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A winter afternoon walk (Cine Nikkor 1.8 50mm + Lumix GH1)

kds315

Active member
On a gloomy late afternoon the other day I made a walk with the Lumix GH1 and the rather unknown little Cine Nikkor 1.8 / 50mm c-mount lens. The lens has the advantage that its c-mount is adjustable so the lens scales can easily be brought to the top for ease of use.
















bokeh:


and here how that little gem looks like:



This is from a set (10/13/25/50/100mm) I recently got and will subsequently publish results of using them here, so stay tuned.
 

Jonas

Active member
Hi Klaus,

Thank you for these images. I have wondered about that, and the 25mm, Nikon lens. And now you got a series, including the 13 and 10mm as well - man, I get abit jealous, and curious of course.

(Your colors are way off in some of the images - I think it would be nice with some proper PP before posting).

regards,

/Jonas
 
G

Gary

Guest
(Your colors are way off in some of the images - I think it would be nice with some proper PP before posting).
Can you expand on which pic and which colors as I don't see it.

Thanks,
Gary
 
V

Vivek

Guest
I think Klaus' images illustrate that this lens would suffer from flare and lower contrast. The close up shot (green leaves with red) where the lens is pointed down shows better saturation and contrast.

There are reasons why Kinoptik, TTH, Angenieux and such branded lenses were preferred in the cine industry over anything from Japan.

The colors are just fine, to me.
 

Jonas

Active member
Gary,

in image three there is a clay pot and white snow on the plant, in image five there is white snow on the fruits. OK you get it... the snow isn't white, the clay doesn't look like clay and we have seen happier citrus fruits.

I think color errors like these make a lens look worse than it is, so when presenting a lens it is good getting the colors and levels reasonably correct.

regards,

/Jonas
 

Jonas

Active member
Way off Jonas ?? Are you sure your monitor is OK??
Calibrated last week. Yes, I'm positive.
I guess the light was blueish when you took the images and that they look "as shot" to you but for anyone else (or to me it seems now having read the other comments) there is a blue cast to some of them.

Hmm. Seeing I'm alone on this I'll check my monitor just to be sure. I can download one of the the images and post it again if you want to see my view of the world.

regards,

/Jonas
 

kds315

Active member
I'm sure I now found out why the citrus fruits are not happy - they are gords (little pumpkins) ... LOL. The snow is as white as can be on my screen and the clay pot has that earthy brownish orange red a clay pot has to have (at least here) after it has been burnt at 1000 degrees. And before you mention the color of teh tower and castle in pic #6 - that was evening sunlight just before sunset.

Sorry, but I can't follow you on that ...
 
V

Vivek

Guest
Gary,

in image three there is a clay pot and white snow on the plant, in image five there is white snow on the fruits. OK you get it... the snow isn't white, the clay doesn't look like clay and we have seen happier citrus fruits.

Jonas, Colors are the least that should worry you. They look like Pumpkins to me and no citrus in sight.
 

Jonas

Active member
I'm sure I now found out why the citrus fruits are not happy - they are gords (little pumpkins) ... LOL. The snow is as white as can be on my screen and the clay pot has that earthy brownish orange red a clay pot has to have (at least here) after it has been burnt at 1000 degrees. And before you mention the color of teh tower and castle in pic #6 - that was evening sunlight just before sunset.

Sorry, but I can't follow you on that ...

Lol, I thought the small kind of orange thing was a citrus fruit. OK then. Let's have a look at the snow on those gords. It doesn't look white ro my eyes. Maybe it isn't supposed to be white, I don't know.

I may know nothing about gords... :) but I can see colors, and measure them in Photoshop. The snow is clearly blueish. If it looks white on your monitor it is time to check it.

Maybe I just don't understood your intention with al this. It isn't strange having color casts this time of the year and it is the photographer that decides what he/she wants the images to look like.

Generally speaking however, some of your images have a medium to strong color cast to them. That's with my eyes, monitor and Photoshop.

regards,

/Jonas
 

Jonas

Active member
addendum

I should add I run a color managed Windows XP system and use Firefox 3.5.something in color managed mode. Loading the image with the gords (are they fruits or veggies?) in Photoshop I got a warning sign telling me there is no RGB color profile embedded.

I guess the images can look very differently in another system. I decided to open the image as it was, without adding a color profile to it.

/Jonas
 

kds315

Active member
Well Jonas, my idea behind that was to show the performance of the lens with some real shots. If the colors are off a bit (at least for me) does not really matter, as it is more about sharpness, contrast, flare resistance, distortion, bokeh etc. All these are straight from the cam (GH1) just resized. Had I wanted to show a picture for its content or message, I would certainly have polished it up - but that is not what test shots are for.
 

Jonas

Active member
(...)
The snow is as white as can be on my screen and the clay pot has that earthy brownish orange red a clay pot has to have (at least here) after it has been burnt at 1000 degrees. And before you mention the color of teh tower and castle in pic #6 - that was evening sunlight just before sunset.

Sorry, but I can't follow you on that ...
Well Jonas, my idea behind that was to show the performance of the lens with some real shots. If the colors are off a bit (at least for me) does not really matter, as it is more about sharpness, contrast, flare resistance, distortion, bokeh etc. All these are straight from the cam (GH1) just resized. Had I wanted to show a picture for its content or message, I would certainly have polished it up - but that is not what test shots are for.
Hi Klaus,

I'm noticing the difference and I'm happy that it's not only me seeing the colors as being off a bit. I shouldn't have written "way off" in my first reply and I apologize for that. Little off, or a bit off, it should have been.

With that out of the way there is this other discussion you bring up. Whenever anyone takes images with a certain lens with the intention to present the lens to the public people will either have or get opinions on the lens and/or the images. Does the task come with a responsibility? In my opinion it does.

There are two types of "test" images, technically ones, and samples. Most people like to see samples while the "technical" images like resolution charts and such, are boring but also bringing a lot of information.

In both cases they images should be properly exposed and the samples should also be processed for the web if that is where they are presented. Any lens can easily be made to look bad, and sometimes better than it is, either by the in-camera processing or by the photographer.

I appreciate your images being taken with different situations in mind and showing several features of the lens. What I didn't like was the color (and if I dare to say also some underexposure) of some images.

Back to those gourds. To my eyes there is a blue cast and too little light in general. This make the lens look worse than it is.

When I worked as a cinema technician I always checked the xenon bulb current current and made sure there was enough light projected to make the images look decent (measured with a spot meter). Dark, or even slightly dark, images doesn't look sharp to the human eye. In the same way I checked the lenses and the screen for aging and yellow tint. I'm not sure how that works with our monitors but in my experience it is the same thing.

If your intention was to show the performance of the lens with some real shots I think they should have been adjusted before posting, or the goal isn't reached.

This is just some thoughts in general on this topic. There is more to say of course but I'm on my way out and this is already a quite long post as it is. I hope you don't take all this as negative critique.

I don't post a lot of images here, so who am I to speak at all? My last image posted on-line can be found in the 50mm thread, but is probably better viewed
here. Four posts down there are a couple more. I hope you don't see the snow as orange and yellow... :)

regards,

/Jonas
 

Amin

Active member
...Whenever anyone takes images with a certain lens with the intention to present the lens to the public people will either have or get opinions on the lens and/or the images. Does the task come with a responsibility? In my opinion it does...

...If your intention was to show the performance of the lens with some real shots I think they should have been adjusted before posting, or the goal isn't reached....

This is just some thoughts in general on this topic.
I disagree with all of this. There is plenty to see and learn from the OP's post, and this sort of critique is negative reinforcement for someone going to the effort of showing us a lens about which some of us might otherwise be completely ignorant. A lens which looks to have a charming character at that.
 

Jonas

Active member
I disagree with all of this. There is plenty to see and learn from the OP's post, and this sort of critique is negative reinforcement for someone going to the effort of showing us a lens about which some of us might otherwise be completely ignorant. A lens which looks to have a charming character at that.
I am happy to see you feel free to disagree.

Hmm. I don't understand really... Here are two other lines from my post:

I appreciate your images being taken with different situations in mind
and showing several features of the lens. What I didn't like was the color
(and if I dare to say also some underexposure) of some images.


So, what I am saying is that I appreciate the images as they show several features of the lens. Then I also added that I don't like the bit of color cast and underexposure seen in some of the images.

Having a discussion on how one can present a lens without doing the lens a disservice should be OK, or I hope it is OK.

Amin; do you really disagree when I say presenting a lens comes with some responsibility? Or is it my opinion on presenting images correctly exposed with no color casts you disagree with?

Or is it something else?

/Jonas
 
V

Vivek

Guest
With what Amin said and I also feel that you boxed yourself with the color stuff.

Should Klaus have dusted up the lens and cleaned it before posting picture of it?
 

Jonas

Active member
With what Amin said and I also feel that you boxed yourself with the color stuff.
If so my reply to him goes to as well.
Boxed myself? I checked your earlier posts and found you think the colors are fine. Well, i guess blue snow is better than yellow snow.

Should Klaus have dusted up the lens and cleaned it before posting picture of it?
Oops. Ridiculous question.
 
V

Vivek

Guest
Why would that be ridiculous?

Yeah, yellow snow ought to be avoided at all costs. ;)
 
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