uhoh7
Veteran
Get a notebook and cellphone camera. Pick a starting spot in the rear element using the little dots. Pick an aperture you will use often. Find a target about 2-3 meters with other objects close, slightly nearer and further. Fire! Chimp! did you hit it? Take a picture with a little piece of paper which has the aperture and the rear element with dots in view.
If you miss rotate the rear element and try again. Soon you will see which way is front and back focus. Usually 3 or four shots will get you "in". But test. Then try longer distances at the same aperture. take a new pic of the settings if you need to. Now try WO.
It sounds hard but actually you don't even have to get off the couch. LOL
As long as both your digi RF and film RF have good calibration (test with a single lens) the setting you learned on the digi will work on the film M 🙂
It is totally different in every way to the 70's SLR superspeeds. Completely different formula, totally different glass, and a fraction of the size. Is it better? Well, my Canon FL 55/1.2 is a great lens and way better on the edges at all apertures. I never use the monster on my A7.mod, and it won't go on the M9 at all.
Your own eye, taste and handling preferences are the only meter, Billie. It's like food. 🙂
To me, the smell, taste and feel (meaning the color/render/oof etc) of this lens motivates attempting some creative photography. I don't claim success, but it makes me want to try 🙂 Others may just want to throw up 😉
Here it is at f/5.6 or f/8 infinity on the A7 Kolari:
DSC00485 by unoh7, on Flickr
On flickr you can see the full. Like my 1937 CZJ 5cm f/1.5, the thing is sharp as hell in the central frame. However the edges are terrible! Which is what the stock A7 does to many film lenses LOL, but in this case it's not the camera 🙂 This is why the sonnar design did not last except for nostalgia as a frontline photojournalist lens. No edges. The original Voigtlander 5cm 1.5 double gauss murdered it outside the central frame, as did the v1 50 Lux, also double gauss, which was in a whole different league technically. But just like A7 without a mod can make a nice picture with a 28 cron and a central subject, so the sonnar can do great if deployed properly, whether by accident or on purpose 🙂
Sharpness is a single factor of several, and it may be uneven. Other aspects may offset the poor edge sharpness. Look at the charts comparing the v4 50 cron to the mandler 50/1. The cron wipes the floor on edge resolution. Yet many would swap one for the Nocti in a heartbeat. And it's not only the speed.
One last note on the sample: had I been thinking I would have taken two more shots. One with focus on the edge (easy on a7) and one more in between. Then I would have chosen. This is one of the many ways the A7 is alot more of a pain than the M9 which has a hard infinity stop. If you just hit the focus in center, you are going to make some crappy landscapes with some lenses, which need to be carefully balanced between edge and center focus. This is the secret to making the new 35 ultron really sing on Sonys.
