Digital Ink'd

Abandoned Brooklyn Subway Train Line - Disused Sometimes you have to keep plugging away and just keep moving forward. Don't get derailed. Lens Info: Super-Takumar 55mm 1.2 @ f/2  © Digital Ink'D Photography

Bad Apples -  Super-Takumar 135 Green Apples but bad to the core - Super-Takumar I shot these blighted apples over in my neighbor's yard with the Super-Takumar 135mm with a hood.  The lighting source was trickery with a hood on and outside being cloudy in some places and bright in other areas. Hopefully tomorrow I can get access to this abandoned place I want to shoot so badly.

Capturing the ethereal beauty of the night sky, I recently took my new Takumar 135mm 1:3.5 lens for a test under the stars, setting my camera to ISO 200, a shutter speed of 1/200s, and manual mode to best capture the lunar landscape. With the aperture set between f/16 and f/22, the intricate grey details of the moon's surface were vividly showcased against the backdrop of a perfectly clear night sky. As I jot down these thoughts, the clock nudges closer to 3AM EST, specifically 2:37AM EST, underscoring the serene quiet of the early morning. The intention was to complement this lunar exploration with some low-light video footage, utilizing the Yashica 1.4 lens. However, the whims of nature intervened, as clouds veiled the celestial spectacle, obscuring the view and dashing my plans. Such is the unpredictable thrill of astrophotography, yet the promise of future supermoons keeps the spirit of anticipation alive. This nocturnal venture not only offered a glimpse into the moon...

The best and worst of times in the subway is a early morning ride. Quiet, buzzed and sleepy travelers. 

Rare 135mm Tele-Lens A 135mm 1:2.8 lens. Tokyo Koki Mount??? I am here trying to find the appropriate adapter for this 135mm Minetar lens. If anyone knows about this pre-cursor to the T-Mount hit me up in the comments or my Facebook page here .  The seller states it's a 49.2mm/1-15/16" Tokyo Koki mount. Used by Soligor, Sun, Tokyo Koko, Vemar, and other lens manufacturers. Adapters have been seen for Minolta MD, M42, and Nikon cameras. I am looking for an adapter in the M42 range since I have an M42-EOS adapter. You can view more mount photos here in this folder on Mediafire. http://www.mediafire.com/folder/mflhi6x9bo218/Lenses Source : eBay Listing

I think this lens is pretty rare by manual focus standard lenses. It is not even listed on the M42 database list. The 28mm and 135mm Samigon are only listed but not Samigon 35mm. I wonder why. Just a quick look over. Source: Samigon Corp Lens Database

A short lens test using the Zenitar telephoto 135mm manual focus lens. I wished I could of shot this in ML RAW rather than Canon's h.264. I think I might be taking a trip over the Magic Lantern forums so I can at least shoot for a few seconds and really open the Canon 600D. It would really give these old lenses another century to shine. My growing 135mm collection is growing really fast. Now, all I need is a Super-Takumar 85mm. I need to control my G.A.S. urges. My wallet is not happy! This was shot at f/5.6, ISO 100, 1920x1080 24p. Many more lenses I have in store for this blog!

This is a shot of some weeds in my neighbor's overgrown backyard. Just the other day he cleaned it up. I wonder why? :)

Shot all these photos wide open at f/2. No editing was done in the post. Straight RAW and unprocessed. You can't go wrong with a Super-Takumar lens. Sharp images, sharp contrast, and crazy bokeh. I purchased my 55mm copy (a steal) for around $23.00. The lens does have an inordinate amount of these white particles sitting on the back element lens but you would not even know that if I did not reveal this tragic flaw. The pictures here would not even show any discernable trace of particulate in the way. The quality make and feel of Super-Takumars is phenomenal. If you are not into manual focus lenses and believe in the auto-focus Gods, a Takuma inside your camera bag is worth a bit of space any day. I recommend getting yourself a copy in the 50mm, 55mm, and 135mm. Matter of fact any will do. These lenses perform like champions. If the postman would hurry up and deliver my takumar 135mm I can get outside and test it out. Very willing flower buds and bee subjects for my...

The beautiful Komura Sankyo Koki K.K (Koki). Read more about this lens at Komura Wiki !! Two Sample Images Below

I started trying to see what this lens can really do in sunny conditions today. I was a bit disappointed in how it renders the background considerably softer and not very sharp. Outside is very bright and I opened it all the way to f/2.8. This lens is very soft. You can see that with soft areas of the picture with my bicycle handle and the background. (I should park my bike out of the way sometimes) It is not really a good wide-angle lens to use. I feel this lens is more adaptable for up-close shots rather than wide shots. I think I will try that today and maybe tomorrow and come back with a couple review shots to determine if I should keep this lens in my camera bag or return it to fleBay. I am going to do some more research on this lens because it seems this copy or glass isn't very good. Well off to test this alternative lens some more. Lens info: Samigon 35mm Auto Wide F/2.8

 A little bit overexposed than the first image.  This morning I took an early morning shoot in the park with all the early morning bicyclists and joggers. I enjoyed it today because I opened up my camera and interchangeable lenses on the beautiful clove where three benches open up to the dark green pond full of fish and other unknowns. I sampled the Komura Sankyo Kohki 135mm and the Samigon 35mm . The Kohki 135mm photos opened wide at f/3.5 causing a bit of overexposure due to the bright sun with zero clouds so early at 8 in the morning. I stopped it down around f/5.6 and f/8 and the pictures really started to shine with sharp colors and a nice contrast of greens and yellows. The Sankyo Kohki really sings at f/5.6. Old Japanese lenses really give you something more than auto-focus lenses. Many will argue modern lenses are better with better optics glass and coatings. In the alternative, while these old manual focus lenses might not have snazzy modern...

Daisy over the fence Amongst the Weeds I am loving this old Yashionon-DS 1.4 50mm. I am really in love it with it to say the least. Too bad my nifty-fifty is on the shelf dust tanning. This morning I took some quick shots in the garden over the fence. Really liked how it turned out. You can really see the bokeh in the background. I really need to get this lens aperture ring fix since I can only shoot wide open (f/16) and not at f/1.4. I'll get to the lens repair place sometime this summer. These are RAW unedited JPEG's straight from the camera. Lens: Yashica Yashinon-DS 50mm 1:1.4

Edited Unedited RAW Image Lens Info: Komura Sankyo Kohki F=135mm 1:3.5

Late Spring Brighton Beachgoers Today, I took a long ride cruising Ocean Parkway until I came to the end of one part of Brooklyn. Ocean Parkway extends over a distance of about five miles (8 km), running almost north to south from the vicinity of Prospect Park to Brighton Beach. On the boardwalk were a lot of couples, old people, families and beachgoers. It wasn't surprising to see so much people since Friday we had rain from morning until probably late into early Saturday morning. I took a few shots of my new Japanese glass I bought recently. I think I am having a problem buying all these old telephoto lens. Another 135mm added to the collection. If only if I would save my money for a vintage Carl Zeiss Planar T*. Here I only took a few snaps because my previous location did not pan out to test out the Asanuma 135mm. I look forward in the coming days in using this nice lens on my Canon 600D. NYC Boats taxing on the water Seagulls--Beach Vultures Runner Le...

This Japanese lens was made by Asanuma Shokai in the early '10s and '20s. The lens is pretty well built for these particular types of old manual lenses. It s pretty light and not to solid or heavy like a Takumar. A good choice for a short tele-photo lens in the camera bag. So far the images are pretty sharp and overall great contrasting colors. A lens I will be surely using for the foreseeable future. Asanuma Shōkai has been a Japanese distributor of photographic supplies from the 19th century to the present day (2010). It manufactured its own large-format studio or field cameras, and also some amateur cameras in the 1910s and 1920s. Today it is best known for its range of accessories sold under the brand King. Source: Photo Pentax , Camerapedia ,

A quick indoor test shot of a Komura Sankyo Kohki 135mm pentax screw mount. It has 16 aperture blades. Avery well regarded telephoto lens for your lens bag. Vintage glass is pretty extraordinary. I can see myself using this lens often if I was not so tired after work. More to come from this excellent lens. Camera Info Canon T3i/600D ISO 100 f/22 Exposure: 3.2 sec Source: Pentax Lens Forum , mflenses Forum ,

Tom Majerski just sampled a Blackmagic Cinema Camera (BCC) and a 5d MkII together with the same lens, shutter, and ISO settings. This short 11-second video shows us that the A video sequence is definitely the Canon 5d MkII which shows greater details in the highlights than the B video sequence. It looks like the Magic Lantern firmware is really going to affect people who were ready to purchase BCCs. Just buy a couple used 5 Mk IIs and 5 MkIII and you have a capable professional video camera that really gives more bang for your buck (G.A.S.) Check out the low light test comparison with the Magic Lantern firmware below. Magic Lantern vs. H264 ISO Shootout   Magic Lantern vs H264 ISO Shootout. from MIDAS MANAGEMENT on Vimeo . This is really exciting news for Canon owners and soon-to-be Canon owners. I can't wait for the stable release to hit the pipeline. Source: Tom Majerski , Midas Management , Planet5d Blog , NoFilmSchool , 

EOS 600D/T3i synced with a gorgeous orange Yashinon 50mm.  Click to enlarge pictures. A powerhouse pairing. No benchwarmer 1:1.4 Yashica and an EOS T3i/600D. Pairing a vintage Yashica Yashinon-DS 50mm 1:1.4 lens with a Canon EOS 600D turns out to be a delightful experiment in photography, infusing images with a magical orange tint that seems to add a warm, ethereal glow to the subjects. In a creative endeavor, I captured several indoor raw JPEG images within the whimsical confines of a dollhouse, featuring characters from Skylanders Spyro's Adventure and Skylanders Giants. Opting for settings of ISO 800 and f/16, with a neutral picture style and white fluorescent lighting, I aimed to bring out the richness of the scene, further enhancing it with an exposure compensation of +1, all the while forgoing the use of a tripod. This session underscored the necessity of investing in a MeFoto tripod to stabilize future shots. The lens, even when used wide open, as...