a stable full of accessories and gadgets that make the flash even more attractive. My Flashpoint eVOLV 200 first impression is that these strobes pack a big punch in a portable package.
Given that this system also has a transmitter for most of the major camera brands adds to the excitement. I shoot medium format and full frame cameras from different manufactures. Being able to use the same lighting system by just changing out the transmitter is a huge plus of not needing to buy portable speed lights for both systems. The eVOLV 200 also has High Speed Sync (HSS) as icing on the cake.
Now that we’ve gotten all excited about the possibilities, let’s see how it performed the first time out.
The new rise of mirrorless cameras has allowed many of us to dust off old vintage film camera lenses to use with modern digital cameras. One of these lenses is the Carl Zeiss Jena DDR Biometar f2.8 80mm lens. Until recently we were limited to full frame digital mirrorless camera bodies, but that all changed when Fuji released the medium format digital mirrorless camera in 2017. This is very exciting because there is a whole untapped genre of vintage medium format lenses out there to potentially use. There are many pros and cons to using vintage lenses which I won’t go into here, but a separate post on that topic is coming. A vintage lens on a mirrorless camera is not for the faint of heart, given their manual workings, but the image quality some of these lenses produce is well worth the work.Read More
Starting with photography can be intimidating, especially with digital cameras and all the camera settings. It can feel like learning a new language. Remember a camera is only a light box. It captures light. This is true regardless of if it is film or digital.
Hopefully you find this post and it helps you start the journey. Learning an understanding some of the basic settings, and what they are for, should help. I am going to explain 3 camera settings functions that all cameras have, shutter, aperture, and ISO.Read More