Photos with SuperAngulon 3.4

deepwhite said:
That's what I thought when I saw you mentioned "Beaumarchais".

I barely escaped from that street that afternoon. One camera I loved a lot was my Rollei 35S, and that day I saw almost all versions of the Rollei 35 in one store, including the special version that only 1200 were made...... 😱

The SA21/3.4 in the store is chrome, very beautiful. The one I got now is black. Luckily I got it with almost everything, including the hard to find filter.
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😀 very small world indeed! they thought i was an absolute idiot when i said the metering was all messed up on my R-D1, claiming i just needed to shoot at higher ISO to speed up my shutter. that lasted all of two shots before i realised they had no clue 🙄

but that lens was an absolute beauty! owned by a collector... i gather it had everything (other than the filter as i doubt very much it was ever used)... exchange rate is killing me as well (i'm still in $ even though i'm living here). maybe i'll have to have you pick me up one 😛

it is truly the most dangerous street in paris...
 
want you burn more fuel? 🙂

http://www.tomasis.com/eskilstuna/1/

I like only four first pix so I added other as preview of the lens

All are most vignette corrected except last one, just to show example. I notice if I adjust vignette, find instead of a bit more soft corners. But it works, seems so.

Next last (a lot of blades) photo shows me just different characteristic unlike to other leitz lenses I have. I dont how to explain, but when I shoot houses or nature, I got a lot feeling of 3d. I dont get "same effects" with other Leica lenses I have. Has it to do something with lack of microcontrast or medium contrast at general? I dont know.
 
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morgan said:
I love the character of it. Dare I say, kind of Holga-ish. What's the going rate these days?...
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Heh, I wasn't going to say it but yah I was thinking wide-angle Holga when I was looking through the images (which I mostly love).

How many Holgas can you buy for the price of one of these? 😀
 
How many Holgas can you buy for the price of one of these? 😀
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40 to 200, depending on Holga and Super Angulon pricings. 😀

Actually, I'd like to find a user 3.4 Super Angulon, myself.😎 Might tempt me to sell my 21mm f4 CV.
 
Not to rain on your vignette parade folks but before spending little fortunes in lenses cannot you do the same with any not too bad 21? Here with CV 21/4 P. Too contrasty? Easy to adjust if need be. No glow? Agree but i don't see any in your pics above either. YMMV.

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That is a lot of Holgas! I think I'll make it a Holga week this week and give the R-D1 a rest, just in honor of my lack of capital for an SA 🙂

I need to get my gear priorities straight. I've got a serious M6 bug, the new CV 28/2, and the SA. So Instead I'll carry around the Holga and maybe my lomo - just for a little perspective.
 
tomasis: love your work. SA21/3.4 on film is very different from in digital.

cam: sorry can't find another good deal for you here.... 😛

LCT: I also believe in "shooter over tools". Yet I also love a tool when it simply does something in its way. IMHO, the "characteristics" of the SA21/3.4, like vignetting on the side, distinguish color rendition, etc., varies from photo to photo, in a non-linear way. That's something very hard to imitate.

I love your samples, but the second one really doesn't look like a SA21/3.4 to me. Maybe it's because I "know" it's not, or maybe there's something that's really hard to accomplish in post-production. From the little I can say, the vignetting is different.

I'm not sure if I'm good enough to tell a SA21/3.4 from those not, but when I want that character and go with the SA21/3.4, I almost always got what I want.

My girlfriend and I attended a photo contest that went on for 24 hours, just for amateur's fun. The rule says we can't do any post-production to our photos. We got one subject to shoot for every 5~6 hours and there were totally 5 of them. One subject was "gorgeous but weird", and we used SA21/3.4 + R-D1s exclusively for that subject, and were very satisfied with the results. I'll check the rules later; if we are allowed to post our works for that contest in public, I'll post some for that session here.

Last but not least, while I don't like a "no you guys are wrong" reply to everything, I do love discussion that brings us close to the truth. Or just a casual one. Please keep giving us your feedback, and we, at least I myself, will also know better if this love for SA21/3.4 is "scientific" or just an "emotional attachment".
 
Deepwhite - I'd love to see people shots/portraits with the SA, so if you're allowed to post them, that'd be great. That contest sounds like a lot of fun.

I agree about trying to duplicate characteristics of film/lenses in software. It's very tough to do, especially when placed next to the real thing.
 
no bashing, LCT! he's my honey and has been hugely helpful to me. he is most definitely not what you accuse him of being. i think he's trying to warn the unwary to take another look before grabbing an SA and being hugely disappointed if they're not willing to work with its idiosyncrasies. it's an awful lot of money to shell out for 50 year old lens.

to wit, this is an example of the SA using in-camera metering:

here is an example of what you can recover by setting the exposure at -2 in Epson RAW (note that it does diddly for the camera blur):

here is an example of the distinctive vignetting:

(keep in mind all these are test photos only, done from the doorway of the camera store on a somewhat overcast day.)
 

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and this ones for you, LCT. there is a glow 😛 okay, so i had to play with the levels a little...
 

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Cam, I hope you don't think I was bashing lct, that wasn't the case at all. I was coming more from the perspective that after trying to replicate characteristics of cameras like the holga in photoshop, I just now use the holga instead.

I also agree, that it is a lot to pay for an old lens that's slow and has a very particular render to it (especially in color) and not an everday lens.
 
Thank you for your comments folks. I'm but an old Leica freak with 30+ Leitz and Leica lenses so don't count on be to bash my favourite brand but i would just draw the attention of some of our readers on the fact that vignetting can be done for free in a couple of minutes with PP.
I've shot the yellow chairs on purpose to give an example of this. I simply used the vignetting tool of the Epson raw converter for 90mm lenses. One can also vary the vignetting effect like in the B&W house above where i chose another setting, dont remember which sorry.
Cam: Thank you for your kind words. What we call usually 'glow' is a kind of halo in the highlights that one can get with some early but also late lenses due to a mix of flare, focus shift and other aberrations. See below an example with a late Summilux 35 pre-asph at f/1.4. You could probably get the same or better 😉 with your old Summilux 50. Less chances to get it with contrasty lenses like Elmarit 21/2.8 asph or CV 21/4 P though but i seem to recall having got some with a SA 21/4 a couple of decades ago. With the SA 21/3.4 possibly as well but i don't know.

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Cam and LCT,

I never tried to bash LCT's comment. If it's due to my English then I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. I'm not a native English speaker and that happens sometimes.
 
LCT and deepwhite - i adore you both. both sides of the story are greatly appreciated -- i just wanted no offense taken...

eta: if i could find a 21mm that drew and glowed like my 50mm pre-asph Lux.... 😀
 
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So this week I'll be selling my Elmarit 21 2,8 and buying a really nice SuperAngulon that a dealer has reserved for me until next Monday...

I'll keep ya updated... ;-)
 
tomasis said:
Why not M2, M4-P but if you cannot live without AE, so...I mean it is fast way to get if you really want use SA 🙂
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Well, it's just my excuse to buy a M7......

But also me not knowing that the M2 and M4-P got AE. Forgive my ignorance; I got into photo shooting seriously only about 4 months ago......
 
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