Lenses

Whilst some of the world are celebrating something to do with Jesus and his amazing egg-laden bunnies; there’s a hard-core of crazies who recognise today as Worldwide Pinhole Photography day.

A pinhole photograph is created by using a tiny hole to allow light onto the film or sensor. There is no lens, just the hole. The principle was discovered by the Chinese (who else?) about 500 years before Jesus and his bunnies appeared; and pinhole cameras have been around for more than a hundred years.

Nowadays, if you want to take pinhole photographs, you make your own camera. Pringles cans are popular as the basis, or you can just poke a hole on an old lens cap and stick it on your regular camera. Or, if you have a Micro Four Thirds camera, you can now buy a custom designed pinhole, called a Pinwide, from Wanderlust Cameras.

Why pay $40 when you can make one yourself? Well, the hole on the Pinwide has been etched to an exact size to give the best possible image; and the Pinwide hole is recessed deep into the camera so you obtain a very wide field of view and gather the maximum light. Plus it comes in a very attractive tin box, and you can never have too many attractive tin boxes.

The first thing you notice is how tiny the hole is. On a normal lens, F/16 is probably about as small as you would go:

But that’s the light of ten thousand suns compared to the teeny tiny hole in the Pinwide:

The actual hole is the tiny black dot inside the grey area inside the white area. It’s small!

The manufacturers rate it as something between F/96 and F/128, depending on which part of the sensor you read from. Whatever the number, you are going to need a tripod or very steady hands and a high ISO, but on the plus side you are going to produce images where everything is in focus due to the resulting infinite depth of field.

However, don’t get excited about the “in focus” bit. Without a lens, the resulting images will be very soft, almost dreamlike, in quality; which of course is part of the attraction.

Shooting with the Pinwide is very easy. Stick the camera on manual, adjust the shutter speed to match the exposure, and shoot. No focusing required.

The results are technically poor compared to using a proper lens; but that’s not the point. With the soft focus, slightly distorted colours, heavy vignetting and a photo where everything is as sharp as everything else; it is not difficult to produce something that looks different and maybe even looks interesting (if only to you). Personally I like the look a lot and have spent the last couple of afternoons with the Pinwide and a tripod. I think the results are fun, your mileage may vary.

Micro Four Thirds rocks. Thirty year old Russian lenses, cinema and TV lenses, state of the art Voigtlander lenses; there is such a wide range of offerings. And now you can slap on a tiny hole and go create your own weird bits of art. How’s that for a happy Easter?

I really have to stay away from eBay…..

The latest indiscretion arrived this afternoon, a Navitar 75mm F1.3. Apparently good for portraits; but most of the appeal (to me) is how cool an enormous chunk of glass looks, hanging off the front of my camera. How could I resist for $125?
I couldn’t.

“And what’s the camera resting on?” I hear you not asking. That would be a Yashica 55mm macro that arrived yesterday. I’m sick I tell you.

I wanted to test the Navitar’s portrait abilities on she who must be obeyed, but she declined, quoting some urgent Pet Society action that she had to attend to. So I had to make do with one of her dolls.

My photo cabinet is now full so I have to stop buying lenses. Although I suppose I could always buy another photo cabinet…..

Of course, it’s all about the 0.95. That’s the F stop by the way, the indicator of how much light can be captured by the lens. In the world of photography, you think you are doing pretty well if your lens is F2.8, you are starting to pay serious money for F2, and if you want to get down to F1.2, then you will need a very flexible credit card. But 0.95? Forget it, unless you fancy giving Mr. Leica $11,000 for the privilege.

So when Voigtlander announced this lens, designed specifically for M4/3, much lust was generated. More lust than Voigtlander expected perhaps, because they can’t make enough of them. The Voigtlander dealer for Thailand is AV camera, and their first two batches of twenty pieces sold out in two days. The third batch was an order for forty pieces, Voigtlander sent ten, and they were sold within two hours of arrival in the shop. Fortunately, I had left a deposit to secure one, and $899 (27,800 baht in real money) later, I was walking out with a Voigtlander box under my arm.

In the box you will find the lens with a cap, plus a hood and a separate larger cap to fit the hood. This is good because you can never have enough lens caps with the word Voigtlander stamped on them.

The lens itself is quite heavy and beautifully made. The focus ring is silky smooth with a long travel and the F stop ring has a satisfying click to it. Apart from the hood and caps, there is no plastic here; the lens is a gorgeous creation in metal and glass. As well as no plastic, there are also no electronics; this lens is completely manual in operation. Fortunately, M4/3 cameras are designed to be used in manual mode and using the Voigtlander is a delight, provided you are not in a rush. Set the camera to A mode and ensure “shoot with no lens” is enabled. Set the F stop at 0.95 and focus, then turn the F stop as required and shoot.

I don’t mind shooting manually, but I do wish they had built in sufficient electronics so that the F stop and the name of the lens were embedded in my images. Resorting to a little notepad to record F stops is a step backwards.

So, how does the lens perform? In normal light, the obvious comparison would be against the Panasonic 20mm F1.7; generally regarded as the best M4/3 lens. I have run a few direct comparison tests and I reckon that the Voigtlander is slightly better. But there is not much in it and the Panasonic has the advantage of being tiny and offering auto-focus; and it’s cheaper. So, as a walk-around lens, you can’t beat the Panasonic 20mm; but you don’t buy the Voightlander as a walk-around lens. You buy it for when there is almost no light, for when you want to create crazy bokeh, and when you want to go out and shoot with a “real” lens attached to your camera.

In low light, this lens allows you to keep on shooting without having to raise ISO. It was late afternoon in the crocodile pen when this was taken, but enough light when shooting at F0.95.

Not much light in a shopping mall, and a coffee cup is not much of a subject, but the background lights look good a F1.4

Take it out at night, and the bokeh from lights really comes into its own:

If the mood takes you; just throw everything out of focus and generate a bokeh Xmas tree:

Sometimes, shooting wide open can be too much. The depth of field is tiny, especially if you are close to your subject (and this lens can get very close). Only the lip of this glass is in focus:

Shooting these candles at F0.95 produces some very blobby candles:

Stopping down to F1.4 works better:

Generally, I found that stopping down to F1.4 or more gave a better photo, F0.95 is a little soft and provides such a very small depth of field. But it is good to know that the extra light is there if you need it.

The Voigtlander 25mm is a lens made in the classic style and, as such, it is a pleasure to own and use. Image quality is excellent from F1.4 and up, and F0.95 allows shooting in very low light and produces wonderful bokeh, especially of light sources. If I was only allowed to carry one lens, and did not need the speed of auto-focus; this is the lens I would take.

Outraged outburst from Billy following my use of the ‘p’ word when describing a lens in a recent post.

So, toning it down a bit, here are some photos from the lens that looks like a dick.

Zoomed in, there is a little vignetting:

Zoomed out, the vignetting becomes a circle:

But it doesn’t matter, because the bokeh is amazing:

All in all, a really fun lens.

If you like the look of what this lens can produce, I am pleased to tell you that there is one available on eBay at a reasonable price regret to advise that there are none available on eBay.