Check out this completed eBay listing for a 1800mm f/16 lens with a 2640mm image circle. Pictures on eBay. Holy shit!
Tag: lens
Leica announce new Summarit-M lens range
Today Leica announced a new range of M-mount rangefinder lenses, called Summarit. They will be available in focal lengths of 35mm, 50mm, 75mm, and 90mm—all f/2.5 and coded for the M8—from the end of November, 2007 forward.
Leica’s press release:
The new class of Leica precision lenses
It is the lenses on which the legend of the Leica brand was founded. Finely crafted masterpieces – compact and practical precision optics for analog and digital photography.
With the Leica Summarit-M class of lenses, Leica maintains its tradition of producing lenses that are renowned for optical and mechanical excellence. The new family consists of four lenses and covers the most popular focal lengths in the Leica M system:
LEICA SUMMARIT-M 35 mm f/2.5
LEICA SUMMARIT-M 50 mm f/2.5
LEICA SUMMARIT-M 75 mm f/2.5
LEICA SUMMARIT-M 90 mm f/2.5The maximum aperture of f/2.5 and the concentration on the classic and proven spherical lens design leads to a new series of lenses that now brings famous Leica quality and a superb price/performance ratio.
The launch of the Leica Summarit-M family of lenses marks the return of important Leica heritage elements. All letter and number engravings are made with the traditional “Leitz-Norm” font as originally used by Leitz Wetzlar during the 1960s, and the red button on the lens mount is now true to the original color used on Leitz lenses produced since the introduction of the M mount through the 1960s.
Lens Campaign in Leica Rangefinder System
The launch of the new Leica Summarit-M lenses is the start of a campaign in which Leica is putting a greater focus on its core competencies in optics manufacture. Leica’s high-performance optics, which are all made by hand at Leica’s main factory in Solms near Wetzlar, Germany are the fruit of many years of experience in optics and precision mechanics, unique technologies, high-quality materials and the commitment and craftsmanship of competent staff.
Steven K. Lee“Leica users are the most demanding customers in the world of photography. To satisfy their high expectations of quality, we put a unique amount of effort into manufacturing Leica lenses. This starts with a bold idea and continues with an ambitious optical design, a selection of the best materials on the market and sophisticated production processes. Meticulous quality assurance with 100% checks is, of course, an integral part of the process. The aim of all these efforts is to create high-class photographic and phototechnical images. Corner-to-corner definition and brilliance over the entire visual field, maximum imaging performance already at full aperture and superior stray light reduction – this is what photographers like about their Leica lenses, plus a unique mechanical excellence that is immediately felt when turning the focus ring or adjusting the aperture. This gives Leica photographers decades of pleasure – and enviable photographic results,” says Steven K. Lee, CEO of Leica Camera AG.
Deliveries of Leica Summarit-M lenses are scheduled to begin at the end of November 2007.
More info here from Leica, including a PDF technical data sheet.
(Thank goodness they nailed the most important part of any imaging system: the font used to engrave the lens. Yeah, they make nice kit—even if their film loading is still in the stone age—but it’s so hard not to laugh at anybody who takes this stuff seriously. (And I’m a designer!))
Lens manufacturing videos
Also check out Canon’s lens manufacturing video. It’s worth watching both as they use different processes.
Ultra-thin folded lens
Someone figured out how to fold a 35mm effictive focal length lens into 5mm!
Here’s the abstract of the paper Ultrathin cameras using annular folded optics, by Eric J. Tremblay, Ronald A. Stack, Rick L. Morrison, and Joseph E. Ford, from the Feb 2007 issue of Applied Optics:
We present a reflective multiple-fold approach to visible imaging for high-resolution, large aperture cameras of significantly reduced thickness. This approach allows for reduced bulk and weight compared with large high-quality camera systems and improved resolution and light collection compared with miniature conventional cameras. An analysis of the properties of multiple-fold imagers is presented along with the design, fabrication, and testing of an eightfold prototype camera. This demonstration camera has a 35 mm effective focal length, 0.7 NA, and 27 mm effective aperture folded into a 5 mm total thickness.
Unfortunatey the complete paper costs US $22 for non-OSA members, but I suspect that it’s pretty unreadable by people without advanced optical systems design training anyway. Check out this summary article at PhysOrg instead, which makes sense to the rest of us.
Canon EF 50mm f/1.2 L USM new lens review at The Digital Picture
Now the Canon EF 50mm f/1.2 L USM Lens enters the market. Being a prime Canon L Series Lens, the Canon 50 f/1.2 far exceeds all existing Canon 50mm lenses in nearly all aspects – including three negative ones: size, weight and price. Since Canon already has a 50mm f/1.4 lens, they would not release a slightly wider aperture version at a far higher price, size and weight without offering significantly better features and image quality. Otherwise, people simply would not buy the lens. The question is – are the actual differences enough?
Continue reading at The Digital Picture
Via PhotographyBLOG
Lensbaby 3G review by Joe Reifer
Photographer Joe Reifer wrote a nice review of the new Lensbaby G3 selective focus SLR lens. Check it out at The Online Photographer.
Holy shit! I found a Pinkham & Smith Series IV!
Fucking hell! After over a year of searching, I finally found a Pinkham & Smith Visual Quality No. 2 Series IV soft focus lens! This was a revered pictorial lens and the inspiration for the Cooke PS945. I think it’ll be perfect for a portrait series I’ve been planning. I’ll have to get the shutter serviced, but I can’t wait to get my hands on this thing!
Expect sample shots soon. I’ve been meaning to rent the Cooke for a test drive anyway, so I’ll see if I can get some comparison images together (something I’ve been wanting to see but haven’t found).
Leica digital lens code database
There’s now a growing database of Leica’s lens codes for use on the M8. Why pay $120 and wait 6–8 weeks to have Leica code your lenses when you can do it yourself with a marker?
Check out this how-to by Mike Prevette on the Leica user forums for details.
Previous posts on the subject: Hacking Leica digital lens coding, Leica M lenses coding for digital, Free digital coding upgrade on new Leica lenses in US & CA
Via the ever-vigilant Auspicious Dragon Photostream
Hacking Leica digital lens coding
As I posted previously [1, 2], Leica have a coding scheme for their lenses so that the new digital M8 body can automatically identify the mounted lens. It turns out that you can use a marker to code the lenses rather than paying Leica US $120 per lens for six dots of paint. You can use the same method to trick the body into thinking you have a different lens mounted than you actually do.
Check out this how-to by Mike Prevette on the Leica user forums for details.
Double-sided lens and pinhole bi-cam
Flickr member bricolage.108 hacked a 35mm trashcam into a double-sided lens/pinhole monster. He writes:
If using a normal film roll this camera takes redscaled ["redscale" is where you shoot the film backwards, so the light gets filtered through the antihalation layers before hitting the emulsion and turns the image red/orange or yellow, depending on the film] pinholes from one side, and trashy lens shots on the other. It also makes doubles, exposing both sides of the film.
The same way if i redscale the roll first, i can take redcale shots using the lens and "normal" pinholes, on the same roll with the same camera.
I can, for example overlap the same subject using two "different cameras" and techniques or (and this i think it’s conceptually interesting) create (simultaneously) an image where the shot and what’s "behind the camera" are both visible.
Here’s an image he made with it, more here.
