90mm f/4 Elmar

rjschell

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Apr 22, 2013
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Most of my latest, favorite photos are with this lens on my NEX6. Sure, it's prone to flare, but it's gentle contrast and color rendition are lovely. What's not to love about a triplet? I am eager to use it on my newly-acquired iiif.
 
I had a 90mm f4 Elmar and a Leica 3F back in the late 1950s. It was one of my favorite lenses and still is. Mine was very crisp.
 
Some photos in this group at flickr. 🙂

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The triplet Elmar's sharpness is good, especially for a vintage lens. Most of the time when my photos are not sharp, it's because of shake. I find the 90mm a lot harder to hand hold then say, a 35mm. This lens is new to me but liking it so far!

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I absolutely love mine. With a lens hood flare is not really an issue, and I haven't noticed any lack of sharpness (at least not enough to bother me). The small size makes it great as part of a travel kit.
 
As for reducing camera shake with long lenses, the old rule of thumb was to keep the minimum shutter speed an inverse of the focal length of the lens.

Ex. 90mm lens: minimum shutter speed: 1/90 (or nearest equivalent ).

This is when you often get skunked by the small maximum aperture.


Also why the 135 Hektor has a tripod mount on the barrel.

I too like the Elmar 90.
 
Speaking of sharp, only one was taken with a Elmar 90, the other with a prewar Fed 100. Which is which?!

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I know, it's not a direct, scientific comparison of the same shot on a tripod like I usually do. But that's my point, you can take a nice shot with any lens, then select it as an example of it's capability. But the Elmar 90s I've had are not as sharp as other small 90-100mm lenses.
 
It is small, easy to use, good IQ, plus it looks cool:

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I went on Flickr for few evenings looking at pics from this lens. Prior to this thread here.
Don't know why, but this picture is the one of the few and only from hundreds, if not thousands I browsed through, which makes sense to have it.
Sorry for the rest of the gang, may be I'm wrong. Seems to be nice and classy portrait lens.
But I don't see why it couldn't be taken with 50mm prime, which is distortion free, almost on 135 film RFs.
Again, I'm not an expert. It is almost Friday here 🙂 Cheers! Love Milwaukee too.
 
I went on Flickr for few evenings looking at pics from this lens. Prior to this thread here.
Don't know why, but this picture is the one of the few and only from hundreds, if not thousands I browsed through, which makes sense to have it.
Sorry for the rest of the gang, may be I'm wrong. Seems to be nice and classy portrait lens.
But I don't see why it couldn't be taken with 50mm prime, which is distortion free, almost on 135 film RFs.
Again, I'm not an expert. It is almost Friday here 🙂 Cheers! Love Milwaukee too.


Did you notice how the group is compressed, with a 50 it would look different.
 
I went on Flickr for few evenings looking at pics from this lens. Prior to this thread here.
Don't know why, but this picture is the one of the few and only from hundreds, if not thousands I browsed through, which makes sense to have it.
Sorry for the rest of the gang, may be I'm wrong. Seems to be nice and classy portrait lens.
But I don't see why it couldn't be taken with 50mm prime, which is distortion free, almost on 135 film RFs.
Again, I'm not an expert. It is almost Friday here 🙂 Cheers! Love Milwaukee too.

That picture you are right, it could have been taken with a 50mm. I bought the 90mm on an impulse and have to use it every once in a while. I've never done much close up portrait work so I don't know how it differs from the 50mm.
 
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