Brass Lens - Carl Zeiss Jena Protar Series V

Carl Zeiss intorduced Anastigmat series lenses in 1889. However, there were many lens manufacturers was producing lenses named "Anastigmat" or similar, Carl Zeiss changed the name for her "Anastigmat" series lenses to "Protar" avoiding confusions in 1890 and patented the design.

Carl Zeiss strictly controlled the quality  and used the best glasses to produce Protar lenses. Hence, the yield-rate was low as 11% and caused the price was very expensive.

There were many manufacturers produced "Protar" series lenses under authorisation. However, there were different appearances of different "Protar" because of different materials and different polishing skills. 

1. Carl Zeiss -- Germany
2. Bausch & Lomb -- USA
3. Ross -- UK
4. E.Krauss -- France

From 1890 to 1893, Carl Zeiss developed 7 series "Protar" with different speeds as following:-

Series I	F4.5	3 groups 5 elements
Series II	F6.3	3 groups 5 elements
Series IIa	F8	3 groups 5 elements
Series III	F7.2	2 groups 4 elements
Series IIIa	F9	2 groups 4 elements
Series IV	F12.5	2 groups 4 elements
Series V	F18	2 groups 4 elements

The size of my Carl Zeiss Protar 80mm F18 is very tiny. Its glasses even smaller than my nail of little finger. It covers 5x7" and very good image quality at centre and its grey tone gradation is very beautiful.

Brass Lens - Wray London Wide Angle Rectilinear

Before 19 century, the lens design could not overcome the barrel distortion for wide angle lenses. However, Dallmeyer designed the Rapid Rectilinear lens in 1866 changing the world of lens. The design corrects serious barrel distortion in wide angle lens. The following is the sample of appearance with and without rectilinear design lenses.

Wray London was a British optical company to design and manufacture cameras and lenses in 19-20 centuries. She produced Wide Angle Rectilinear lens under the design of Dallmeyer. Although the focal length is 6in (150mm), the coverage is 8x10" because of wide angle design, same as coverage of Schneider Super-Symmar 150XL. 

There is less information about this lens at internet, may be because of the design was by Dallmeyer. It is uncoated lens but its colour appearance is excellent. As its focal length as a standard lens of 4x5", so I often use it.

Tsing Yi Park, Hong Kong

In the past 2 years, there were trees with red leaves in the Tsing Yi Park. However, a warm winter this year makes the leaves just going to yellowish. Although the park is small, you still may take a picture as in National Park if you capture in good composition.

Camera: Olympus E-M5
Lens: M.Zuiko Digital 25mm F1.8
ISO: 200
Apeture: F8
Shutter speed: 1/125s
Metering Mode: Central Weight Average

The buildings are behind of the trees at the right hand side. Hence I composed the picture avoiding the buildings appearance inside the picture.

Tonal Adjustment -- The metering of E-M5 was excellent and I controlled the metering at the tree. No any brightness to be adjusted is need.

White Balance -- The AWB is accurate, the camera performs reality tone at that moment.

Detail Control -- Sharpening was adjusted to make leaves more sharpness.

Cropping -- There was a fence at the front of picture, I removed it because it disturbing  the picture.

Output -- Finally I exported the picture at 1200 pixel for web presentation as you see (click on the picture for the original size).

Brass Lens - Petzval Lens

From 2011, I switched my Schneider large format lenses to over hundred years old brass lenses. Now I have 6 brass lenses, they are the Petzval lenses (6in F3.6 & 8-1/4in F4.5), the Carl Zeiss Protar Serie V 80mm F18, the Wray London Wide Angle Rectilinear 6in F16, the Goerz Berlin Doppel-Anastigmat Serie III (210mm F6.8 & 300mm F7.7). I'll introduce them one by one.

Petzval Lens

The Petzval Lens was developed in 1840 by a mathematics professor of the University of Vienna, Joseph Petzval. In 19 century, the film was not discovered and people took photos with wet plate (Film had been introduced by Kodak in 1908). The ISO of wet plate was around 5 and lenses for photography with slow speed only. It was difficult to take a portrait shots due to long exposure time. 

Professor Petzval studied photographic lens which provided F3.6 and better quality at the centre of image. The faster speed reducing exposure time that made portrait shots more easier. People called the Petzval Lens as "Portrait Lens" because it was the first one specific for portrait shots and it's an ideal portrait lens.

The design of the Petzval Lens is simple as two doublet lenses with a water-slot (aperture stop) in between. It provides serious spherical aberration made very sharpness at the focus and image goes blurry behind of the focus. Beside, vignetting and spinning effect are its characteristic. The Petzval lens makes picture in good details, 3D effect and low contrast. It's pretty good for portrait and sketch photography.

My samples:

Shot by Petzval 6in F3.6

Shot by Petzval 8-1/4in F4.5

Large Format Camera

What is large format camera?

Large format camera takes film with size 4x5" sheet film or above, generally are 4x5", 5x7" and 8x10". However, my two friends shoot 16x20" film. The size of film 8x10" or above are called "Ultra Large Format". The film size of 4x5" is close to a 4x6" picture, you may imagine how surprise while you are watching those size slide films.

Michael's Large Format Cameras (View Cameras)

I'm using 2 large format cameras, one is Ebony 45s which was bought in 2011, mainly for outdoor shooting. It's a classic Japanese camera and made by ebony and those woods will be finishing for 20 years before assembled a camera. The bellow is made by lambskin and whole body is very beautiful. It replaced my Ebony SW45 since its movement more than SW45, especially at image plane (rear part of the camera).

This twin-rails type view camera also called "Field Camera" since its weight is light and compact, easier take it for outdoor shooting.

Specification of Ebony 45s:-
http://www.ebonycamera.com/cam/main.45S.html

The second one is Toyo G , a mono-rail view camera which was bought in 2015, major for indoor shooting. It's a heavy stuff but its movement range more than Ebony 45s, I may control the DOF and distortion more easier. Because of its weight, I changed the tripod head to Ries J-250 for it.

Toyo G is a professional view camera, its knobs are very solid and accurately. However, its weight makes me impossible to carry it for outdoor shooting.

Specification of Toyo G:-
http://www.ground-glass.net/large-format/toyo-view-45-g-gii

Michael's Film Photography

A few years ago I wrote a homepage recording my photography journey from the beginning of my use of large format with the iWeb. However, Apple stopped supporting iWeb many years ago and my homepage was down. I'll move the contents of the homepage here in English (original in Chinese) and update the latest status as well.

I first started my photography journey with digital cameras and I began film shooting in 2004. My first film system was the OM system. I owned OM-4T, OM-1n and many lenses and accessories. I was surprised by the appearance of film, especially slide film (positive film), I found it so attractive with a slide film projector. I appreciated the performance of lenses; film shooting is a great deal different from digital.

In 2010, I started large format shooting. Meanwhile, I studied B&W shooting, film development and picture printing in the darkroom. In 2011, I changed my large format Schneider lenses to brass lenses over one hundred years old. I'll introduce them in an upcoming post.

Lomo' Instant Wide Camera

This is my first blog, I'll share my photos and my toys here.

Yesterday I got a Lomo' Instant Wide Camera since it uses Fujifilm Instax Wide film. I had Fujifilm Mini 90 instant camera, however the mini film is too small for me so I switched it to new Lomo' Instant Wdie camera.

Why Lomo' Instant Wide camera not Fujifilm Instax Wide 300 camera? Because of there is a lot of gimmick on Lomo' Instant Wide camera, such as B shutter, 1/30" shutter, double exposure, close-up and Ultra wide lenses attachment etc.

Specification of Fujilm Instax Wide 300 camera:-



Website: http://www.fujifilm.com/products/instant_photo/cameras/instax_300/



Specification of Lomo' Instant Wide camera:

Website: http://shop.lomography.com/en/cameras/instant-cameras/lomo-instant-wide-central-park-combo

Sample: