15mm Super Wide Heliar

[Tim Gray]

Thanks everyone!

A 15mm is a lens I would use about 2-5% of the time on an R/F camera but when you need it and you are 8,000+ miles from home, what else is going to work, right?

So for the money, I think I will look into it.

It's really quite small too so it easily tucks in a bag. Easily. Its like a roll of film.

My shots seem to be less distorted then from the 17-40, but that is probably because I'm not as tempted to put objects in the extreme foreground because of the focussing difficulty on an RF. I'm very happy with the lens.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

here are two from the last roll of Kodachrome 64. I need to work on my exposure a bit i think. haha.

I think exposure on the first one, anyway, is flawless.

 

[Tim Gray]

Thanks. I had a couple of shots that were a bit underexposed - nothing drastic, but even though they are easy to see on the slide when held up to light, and have good color down in the shadows, I'm having some issues scanning them.

I guess its a combination of a bit of underexposure and the difficulty of scanning shadows in kodachrome.

 

[Todd.Hanz]

To get the best out of it you need to carry a handheld meter and use it, the lens works great!

Todd

 

[KM-25]

Well, I just sent off my Kodachrome yesterday, so I will not see how it does full frame until I get it back. But on the M8 it is critically sharp, makes a great wide for the 1.33 crop. I am finding I don't really need an aux. finder using it with the M8, the whole finder area is only a tad tighter, maybe 22mm when the crop factor is about 20mm. The downside being no IR filtration.

Darn it, I was going to sell the M8, but I might reconsider now that I have a truly wide lens for it. Even though it is fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants focus, it was a steal for $325 shipped / PayPal with the adapter from an RFF member. Check out that 100% crop.....

 

[Todd.Hanz]

Well, I just sent off my Kodachrome yesterday, so I will not see how it does full frame until I get it back. But on the M8 it is critically sharp, makes a great wide for the 1.33 crop. I am finding I don't really need an aux. finder using it with the M8, the whole finder area is only a tad tighter, maybe 22mm when the crop factor is about 20mm. The downside being no IR filtration.

Darn it, I was going to sell the M8, but I might reconsider now that I have a truly wide lens for it. Even though it is fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants focus, it was a steal for $325 shipped / PayPal with the adapter from an RFF member. Check out that 100% crop.....

Impressive performance and a well composed image!

 

[Hacker]

Just got mine this morning. Man is this thing tiny. Especially compared to my 17-40 f/4 Canon lens...

I think I'm going to have a lot of fun using this guy.

You can always get the ZM 15 f2.8, it is huge! 😀

 

[AJShepherd]

The 15mm is a lovely little lens I've not quite got to grips with. I wouldn't want to use it all the time, but sometimes I love the results.

(Kodachrome 64, f8)

 

[KM-25]

How are folks accounting for parallax with this lens? Is the finder doing it in any way?

 

[Al Kaplan]

The finder has NO correction marks at all. It's also a bit narrower view than the lens so you're not likely to cut off anything. Also, since the Bessa L has no rangefinder, the 15mm finder sits lower, so to be really accurate you'd need two sets of corrections, one for the L and one for other cameras. It really is not a problem. It's a great lens!