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Comparing two cheap 135's

Ron Evers

New member
I was in a pawn shop yesterday looking through a cabinet of old dusty lenses when I commented to the owner that they were all very dirty. I had a Bushnell 135mm f2.8 in my hand @ the time & he said let's see. I handed the lens to him & he wiped a thick layer of dust off the rear element with his finger & said "ya they have been in there a long time". I had no intention of buying but out of curiosity asked him what he would sell it for & he said $10. I thought why not & bought it, even though I had a Sears 135 already. It actually cleaned up pretty good.

This morning I set up a tripod on the balcony & shot two frames with each lens; one wide open @ f2.8 & the second @ f8. The Sears seems to have a slightly wider field of view & is a tad sharper in my opinion.








Assembling the pics together knocked the quality of the images waaay down. :(
 

pellicle

New member
I thought why not & bought it, even though I had a Sears 135 already. It actually cleaned up pretty good.

This morning I set up a tripod on the balcony & shot two frames with each lens; one wide open @ f2.8 & the second @ f8. The Sears seems to have a slightly wider field of view & is a tad sharper in my opinion.

...

Assembling the pics together knocked the quality of the images waaay down. :(
yeah, it does that ... there is some surprisingly good optics out there for not much money that's the truth.

try running an unsharp mask over the images radius about 70pixels and amount between 7 and 15% ... should bring the contrast up nicely (something which seems normal with telephoto lenses.

:thumbup:
 

kweide

New member
For enhanced microcontrast try USM: 60/140/26 in photoshop and i can see a smile in your face...
 

Ron Evers

New member
try running an unsharp mask over the images radius about 70pixels and amount between 7 and 15% ... should bring the contrast up nicely (something which seems normal with telephoto lenses.
I do not know about of what you speak. I shot them in jpeg & viewed them "as is" to see if there was a difference. I normally shoot RAW & use Lightroom to develop the images but in this case wanted a set with no variation due to processing.

Thanks for your reply.
 

pellicle

New member
Hi Ron

I do not know about of what you speak.
what I'm suggesting to you is a procedure you'll find in photoshop under filters, called unsharp mask.

it brings up the contrast in a more cunning way than just bringing up the contrast

its not something to help the comparison, but something to make your image look nicer when you're trying to make your image look as nice as possible
 

Ron Evers

New member
Thanks Kwied & pellicle but I do not have Photoshop. I use PhotoScape to enhance jpegs. Perhaps I will try that tomorrow.
 

Ron Evers

New member
Hi again.

I took the two wide open shots (f2.8) & applied auto contrast, low contrast enhancement & a little sharpening to each in PhotoScape. Here are the results:


1. Bushnell




2. Sears

 

Tullio

New member
The Sears lens may be a tad sharper but I like the Bushnell colors better. It also appears that the Bushnell has a tendency to produce PF more than the Sears (I can see that around the bird house). It seems like PF is a common problem among those 135mm lenses.
 
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