Shots from a Sony Alpha TT session, 8th November 2007:

(TT = Teh Tarik, the Malaysian national beverage of conversations. Screw you Starbucks!)

Contrary to popular belief, I am not chief poisoner. kenki has managed to poison me!

The original Minolta 80-200mm F2.8G APO HS. You can feel the weight of the glass shifting as it focuses! Rare indeed for its 72mm filter thread.

I prefer this over the Sony 70-200mm F2.8G SSM. Its weight seems better distributed to the back of the lens. Although the Sony is 1340 grams and the Minolta 1280 grams, for 60 grams difference, it feels like a world of difference. Plus, HS (High Speed focus gearing) means arguably faster focusing on the Sony Alpha 700 than what a Super Sonic wave Motor can give.

I did feel that the HS was fast, perhaps faster than the SSM. Lenses with lightweight focusing elements, fast gear ratios and limited focusing range (like my beloved Vivitar Series 1 28-105mm F2.8-3.8) focus instantly without a doubt.

The Minolta 200mm F2.8G HS holds the record for zippy screw-driven focusing, though. Having experienced ted‘s 790 gram wonder for sports, I cannot imagine how much faster it can get if Sony puts an even more powerful focus motor in future bodies.

200mm F2.8 1/60s ISO1600 on my Sony A700.

Poor, poor lufiahs. I pity him, too.

The Peter Lim, or mac on PhotoMalaysia. 80mm F2.8 1.80s ISO1600. Check out teh_oo_ais in the background, who is in a very weird position!

Still, that wasn’t what got me.

It was this.

The Minolta 85mm F1.4.

One of the finest samples of Minolta bokeh at work. Second only to the Minolta/Sony 135mm F2.8/T4.5 Smooth Transition Focus lens. Crispy where in focus, a nice liquid blend where out of focus. 85mm F1.4.

Note that the Carl Zeiss 85mm F1.4 is not the same optically; while it is blisteringly sharp and free of chromatic and spherical aberration, its background does not blend as nicely due to its MTF-chart-topping high contrast design.

Alphaein. 85mm F1.4.

I love the naturally saturated color wide open! 85mm F1.4.

teh_oo_ice. 85mm F1.4. He is more in focus than if he was shot with a 50mm F1.4 because he has to be further away to fill the frame the same way.

Alphaein on macdude‘s Sigma 24-70mm F2.8 EX DG. At 70mm F2.8 it passed the misai test (when focused accurately of course.)

Thanks teh_oo_ais for taking this! 150mm F4 (which came from my Minolta 50mm F1.4 original + Tamron 1.4x 4-element teleconverter + Kenko 2x 4-element teleconverter.)

It seems like Ted will always always have a spy shot of him taken whenever he eats at A&W Taman Jaya.

This is KJ.

“Wah terror!” some bystanders say. KJ shot this, I think.

He might’ve shot this, too.

Yo-yos sit on his finger like a perched bird.

Flash, and some Photoshop, gives a black background.

Yeah he’s been doing this a while, as a professional yo-yo player even.

You might even spot him in a clown costume sometimes.

All of these shots are crops of the Peleng 8mm F3.5 circular fisheye through the Tamron 1.4x teleconverter (which gives a nice frame-filling shot and catches about everything I’d like to see without feeling like the yo-yo would smash into my camera anytime soon.) This is an uncropped, unprocessed shot to show what it originally looked like. There is a slight out-of-focus in all the images because it all looks in focus on the manual-focus Peleng.

A star for your efforts.

And now, for a dedication to my current always-on lens, the Sigma 17-35mm F2.8-4 EX full-frame A-mount lens.

With Creative Styles set to Contrast -3, Saturation +3 and Sharpness +3, I can get a very flat but colored image… which is an effect I like. Ohai Waifon! 😉

It focuses close to 50 centimeters only, with good sharpness at F2.8 and amazing clarity and detail at 17mm F4. Out-of-focus is not too contrasty though minor artifacts show in the far background.

Vote for me CLPVOTE Christy!

…because I sit and put my arms in a hexagonal nut position.

The infamous Sigma yellow is obvious but I like what it does for some pictures.

While I’d love a 16mm on APS-C, the 17mm is sufficient. I always felt 18mm to be not-wide… just accomodating for those people who’d step back to shoot crowds.

At 35mm F4, it has brilliant separation, with the background thrown into a subtly 2D look while I, the subject, looks 3D. A F2.8 or F2.0 lens will make the background too blurred out and make it unable to figure out what is in the out-of-focus area… while also making part of the subject soft and out of focus.

I also like the mottled, textured look of the greens.

The only problem with the lens is the Sigma yellow (though I don’t mind) and the brightline bokeh (out-of-focus points of lights appear to be discs of light with bright outlines… which can be easily Photoshopped. However, it has already made its effect on the railings which have faint borders.)

Some lenses make the backgrounds too contrasty and thus distracting. This Sigma, like (old) Minolta and Leica lenses, don’t, and concentrate on making pretty pictures. Understandably, Minolta worked a lot with Leica in the 80’s when the Minolta autofocus lenses came out, which is why the Minolta 70-210mm F4 beercan and Minolta 28-135mm F4-4.5 are highly regarded for beautiful bokeh and sharpness.

Unfortunately, Sony Carl Zeiss lenses are geared in the opposite direction – insane sharpness at the expense of less-than-Minolta bokeh. In out-of-focus areas, some midtones get darkened while some highlights get a boost in brightness. While it is still smooth-looking it does not look as calm.

Further reading:
Sigma 17-35mm F2.8-4 EX on the Minolta Dynax 7

One night, Justin and I kidnapped KJ and brought him to a undisclosed location where he would be brainwashed.

I met my match, a Minolta lens geek who did some frankenstein lens hacking.

Guess what lens this was shot with!

Yes, it’s the old Minolta MD W.Rokkor 35mm F1.8. He duct-taped a MD-to-A-mount adapter to its base. It is beautiful wide open.

Then came this wonderful softie…

…the famous bargain, the Jupiter-9 85mm F2.0 lens in M42 mount. It has 15 aperture blades! However, it did nothing for bright-line bokeh… unlike the Minolta 85mm F1.4G which has one of the best bokeh renditions of the A-mount auto-focusing lenses. (The 135mm F2.8/T4.5 STF does not count despite being the best bokeh lens ever because it’s manual focus only.)

Now when I say bokeh, it’s a subjective term, but I mean a bit more than just “ooo wow big circles in the background!” The big circles have to be non-distracting.

Also, note that the Jupiter-9 did not have great separation when wide open. Good separation means that the background looks 2D and creamy, and not too contrasty… while the subject is 3D and has a pop that stands out from the background.

Speaking of which, the picture of the Jupiter-9 above was taken with my Sigma 17-35mm F2.8-4.0 EX at 35mm F4.0. Here, you see that the image is 2 distinct layers – the lens being held by my hand, and the blurred out background. The Sigma shows good separation here… and often looks better with better light.

Then there was this oddity…

…a frankenstein made of two lenses. The geek (who shall remain unnamed) combined a broken Minolta 35-105mm F3.5-4.5 with something else. I can’t say it was of functional use, though.

Then, we stalked a shop across the road!

This was a T-mount Maksutov MC MTO-11CA 1000mm F10 lens (note the DIY handle). The little dude next to it is my Peleng 8mm F3.5 circular fisheye (originally T-mount but with a T-mount to M42 adapter and M42 to A-mount adapter).

Catadioptric mirror lens!

Some kind of monster. The brand name is not even written on the lens!

Beware KJ for he is armed and ready to shoot.

Top: Tamron 200-400mm F5.6 on Tamron 1.4x teleconverter on Kenko 2x teleconverter on Sony Alpha 100 for 1100mm F16. Autofocus light enabled, focal length reported so it can use Super SteadyShot, can zoom, doesn’t have donut out-of-focus spots, lighter and heavier towards the mount which is good.
Bottom: Maksutov 1000mm F10 on Sony Alpha 700 for 1000mm F10. Focal length not reported so it can’t be stabilized, but it’s way brighter at F10. The lens is so big it is a challenge to fit your fingers in between to hold the camera grip!

Howdy.

Exactly 1 week later, Justin and I found that we had succeeded in our brainwash mission.

More geeking out time! Here’s the Sony Alpha 700 with a Kenko 2x teleconverter, Tamron 1.4x teleconverter and Tamron 200-400mm F5.6 (to reach 1100mm F16). On it is the Sony HVL-F56AM flash just for kicks.

On the very day that I got the A700, I shot this with the Sony A100. Without flash, that is. Unfortunately we’d need someone to point a light at his/herself to see anything. 1100mm F16 1/320s ISO800.

Hey man what’s cooking? 1100mm F25 1/80s ISO800.

Traffic stopper. 1100mm F20 1/125 ISO800.

Sony A700 at KLCC Park. Finally I came early enough to catch some people at the KLCC Skybridge! 1100mm F16 1/250s ISO1600.

I revisited the Vivitar Series 1 28-105mm F2.8-3.8 when I sold my A100 and kit lens. The out-of-focus areas are relatively creamy. Delectable! 105mm F4.

The A700 with its ISO6400 and low-light AF capabilities make way for new types of shots, like cats in streetlight. 50mm F1.4 1/60s ISO6400.

The Sigma 24-70mm F2.8 EX! I quite like the Sigma yellow here. Its focal range is nice for APS-C, and even better on full frame.

What a chunk. It takes 82mm front filters!

I remembered that I had a Vivitar 24mm F2.0 OM-mount lens at home, so I tried to hold it in front of the camera like a tilt-shift lens.

Given the proper tilt, I can get a bigger zone of in-focus area even when the lens is wide open.

Given the interesting bokeh in the top-right corner, it might be worth doing a mount operation.

I also tried holding my Auto Chinon 135mm F2.8 K-mount manual focus lens in front of my A100. Flare is because I had to move the lens further away from the body in order to focus nearer, and light would leak in.

That said, it is also tempting to remount this lens.

Back with Version 1 of the Sony A700 firmware, I experienced hanging when I shot this with DRO+. I’m guessing that DRO+ chokes on complex highlight/shadow data like this.

Same for this. However, with Version 2 I didn’t notice it freezing up with complex subjects.

Thanks to Brian for discovering this – when you shoot a flourescent-lit scene at fast shutter speeds, you may get inconsistent lighting. This is because flourescent lamps pulse at the same rate as your electricity supply e.g. 50 Hertz. The orangey bit is natural light, while the white bottom part is from the flourescent lamp. 50mm F1.4 1/500s ISO1600.

Guess how I did this!

I turned my A100 with Sony HVL-F56AM flash on it, on manual mode, to point at the orange wall to my right. The flash then triggered my Nikon SB-28 coming from my left.

A different white balance for a cooling effect.

This was all possible with an optical slave trigger, then sitting on a tripod. Note the battery pack strapped to it, as Nikon threw away the battery cover when it was sent for servicing.

Erna’s pinhole workshop, 30th June 2007 at the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia. Yep, a trip down memory lane, because back then we were using film!

She sealed the entire room from light and poked a hole through some manila paper to reveal a hole out into the sun. The room had become a camera obscura!

Then, it was time to make our own light-proof box.

It required a sacrificial roll of film (on the right.) We’d use a paperclip to advance the film from the new film roll to enter the roll on the right. The film was cellotaped together, and a little clicker was installed on the new roll so we could listen for eight clicks and know that a roll had advanced.

Note the inside was black to avoid internal reflection.

Sealed shut, with a manual shutter. I taped the view indicator the wrong way round on top.

The hole was about 0.2mm which was 24mm away from the film plane. Thus, the aperture would be 24mm/0.2mm = F120. Given the Sunny F16 rule, a sunny scene would take 1/13th of a second to expose with ASA 100 film. Of course, with negative film we had much leeway for over and underexposure so timing was not crucial. Add the idea that pinhole exposures are supposed to look artsy and lomographic and you can get away with more.

I poked a hole in the cardboard and placed it in front of my Sony A100 with no lens attached. Approximately 45mm F22 1/2s ISO1600. A similiar shot with the 50mm at F22 gave the same meter readings.

This time, a 5 second exposure.

We were supposed to hand the finished roll over to Erna when we were done with it, but I got a premature shock when I found that my roll gave a bit too much resistance. Had my roll finished? The clicker didn’t click anymore. It might have been dislodged, so I could’ve over-rolled.

The pinhole camera still sits in my dry box to this very day.

After that, we roamed the museum. Some may recognize Kaz of the KL Flickr group on the right.

Liyana says No Photography!

Awi setting up a Rolleiflex twin-lens reflex (TLR, not SLR) for a group shot.

In theory, I could remake the pinhole to have a crazy focal length of 12mm by shifting the pinhole back. Yes, that’s right, a rectilinear 12mm on 35mm film! The only lens that can do that is the Sigma 12-24mm F4.5-5.6 EX DG on full frame. To get there on APS-C you’d need a 6mm lens but Olympus only gets as wide as 7mm!

Shifting the pinhole back nearer to the lens also means a brighter aperture! To be exact, you’d get speeds 2 stops faster.