Old Feel Lens on 5D

[Ben Rubinstein]

Hi,

Looking for a 'turn of century' look lens that I would be able to use on a 5D. That dreamy and etherial painting kind of barrel lens on LF look. Looking for approx 50mm FOV though slightly wider or longer would also work. For shooting a specific street project. I know that it's been done by people, I've not been able to dredge up the specific threads in this forum unfortunately.

Any help much appreciated!

 

[wbrandsma]

I personally love the look of the Helios-44W 58mm f/2.0 lens from the USSR. I use it on the 10D, but would likely work great on the 5D too.

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

What's it like stopped down a bit? All the examples I've seen have the petzval swirly bokeh which I hate. That said I don't want to shoot even close to wide open in which case I might lose the 'old look' effect.

 

[wbrandsma]

I personally love it and almost exclusively use it at f/2.0. The swirly bokeh disappears when stopping down. But like you've said it, it becomes just another lens when stopped down.

Here below more examples with the Helios.

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

Anyone have any suggestions for old barrel lenses which give that glowing soft effect even stopped down but not a modern soft focus look that I'm trying to avoid (too clinical)? I can then see if I can find an ebay EOS adaptor for LF to attach my camera...

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

More to the point, Lensbaby seems to made for the job...

What I want to see is what the lens looks like stopped down on a large DOF scene so that you don't get the signature circle of blur around the focus point that seems to be the signature of the lens. Wondering whether it will still look as 'old look' or sharpen up too much. Unfortunately no one seems to have pics like this to show. The still life comparison on the lensbaby site doesn't give me that much of an idea.

I know Marc Williams was a lensbaby fan at one time, wonder if I can pursuade him to set foot in a canon forum? :ROTFL:

 

[LucisPictor]

Be careful with the old Helios models. The mirror of the 5D can easily collide with the rear part of the lens body when set at infinity.

Another great "vintage look" lens is the Meyer Primoplan 1.9/58, but it also cannot be used at infinity.

 

[LucisPictor]

A Carl Zeiss Tessar 2.8/50 would also be a nice way to get a vintage look.

And as short teles, I can recommend those:

Jupiter-9 2.0/85

Steinheil München Culminar 2.8/85 VL

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

Been a while, posted about it on my usual thread on the images forum but no response.

I bought a Lensbaby with a single lens optic. Because the lensbaby design does not allow for a flat field of focus and without it all you pretty much get is the 'lensbaby effect' which I personally find tiresome, I discovered that you have to stop down to f22 pretty much to get a flatter field of focus. You still have a sizeable area of the corners which are soft. The lens also sharpens up quite a lot at f22, amazing how much detail a single uncoated optic has on my 1Ds mkIII.

Here is the result of my first test of the lens:

Here also is a link to a Zoomify version of the image so you can see what it looks like closer up. I'm a bit suspect of zoomify, the image it shows first is very soft, then the middle images are too sharp, I think it's sharpening as it downsizes, anyway 100% looks right though. Focus was on the 2nd set of steps.

http://www.studio-beni.net/SteppingSouth.html

Does it look 'old lens'? I think it does, or at least what is percieved by the great unwashed as 'old'. Going out to shoot with it again today.

 

[tokengirl]

I like it. I haven't used my Lensbaby in quite a while, but I was always impressed by how sharp it could be for such a cheapo goofy lens.

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

I've added some more photos from this series to this thread:

http://forum.getdpi.com/forum/showpost.php?p=206106&postcount=70

Thanks.