Pretty Darn Sharp for a 50-60 year old lens

[rpcrowe]

I really enjoy shooting with vintage lenses on my Sony A6500. I don't use the vintage glass to save money. Instead, I enjoy the renditions that these old lenses achieve. My latest and most exciting acquisition is the Meyer Optix Gorlitz Orestor 135mm f/2.8 lens. This lens was produced in East Germany between 1960 and 1970. It is a manual focus lens with an M-42 mount that I adapted to my A6500 with an inexpensive Fotga M-42 to NEX adapter. I shot this at f/2.8 at ISO 640...



This grand old lens is built like a tank and is in beautiful pristine shape. I even received the original Meyer Optik box that includes the lens serial number.

The Orestor has an iris with 15-blades and produces exceptionally lovely bokeh. In fact one of the nicknames for this lens is the "Bokeh Monster" but, there have been many lenses with that tag.

Many of these older lenses produce unique bokeh but, many of them are not particularly sharp. This lens appears to be quite sharp. When I saw images like this: http://forum.mflenses.com/pentacon-1...7r-t75000.html I knew that I wanted the lens. Although I think that I would reduce the overall yellow cast in PP. (note: the Pentacon 135mm and the Orestor 135mm are actually the same lens). I hunted eBay for a while and found my copy in England. With the international shipping included the lens still cost me less than one hundred dollars (USD).

Using the focus peaking capability of the A6500, manually focusing this lens for portraits and for shooting other relatively stationary or slow moving subjects is a snap. I don't intend to use this on fast moving subjects.

I plan on using this lens this afternoon to photograph my daughter and I an anxious to see what the results are like...

I also have an M-42 Kipon Speed Booster coming, which will remove the crop factor from my M-42 lenses and allow the rendition to be pretty close to what it would be on a full frame camera.

This journey with manual focus vintage lenses has been fun but, I still love my modern lenses like the Sony FE 85mm f/1.8. As this example from last weekend's shoot attests.



I plan to shoot my daughter with both the 85mm f/1.8 lens and with the Orestor 135mm f/2.8 and will post the images tonight...

[Shadowman]

The real life model and abstract background really highlights the aesthetics of the lens.

[Manfred M]

It is challenging to assess the sharpness of a lens in a small format image.

Meyer Optik was absorbed by Pentacon, makers of the Praktica camera line. I owned the later version of this lens and was never particularly impressed by it. It was quite inexpensive but I tended to prefer the Pentax Takumar 135mm lens that had the same screw mount. The Pentacon lens was terribly stiff in cold weather shooting and would often unscrew while trying to focus.

[DanK]

It is challenging to assess the sharpness of a lens in a small format image.

I'd say impossible, unless the flaws in the lens are very substantial.

This is why I find it odd that positive reviews of new equipment are often accompanied by "sample images" that are intended to impress. At the usual low resolution, they say a lot more about processing than equipment quality. Some will post either crops or links to full-size images, both of which can be really informative, but an image that is only 1000 x 1400 or less usually isn't.

[xpatUSA]

It is challenging to assess the sharpness of a lens in a small format image.

I'd say impossible, unless the flaws in the lens are very substantial.

This is why I find it odd that positive reviews of new equipment are often accompanied by "sample images" that are intended to impress. At the usual low resolution, they say a lot more about processing than equipment quality. Some will post either crops or links to full-size images, both of which can be really informative, but an image that is only 1000 x 1400 or less usually isn't.

I test "sharpness" by shooting a slant edge and analyzing it with QuickMTF.

Such tests necessarily include the lens, the sensor, the conversion to RGB - plus any and all post-processing. Looking at shots of shrubbery and rolling hills from the Real World doesn't do it for this pedant.

A good thing is that only a few hundred pixels along an edge are needed for a meaningful result.

A bad thing is that the procedure doesn't test just the lens - and that more than one shot is needed for a statistically confident result.

Any image re-sampling negates the result, of course. So, as Dan says, proving how sharp a lens is by taking one Real World shot, post-processing the living mojon out of it and downsizing it for posting on-line will actually prove nothing at all.

For my Sigma cameras, I take a raw shot of a slant-edge target and export the raw image [yes, George, image] layer data to QuickMTF for analysis. That tests the lens and the sensor - no conversion/processing involved at all.

RawDigger ... don't leave home without it ...

[DanK]

RawDigger ... don't leave home without it

Which version do you have?

[xpatUSA]

RawDigger ... don't leave home without it

Which version do you have?

Research Edition V.1.2.25