Electro lens quality rating

R

ruben

Guest
Hi folks,
Just out of curiousity.
Many of you that have shot with Electros, also own many of the best lenses available with or for other cameras. Would you like to rate, or give your opinion about the Electro's Yashinon against other lenses ? For example better than xxx, but not as good as yyy...

Thanks,
Ruben

PS
"The poor man's Leica" :)
 
Lens quality rating is very subjective thing, Ruben. I own Electro and a few other cameras. Electro lens sharpness-wise is ok, it has pretty good contrast as well, what it lacks for me is a distinctive character so I prefer J8 on kiev. I think that in low light (ie wide open) Electro is sharper than good j8, starting from f4 they are both sharp enough. More difference is in OOF - Electro has typical Japanese 50mm look, with hexagonally-shaped highlights, as opposite to sonnar-clone creamy bokeh. When I want special look I go with Kiev/J8, and when I want clinical sharpness I use Oly OM MiJ 50mm f1.8 which has similar character to Electro but much sharper (Oly 35SP that I bought could replace OM for sharpness but you know - sticky shutter, it's in repair now, can not compare). So Electro doesn't have much of work lately. Attached a few pics with Electro - as were scanned with auto levels applied.
 

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I can't rate it. What i can say, in optimal conditions it far outperforms my scanners'resolution. (epson v700)
At mid-apertures it is VERY sharp, and I had no problems with flare or such.
Opened up, it is critical to focus well AND to have it aligned well, if this happens, it is still producing sharp images and the "bokeh"is very pleasing if all the details click in. See some examples in the other thread, like, the two persons sitting in the museum. That was wide open on Kodak E100SW, around 1/60 (certainly faster than 1/30). I'd say plenty sharp, and the background looks beautifully blurred. It loses some contrast, and it flares if there's a just-out-of-frame Sun or such, but still very useable. Esp. if you shoot for scanning - you can easily increase contrast later if necessary. Vignetting is minimal but visible if the image is of a uniform white wall :D
But it is not very easy to focus it properly at f/1.7. The rf baselength is short, the lens usually wobbles a bit, and the patch is quite less contrasty than in a Leica. SO one has to be very careful when judging wide-open lens resolution.

I would say, (preparing to duck and run) if all is done properly, it is not really far from my collapsible Summicron 50/2 in its sharpness.
 
Quality

Quality

Hi again Ruben,

As you know I have two GSx's. What brought me back to rangefinders is I was looking at some of my Kodachrome slides from the early sixties. I was knocked out by the quality I saw. I scanned in a bunch of the slides and printed them at 8.5x11 and found they were excellent. They were taken with my Lynx 5000 which I unfortuneatly sold some time ago.

The resolution( and color) of the Yashinon was as good or better than my CZJ (M42) lenses or more modern Pentax lenses.

Cheers
 
IMO the Yashinon f/1.7 lens holds its own (when I've gotten all the technical stuff right) against my other Nikon lenses. I'm no expert, but I like what I see. I've just uploaded a few photos to my gallery -- all shot with a GSN. Check out the bokeh on this one in particular: 070116
 
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My goodness, I just did some max resolution scans at a pro lab today, the image quality is fantastic from that little 1.7 yashinon, for me at least. I think its great, its sharp and has a character I like. If only it was a touch more contrasty and in m mount it would be perfect.
 
I'll second the high quality of the Yashinon 1.7 on my GSN. I have screw mount Takumars, Nikkor's, and a few others, (no Leica's!) and I would say that the Yashica is on par with the best of my stuff. This is unscientific, as I haven't done any actual comparison tests, but I do shoot carefully, and have made 16X20, and bigger prints from many of my cameras over the years, and that is my opinion. Maybe some lpm tests will show which one is better than another, but in the real world, the Yashica is excellent, and the rangefinder is properly set up, so I can shoot at wide apertures with acurate focus.
I have two Electros, one an older GS, that isn't as sharp as my more recently acquired (from a RFF member) GSN. Shooting with the GS, I didn't see any reason to rave about the lens quality, it was alright, but nothing special, but when I got my first stuff from the GSN, I became a believer. I made some great looking 16X20's off of my first roll from the GSN.
Who knows, perhaps my GS had some less than perfect servicing in its' past??
Keith
 
I would rate this lens as a very solid performer and well-balanced. It's consistent and won't let you down. It's a six element multi-coated, double-gauss design, and this lens design is well-suited to low-light wide aperture situations - that is they're fast. It does reasonably well controlling flare (better that the Lynx 14), and is well-behaved wide open. Ultimately, I like the signature of this lens. I like the way it renders color, especially, and use it with color film usually (I have other cameras that are my "black and white" cameras), which is not to say it's a bad black and white camera. It's as good as the others, but I just like how it does colors.

I have other sharper lenses - the Russian M42 Jupiter 9 stopped down to f11 might be the sharpest. But the Yashica is plenty sharp, and sharpness isn't a critical element to me beyond a certain level. Subjectively, I just like da way da pictures come out.

Summary: consistent, fast, good across all apertures, good wide open, plenty sharp, manages flare reasonably well, produces pleasing images - especially with color film.
 
Earlier this winter I spent an extended period of time using my Electro. My Hexar was being serviced, and my M.O. is to always at least have a rangefinder and my Rolleiflex when I'm in a serious shooting situation.
The Yashica is not as versatile as my Hexar, but it never disappointed me.
The quality of the images, which you can see here along Hexar stuff, Rollei stuff and Canon 20D stuff, was better than competent, bordering on truly fantastic.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aglimpseoftheworld/296339743/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aglimpseoftheworld/295215615/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aglimpseoftheworld/
 
bunkawen14 said:
Earlier this winter I spent an extended period of time using my Electro. My Hexar was being serviced, and my M.O. is to always at least have a rangefinder and my Rolleiflex when I'm in a serious shooting situation.
The Yashica is not as versatile as my Hexar, but it never disappointed me.
The quality of the images, which you can see here along Hexar stuff, Rollei stuff and Canon 20D stuff, was better than competent, bordering on truly fantastic.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aglimpseoftheworld/296339743/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aglimpseoftheworld/295215615/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aglimpseoftheworld/
Click to expand...

Great work! I really enjoyed the photos.

Cheers.
 
I like my Electro. Easy to use at night. Pix have a unique look. Different from a J8 or an Industar.

Ordway02.jpg


Regards.​
 
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