a month's trials and a fine hike

I took a pretty walk early in October, trying out several lenses in turn.  The bag carried the DA18-135 for simplicity, plus a Sigma 15 fisheye, Rikenon 28 and the DA40.  The Sigma 50 stayed in the car, victimized yet again by the DA40.  Sadly the Promaster 100 macro stayed at home; it would have been a fine complement to the other primes.  Also sadly, the 49-52mm step ring did not come, so the DA40 had no polarizer like the 28 and 18-135.  While I'm filled with regrets, the Rikenon 70-150 f/4 really should have been there too!

At first the 18-135 got all the shots and I found it satisfactory - especially since it was my only 'telephoto' option! - but weather conditions were perfect at the time, so its weather sealing was of no value here.  No need for silent focus either, as I was essentially alone and 6500 feet up!  So after taking a shot at  around 40mm I popped on the Limited prime and enjoyed it for a while.  The smaller camera/lens combo was most pleasant!  It alternated with the all-manual Rikenon at times, which with the cPL filter took several powerful images.  I must say that overall I preferred the primes as my way to shoot.  Having fairly large FL gaps is not big to me, and 15-28-40 felt just fine; I would like to add the DA70 some day to fill the space to the 100, but I also have a Rikenon 70-150 zoom that would have served very well - sadly it also stayed home. 

At the turnaround point on my hike I broke out the 15mm fisheye, and it was great fun.  Starpoints made the sun into an artistic light source, and the larch and huckleberry shrubs were great color features.  I'm always impressed that the sun can be in an image yet exposure doesn't overcompensate with a black foreground!  Soon the 15mm went back in the pack, and the DA40 was back on.  The 40 and 28 got plenty of use on the way back.

So what did I learn?  (And will it stick?)
I think the 18-55WR is enough WR range for my purposes, and the $300 saved can go back in the fund for a DA70.  I will need to try that 70-150 f/4 with the other two primes first however - as the Rikenon 28 makes the DA21 less vital to my plans, the 70-150 may restrain my 'need' for the DA70.  I'm still on the fence for a macro, with two fine choices: the Sigma 50/2.8 EX DG has been sidelined by the DA40 and the Promaster 100/3.5 lost its chance to shine this trip.  So a few more tests to winnow the set are needed.

More shots from this trip on Picasa!

macro lenses are nice.. but!

This image is in fact from my Rikenon 28mm lens near its min focus of 11 inches and shot at f/5.6.

Yes it's heavily cropped - but I cannot find any great fault with that as I'm not about to print a poster of this.  Remember when you hear complaints about how 50mm and 35mm macro lenses make you frighten away bugs: cropping can be a good friend.  I went inside and grabbed my Sigma 50 macro, but really could not get much closer in any case.  I could crop it a bit less to get slightly better results, but the great shot with the 28mm is a better story to share. Macro-like images from a $35 lens and no screw-on 'macro filter' works for me!

the updated kit - today's version :^)

A week after speculating on missing gear I have a 15mm. A month after seeking and finding a 35-70 lens for my manual-focus kit I have my favorite 28-105 again. When does it end? Obviously about two weeks after I'm dead, since I could go suddenly after placing a bid.

 So am I happy? Well, I'm a naturally happy guy so that doesn't quite fit - but I am satisfied, which is the equivalent in gear-lust terms.  The lenses in my possession only lacks a super-zoom and for now that's OK; the K-5 is a camera that still leaves too little missing to cause me any concern.

•  Today's AF kit: Sigma EX15, Pentax DA18-55, EX/DG50 macro, DA55-300. 
• The MF lightweight kit: Rikenon 28P, 35-70P, 70-150XR. 
• The MF 2-lens (or video) kit: Vivitar(Kobori) 28-105 and 70-150XR. 
• The alternate kit: Lumix G1, 14-42 and 45-200 OIS zooms.
• The full-frame-sensor kit? 15, 28, 50 primes, 28-105 and 70-150 zooms!

Good stuff all, and plenty of time to learn it all (assuming  I do not go suddenly!).  And now the film bodies, which now consists of two Pentax MEs and two Ricohs (XR-10 and KR5 super).  The Vivitar 28-105 came with a leather-wrapped ME 'SE', a special edition with diagonal split-image focusing screen.  Pretty cool, and now my lead body for the rare use of film.  I really want to learn more about the XR-10 that came with the 35-70 Rikenon though, it shows some interesting features from the early days of electronic cameras.  I need to download a manual so I can brush up, and to figure out what the button near the lens-mount does!

more coming soon ..

Why I like the DA 55300.. and the Rikenon 70-150

This image was taken with the DA 55-300mm lens (150mm f/5 -1/250s, iso3200). It was also shot with the Rikenon-XR 70-150 (150mm, f/4 -1/125s, iso1600). They are shown below - though not necessarily in that order.

•  The Rikenon was focused through the VF, so no precise live-view focusing aid. It was also taken in Av mode so exposure was set with the wide-open lens. SR was set at 150mm. 
•  The DA lens focused itself and found f/5 to be its wide-open choice. It also was in Av mode.  

These were not shot as controlled images and I could have done much better for making them both sharper and closer to identical (e.g. fixed ISO and a tripod). They are also substantially cropped to show the area of most-critical detail; crops were in the same portion of the image field, I didn't cheat and put one on the frame's edge!  So they are not intended to be rigorous, simply what-if one-off hand-held shots to see how they compared. Aren't hyphens fun?  Let's face it: I do not spend my life going around taking test shots; I will grab the camera and get the shot on the fly, and that's what I want to test.  Both used center-weight metering so that matched well - though at f/5 vs f/4 I expected the DA image to be a bit darker.

Given all that, I can only say they compare quite well. In both cases, great isolation on the lonely seed-case, nice background blur, and decent branch detail. A slight color shift, no surprise even with flat grey lighting, as 20 years has seen great changes in lens coatings. Hard to pretend you cannot see which image is which; ISO3200 is great with the K-5 but it isn't an invisible process.

Rikenon contest: game over (almost)

After assembling a decent group of Ricoh lenses I gave them a semi-rigorous testing at 35, 50 and 70ish mm. I am incapable of being truly rigorous, as some variable will always creep in - but I am satisfied that they all had an equal chance to show off. I used Live View with 6x to get focus as good as possible. Both in ease of use and image quality, the winner was the 35-135 f/3.5-4.5 P one-touch, with 28-100 a short step behind and the 28-80 f/3.5-5.6 further back. The 35-135 is 500g so heavier than I'd like in my man-focus walkabout, so I may try a few more before it's over.. but for now it's the best of my bunch, and still 100g lighter than the 28-100! All lenses were sharp enough, but contrast was stronger on the 35-135 so less processing would be needed. All are prone to contrast loss with bright light on the front element.

I did not throw the Promaster 28-80 into the mix for these tests, but if I do acquire a few more lenses I'll try it with the 35-135 and future set; in some ways IQ looks similar to the 35-135, and size and weight are nice. However, it's showing its age with some play in the focus/zoom rings; the 35-135 is very smooth and a pleasure to use. I'd forgotten the fun of a 1-touch since they were outlawed in the late '80s (kidding here, I think).