New lens - custom made for fun artsy fartsy stuff

[SquarePeg]

Pretty happy with this new lens. Its a custom made lens made with a Pentacon 80mm 2.8 AV lens from Russia and a Fuji X mount. I found it on eBay (long story for another day) from a seller in CO. It’s got that “Trioplan” like bubble bokeh which I wanted for flower and night shots. Couldn’t justify paying for a real Trioplan - $1600!!! Picked this one up for just over $200. I didn’t buy it for its sharpness but even that is better than I expected. It was dark out when they delivered it today so had to make do with my kitchen lights, some twinkle lights for background and some flowers. No post on these. A bit of a learning curve for me with MF but I’ll get there. Can’t wait to get out and use this in good light!



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[url=https://flic.kr/p/23AuvAz]

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[Derrel]

Has an interesting bokeh ball signature! Some people don't like the bright ring bokeh balls, others like them a lot, and still others don't care one way or another. How big is the lens, physically?

 

[Peeb]

Especially like #4.

 

[katsrevenge]

Lovely.

I find it irksome that as soon as I find out about these 'cheap' fun lenses...the prices skyrocket. Ah well.

 

[SquarePeg]

Has an interesting bokeh ball signature! Some people don't like the bright ring bokeh balls, others like them a lot, and still others don't care one way or another. How big is the lens, physically?

I was specifically looking for the ring bokeh. The lens is smaller and lighter than a can of soda. Bigger than the Fuji 35/2 and smaller/lighter than the Fuji 18-55. I’ll post a pic of it tomorrow side by side.

The test pics above were all with the background lights the same size and an equal distance away so very uniform looking. Hopefully in a more natural environment it will be more diverse like with dappled sunlight or a streetscape.

Finally ordered some extension tubes for the X mount and they should work with this too.

 

[SquarePeg]

Especially like #4.

Thanks!

Lovely.

I find it irksome that as soon as I find out about these 'cheap' fun lenses...the prices skyrocket. Ah well.

Iknow what you mean. As soon as I bought this one I took a class on Creatuve Live that was all about Lensbaby and was kicking myself over not waiting!

 

[Derrel]

Extension tubes are pretty much a must-have, in my book. Keep in mind that they can actually move the focus point to _inside the lens_ itself when the focal length is short, so the tubes might not work on the short end of many zooms, but will work on the longer focal lengths. You'll most likely find that tubes in the 12mm to 20mm lengths are the most useful,most of the time.

 

[Gary A.]

Fun stuff!

 

[SquarePeg]

Photos of the lens compared to Fuji 18-55 kit. Similar in size but much lighter.

It’s a bit taller than the kit when compacted.

A bit shorter at full zoom. The MF on the custom lens moves the barrel so it expands but it is not a zoom.

Size reference.

X mount. It’s a nice fit. No sticking. Very smooth. I was worried about that as I’ve read that cheap adapters can be tight and could damage the camera. There’s an 18 blade aperture in there but it doesn’t function as an aperture adjust. You can use to vignette or you can sort of swirl the bokeh a bit. Haven’t really tried that yet.

Front of lens. No threads for a lens hood. Any suggestions?

 

[jcdeboever]

Nice rendering. IMO, a lens doesn't have to be sharp. I wish Fujifilm would copy some of those art type lens from back in the day. I really like my Tiar 11A 135mm, m42 converted, it has a very nice look to it, similar to what your getting but not lit up edges of the balls. I just picked up a Petri 55mm for $5.00, what a strange bird, not sure about it yet to post anything. As far as the extension tubes, the MCEX-11 doesn't work well on my Tiar 11A, not sure why, probably would be ok on a tripod with a macro rail and a lot of patience. The MCEX-11 works pretty nice on that 18-55 for what its worth. Works crazy good on a NIkon AIS 50mm 1.8 with adapter too.

 

[Gary A.]

I have a LensBaby. I need to use it.

 

[pjaye]

That bokeh...

 

[katsrevenge]

Especially like #4.

Thanks!

Lovely.

I find it irksome that as soon as I find out about these 'cheap' fun lenses...the prices skyrocket. Ah well.

Iknow what you mean. As soon as I bought this one I took a class on Creatuve Live that was all about Lensbaby and was kicking myself over not waiting!

After I saw your post I searched "Trioplan" and some of its relatives. (That effect is very neat!! ) Some used to be cheap, and by that I mean 10-25 bucks!! That seems to be the case a lot.. I mean..the helios lenses...or the more interesting (and adaptable) lenses for other things... Ah well, always late to the party, that's me! LOL

I have a lot of the lensbaby stuff...but I was very patient on the fleabay. I don't know what system you use (and I hope it's ok to mention!) but I do have a composer and double glass optic for sale on this forum. I got it as part of a lot, have no use for it. There is also a single glass optic and case, but didn't have it on hand when I took those photos so it's unlisted till my ad falls off the first page, LOL.

 

[SquarePeg]

I have a LensBaby. I need to use it.

I think you need to do Lensbaby across America.

 

[SquarePeg]

Especially like #4.

Thanks!

Lovely.

I find it irksome that as soon as I find out about these 'cheap' fun lenses...the prices skyrocket. Ah well.

Iknow what you mean. As soon as I bought this one I took a class on Creatuve Live that was all about Lensbaby and was kicking myself over not waiting!

After I saw your post I searched "Trioplan" and some of its relatives. (That effect is very neat!! ) Some used to be cheap, and by that I mean 10-25 bucks!! That seems to be the case a lot.. I mean..the helios lenses...or the more interesting (and adaptable) lenses for other things... Ah well, always late to the party, that's me! LOL

I have a lot of the lensbaby stuff...but I was very patient on the fleabay. I don't know what system you use (and I hope it's ok to mention!) but I do have a composer and double glass optic for sale on this forum. I got it as part of a lot, have no use for it. There is also a single glass optic and case, but didn't have it on hand when I took those photos so it's unlisted till my ad falls off the first page, LOL.

I use Fuji X. Advised on another forum that I should buy the lens baby with Canon or Nikon mount, for me it would be Nikon, and then use an adapter and a lens turbo? To create a bigger field of view I guess and better use the effects of the lens? Still researching all that. Also resell value might be better for Nikon? I’ll take a look at your post,thanks for the heads up but after my last gas attack I probably have to wait a while lol.

The short version of my trip down the eBay rabbit hole... a few of the people I follow on Flickr had some beautiful photos made with the real Trioplan - which is way out of my price range. I went on eBay to search and ended up on a bunch of sites reading about adapted lenses and DIY conversions and then started looking at sample photos of the Russian lenses. In the end I bought a Helios 44-4 and a Meyer Gorlitz Domiplan 50 mm from Ukraine. A little risky but they were both pretty cheap so I figured I’d chance it. Those will need adapters and may or may not work and the 3 week delivery window was too much time for me to wait patiently. The next day I was checking on eBay again (I was obsessed lol), and suddenly there was that custom made Fuji mount with the Pentacon 2.8 AV that I had read was the “poor man’s Trioplan” lens. Because it was custom-made with a Fuji mount already, I wouldn’t have to do any of the adapter and DIY stuff that I had read about. It was a total impulse buy knowing I’d regret it if I passed it up. I’m happy with it so far.