Just for fun, What are the most extreme 'lenses' you have?

petrochemist · Oct 29, 2021

Feel free to stretch definitions if required & make the extremes in any direction you like, focal length, size, speed, price... but you must include both ends of the extremes, it's no good just listing a sharpest! :excitement:

As an example my slowest lens is a f/128 pinhole in PK mount & my fastest is a 300mm diameter fresnel with a focal length of 200mm (which makes it a f/0.67). I have used both in shots but so far the fresnel only as an auxiliary.

Here's the fresnel (shot full spectrum) as a friend was trying it out.

Fresnel by Mike Kanssen, on Flickr

Space Face · Oct 29, 2021

Jeeeeezzzz. I don't have anything remotely that weird.

petrochemist · Oct 29, 2021

Space Face said:
Jeeeeezzzz. I don't have anything remotely that weird.

A good bit on my lens collection is weird, as long as it's reasonably cheap.
I brought the Fresnel for £20 after watching a YouTube video on hypercentric optics (having reversed perspective). I'll probably retire before I finally get to build it. The pinhole was a bit more but my homemade version wasn't up to much & I couldn't be pothered to redo it properly.

RAZKY · Oct 30, 2021

My 50mm f/2.8 Schneider PC-TS Super-Angulon weighs 28 g per mm of focal length.
My 65mm f/4.5 Leitz Milar weighs 0.615 g per mm of focal length.

Strodav · Oct 30, 2021

Nikkor 600mm f/4G, nicknamed Behemoth. It's 11.1lbs and cost a lot more than the D500 at 1.7lbs I use it on. Phenomenal lens for wildlife / birding, but tough on the back.

petrochemist · Oct 30, 2021

RAZKY said:
My 50mm f/2.8 Schneider PC-TS Super-Angulon weighs 28 g per mm of focal length.
My 65mm f/4.5 Leitz Milar weighs 0.615 g per mm of focal length.

That's a metric I've never contemplated! With such a significant difference it was just the sort of obscure metric I was after!

My lightest lens would be close to your Milar, but mine is only designed for 110 film.
The images from the Milar I saw on Flickr are very impressive, but it's price is well above what I'll normally spend. I might just add it to my wishlist anyway

The tilt shift is also well outside my price bracket. I can probably beat 28g/mm if I sort through the process lenses I've collected to fit onto my 5x4 monorail but none of them have any chance of being anywhere near as useful.

petrochemist · Oct 30, 2021

Strodav said:
Nikkor 600mm f/4G, nicknamed Behemoth. It's 11.1lbs and cost a lot more than the D500 at 1.7lbs I use it on. Phenomenal lens for wildlife / birding, but tough on the back.

I'd love to have a play with a beast like that, but don't kid myself for a second that I'd be able to get results that justify the outlay

Overread · Oct 30, 2021

Canon MPE65mm f2.8 macro
No AF drive; no infinity focus; up to 5:1 magnification

Darn hard to use, but darn good fun too!

zulu42 · Oct 30, 2021

Overread said:
Canon MPE65mm f2.8 macro
No AF drive; no infinity focus; up to 5:1 magnification

Darn hard to use, but darn good fun too!

Whoah - did you know that thing was on your door??!!

Overread · Oct 30, 2021

zulu42 said:
Whoah - did you know that thing was on your door??!!

It's not actually on the door. The door is just the only shot I've got of the thing setup. The bug is called a springtail and they are perhaps 2mm or so in length. You can see them with the naked eye just to track them. But yeah its hard to focus on things that small. Often having to start at 1:1 and then slowly increasing magnification whlist moving to adjust to keep the subject in focus.

ac12 · Oct 30, 2021

500mm mirror
Or maybe the 600mm solid CAT

RAZKY · Oct 31, 2021

petrochemist said:
That's a metric I've never contemplated! With such a significant difference it was just the sort of obscure metric I was after!

My lightest lens would be close to your Milar, but mine is only designed for 110 film.
The images from the Milar I saw on Flickr are very impressive, but it's price is well above what I'll normally spend. I might just add it to my wishlist anyway
The tilt shift is also well outside my price bracket. I can probably beat 28g/mm if I sort through the process lenses I've collected to fit onto my 5x4 monorail but none of them have any chance of being anywhere near as useful.

I bought the T-S new, but the Milar came along with a second hand Visoflex bellows, both like new, at a pretty low price. Leica says it's made to render high contrast, while the Summars are recommended for superior color rendition. I'd like to have each of the Milars, Photars and Summars, but have already spent way too much on way too many lenses!

Lez325 · Oct 31, 2021

Sony 600mm f4 is a beast of a lens

Les

petrochemist · Oct 31, 2021

Overread said:
Canon MPE65mm f2.8 macro
No AF drive; no infinity focus; up to 5:1 magnification

Darn hard to use, but darn good fun too!

Thats a lens thats likely to stay on my wish list. I've found cheaper ways to match it magnification range, but they are far behind in clarity/contrast/sharpness...
Unfortunately the lens is too good to be likely to come down to my price bracket & it only comes in EF mount.

Overread · Oct 31, 2021

petrochemist said:
Thats a lens thats likely to stay on my wish list. I've found cheaper ways to match it magnification range, but they are far behind in clarity/contrast/sharpness...
Unfortunately the lens is too good to be likely to come down to my price bracket & it only comes in EF mount.

It's been ages since I last looked around so my links are all missing/gone/dead ones now, but I know that there are ways to get the same magnification at a higher image quality. It mostly involved messing with high end 50mm and similar primes and also microscope lenses. The MPE is quite old and technology has come on a long way since it first appeared. That said it's greatest value is the zooming in magnification. Being able to start at 1:1 or 2:1 where you can see what's going on more readily and then increase things up to 5:1.

But don't feel too bad - I'm sitting here jealous at all the 600mm owners