Sandbag holding back sand on edge of canal. Beach at Corrimal.
Meanwhile down at the patch...
You were warned!
A one legged robot alien meets a grisly end after trying to raid the pumpkin patch.
This image was converted to B&W using a silver FX filter. Dramatically, the tendril of the pumpkin plant takes on a metallic look almost as if it was some kind of shaved metal.
New growth from a pumpkin plant. All three images were taken with the Sony A7III with 35mm Flektogon lens. I think I mentioned previously also that this lens has rather excellent close up capability.
Still on lenses...CZ Flektogon 20mm f4.0
I mentioned in the previous post about acquiring several east German and Russian lenses. Among those the Flektogon 35mm is one of my favourites. A beautiful lens with some macro capabilities. More recently I manage to get another Carl Zeiss lens. This time the wide angle Flektogon 20mm F4. I took it with me to the coast for a quick trip and manage to get these images. It has excellent close-up capabilities. Most of the shots I took were F5.6 and although vignetting is visible its suits these images - for my taste at least.
Nice combination
Recently, I bought a number of vintage lenses such as Carl Zeiss 35mm Flektogon from East Germany and also some Soviet-made lenses like the Jupiter 9 and Helios 44M. I bought these to replace some of the lenses that I sold that were medium format that I had been using on my Nikon D800 for several years. In fact one of my early posts in this blog refers to those lenses that replaced some more modern Nikon lenses - one in particular that was totalled in a fall of a cliff (24-70mm). But that’s another story. Just prior to buying these vintage lenses I bought a Carl Zeiss Planar T* 85 mm F1 .4 for those occasions where I might need a larger image such as the Nikon D 800 can provide but with a good quality lens with excellentllent resolution. It’s turned out to be a very impressive piece of glass. But more interestingly I combined it with an XPro close-up lens super II F500. The resulting sample image can be seen here. I’ve always been wary of using any other glass in combination with a lens I know to be of exceptional quality like the 85mm CZ for fear of diminishing the quality of the image. That did not seem to be the case here.
Carl Zeiss 85mm f1.4 with XPro F500 close-up lens
While not exactly macro I was particularly pleased at what could be achieved with this lens. BTW, the CU lens was not attached via a threaded adapter (which I’ve since ordered), I just held it up to the lens. The image has not been sharpened or touched up in any way save a small amount of exposure compensation. I couldn’t achieve this result with any of the other lenses. Both the sharpness and bokeh for my liking are superb. Message me for more details if you’re thinking of this combination. The CZ lens came in at around AU$1100 and the XPro $55. Both are second hand but mint condition. PS. Although I still have the D800, I have an adapter for the Sony A7III which more easily accommodates the vintage lenses.
Anamorphic portrait series
A little while back I posted something about anamorphic images. The shots that appeared in that post were taken with a small anamorphic lens attached to my phone camera. I was pretty impressed with the results but had some questions about how it would work for larger images or more close up shots.
In the meantime I ordered an anamorphic lens specifically designed for my Olympus camera (an em5 mkIII). The above image is one of a series of portraits - around 30 in all I’m hoping - for an exhibition. The lens is an f1.8. A feature which I hope to fully exploit with shallow depth of field imagery in the coming months.
An element of distortion occurs with the phone based lens which is not apparent with these shots.
Gumtree and black pines in snow
A cold blast or as the weather news described - an ‘antarctic blob’ arrived yesterday and delivered a substantial snow dump close to and including the Blue Mountains. The shot below was taken near the town of Oberon. More to follow…