Pentax Monochrome

sojournerphoto said:
The only difference is the mount - I no longer have any Canon EF mount bodies, but the lens is available in Nikon F and Pentax K mounts. The lens is one of those Zeiss lenses that, when you get it right, has real pop and punchy sublime colour. The out of focus is smooth and not distracting - just gets out of the way leaving focus on the subject.
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Apologies, I meant the spectral response differences between the Zeiss and Pentax.
 
Zuiko-logist said:
Apologies, I meant the spectral response differences between the Zeiss and Pentax.
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Sorry, I can’t comment on the Pentax, but I always think the Zeiss response is pretty consistent across the z series slr and rf ranges. It tends to rich but clean - very slightly warm but with high contrast. I was always struck by how well my daughters skin was drawn by the 2/35.

I found this spectral response graph for the 2.8/25 in zf (slr) and IR versions. The ZF has a very small drop off at the blue end and a small lift in the reds that’s consistent with my experience.

25mm-comp.jpg

It’s interesting, in colour so much happens between the projected image and print that spectral response can get lost, but in mono it becomes a key element defining how the picture looks.
 
sojournerphoto said:
Sorry, I can’t comment on the Pentax, but I always think the Zeiss response is pretty consistent across the z series slr and rf ranges. It tends to rich but clean - very slightly warm but with high contrast. I was always struck by how well my daughters skin was drawn by the 2/35.

I found this spectral response graph for the 2.8/25 in zf (slr) and IR versions. The ZF has a very small drop off at the blue end and a small lift in the reds that’s consistent with my experience.

25mm-comp.jpg

It’s interesting, in colour so much happens between the projected image and print that spectral response can get lost, but in mono it becomes a key element defining how the picture looks.
Click to expand...
The only difference between the ZF and ZF-IR lenses is the coating, which is optimised in the IR versions to maximise IR transmission and avoid hotspots in IR photos. These graphs really show how much difference coatings make.
 
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sojournerphoto said:
Sorry, I can’t comment on the Pentax, but I always think the Zeiss response is pretty consistent across the z series slr and rf ranges. It tends to rich but clean - very slightly warm but with high contrast. I was always struck by how well my daughters skin was drawn by the 2/35.

I found this spectral response graph for the 2.8/25 in zf (slr) and IR versions. The ZF has a very small drop off at the blue end and a small lift in the reds that’s consistent with my experience.

25mm-comp.jpg

It’s interesting, in colour so much happens between the projected image and print that spectral response can get lost, but in mono it becomes a key element defining how the picture looks.
Click to expand...
Thank you
 
Freakscene said:
The only difference between the ZF and ZF-IR lenses is the coating, which is optimised in the IR versions to maximise IR transmission and avoid hotspots in IR photos. These graphs really show how much difference coatings make.
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Back when I was at Uni studying maths I did a course in electromagnetic theory. I’ve never forgotten the wonder when we derived the result showing a coating can reduce reflection to zero - I saw the answer coming a few lines out and was surprised than none of my peers seemed to grasp the significance of the final result. Coating are pretty impressive
 
sojournerphoto said:
Back when I was at Uni studying maths I did a course in electromagnetic theory. I’ve never forgotten the wonder when we derived the result showing a coating can reduce reflection to zero - I saw the answer coming a few lines out and was surprised than none of my peers seemed to grasp the significance of the final result. Coating are pretty impressive
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In practice the results are incredibly impressive too.
 
sojournerphoto said:
Thanks to you all, a Monochrome just arrived with a 16-50 and a, thrown in, 55-300. I will definitely have to read the manual… otherwise I’ll get grumpy with its complexity. Still, astrotracing🙂
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Yes, some of the complexity is acceptable, given, well, astrotracing as an example.

1730780831278.jpeg
 
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sojournerphoto said:
View attachment 4848268Quick test shot from the shed last night - iso 100,000 f5.6 1/25 @50mm

The noise doesn’t downsample well on transfer from camera to phone, but this is very useable.
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The full ISO range up to 1,600,000 is entirely usable. Not exactly noise free or even ‘clean’ but usable. And given the lenses you might need it.
 
I would be more interested in the Pentax Monochrome if i still had any Pentax lenses. But that was long ago and far away... aside from the SMC-Pentax-L 43mm Special (LTM). 😉


Roots - Santa Clara 2022
Leica M10-M + Pentax 43mm f/1.9
ISO 1250 @ f/4 @ 1/125

Lovely work in this thread!

G
 
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