Garden flowers with a new old lens
Last edited Sun Apr 12, 2015, 05:16 AM - Edit history (1)
Spring has come and almost gone here it seems (it was 88 degrees yesterday) but we still have some flowers left in the garden.
Lens is a recently acquired old Vivitar 28mm f2.0 in an M42 mount I have adapted to my NEX C3.. At f2.0 it's a hot mess but by 2.8 it's cleaned up nicely, all of these shots were @ f2.8 and ISO 200
And here is shot backlit by the sun and then HDR processed..
= new reply since forum marked as read
It was near 90' here in Central Florida. 
I have a Tokina EL 28mm 2.8 with the PK mount. I love it.
If you can find a reasonably priced Yashinon DX 50mm 1.7, grab it. I use it with a reverse ring for Macro. The Tokina is also used with the reverse ring. You can add extension tubes to raise the magnification.
With the Yashinon DX
A Pentax-A 50 1.7 in PK, a 50 1.8 Vivitar M42, a 50 1.8 Nikkor, a 50 1.8 Canon FD and a 50 1.4 Auto Rikenon.
The Pentax is sharp but a touch cloudy around the edges, the Nikon has a chunk out of the (plastic) filter ring, the Vivitar has a scratch on the rear element and has been dropped on the filter ring, the Rikenon is in the best shape but it too is a hot mess wide open while passable @ 2.0 and nice @ 2.8.
I sold my Yashinon 50 1.7 to a family member a couple of years ago along with my previous Canon DSLR, they wanted to do sports photography and the fast lens let them freeze action at night games quite well. Since the pictures were only going on Facebook and a newsletter they could crop quite a bit to overcome the only slight telephoto and the subsequent loss of resolution wasn't a huge issue.
The Sony kit 18-55 is remarkably sharp for a zoom but the minimum aperture is 3.5 @ 18mm and more like 4.5 near 28mm so not that great for defocusing the background.
I did get one insect shot yesterday...
These are gorgeous, and the colors so rich! The bokeh is great too.
