Shift and Tilt-lens: Hartblei 40 mm

[Michael Fontana]

Next week, I'm getting a Hartblei 40 mm (http://www.hartblei.de/en/sr40if.htm)
for tests; does anybody would be interested in specific shots?

[Christoph Grabmayr]

Congratulations, this should be interesting, and I hope you will enjoy yourself!

Three things would be interesting to me:

The depth of field you can achieved with the tilted lens in a close-up situation;

the panoramic effect they talk about with left - right, or left - center - right shift;

the price (this will probably hurt).

Thanks for your generous proposal

Christoph

[Nikolai Sklobovsky]

I think the new gal, Natasa, was looking for smth like this

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Next week, I'm getting a Hartblei 40 mm (http://www.hartblei.de/en/sr40if.htm)
for tests; does anybody would be interested in specific shots?

Interesting. According to their April 2007 press-release (http://www.hartblei.de/downloads/hartblei-press-release-de-04-2007.pdf), we're talking about a EUR 2700 (excl. tax, shipping and import duty charges) lens.

Obviously resolution tests are in order, both in the center and at the extreme (shifted) corners. Vignetting/light-falloff characteristics will be interesting to test for such lenses which are used at the edge of their image circle. Paradoxical as it may seem, smooth bokeh will be important as well, because it is possible to have only part of a close-up vertical subject in focus.

If you'd like to have quantifiable resolution numbers, I'm willing to run some Imatest SFR (MTF) tests on Raw files. All that's needed, is the addition of suitable test targets in the image. Such a test target can be downloaded from the Imatest site (http://www.imatest.com/docs/lens_testing.html#download) (all it costs is some ink and a sheet of glossy paper, per target).
For vignetting quantification, all that's needed is a uniformly lit flat structureless surface, shot slightly OOF to make sure it doesn't pick up surface structure.

Bart

[Don Libby]

I picked up a Hartblei 45mm f/2.5 SuperRotator for my Mamiya 645 a couple months ago. I haven't had to really test it however I'm shooting in Sequoia National Park the week after the Photoshop Convention. Everything I've read and heard about these lens so far appear to be true. Very good glass and well put together, you really don't want to drop one on your toe.

I hope to have a couple example images when I return and am willing to share.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Next week, I'm getting a Hartblei 40 mm (http://www.hartblei.de/en/sr40if.htm)
for tests; does anybody would be interested in specific shots?

Just wondering, any feedback you wish to share?

Bart

[Diane Fields]

I'd be interested in hearing more about this lens.

I shoot with a Canon 45 TSE--and its probably my favorite/most creative lens. I had initially tried to buy a Hartblei 35 mm super rotator but ran into problems at the time with the importer in Atlanta (GA, USA) and bought the Canon (which I'm not sorry for doing). I understand those have been resolved and its no problem to get one now--or you can order directly from Hartblei. They also have expanded the line for 35mm cameras.

I shoot 3 shot flat stitch panos, use the tilt/swing a great deal for increased perception of DOF, use the shift for correction of perspective (use the last 2 together a lot)---and some selective focus. Love the lens. However,--the Hartblei offers the 'plus' of being able to shoot tilt/shift parallel or perpendicular or any way in between--- rather than the default perpendicular of the Canons. They have to be reoriented manually by unscrewing, changing, rescrewing. Jack Flesher has written a nice tute on this
http://www.outbackphoto.com/workflow/wf_42/essay.html --scroll to the bottom.

A T/S takes patience in use, some experimentation in learning to use the tilt (there is also a great little chart for getting you started on how much tilt to use for the 24, 45 and 90mm TS) http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1032&message=18434382

Looking forward to your assessment of the lens.

Diane

[Michael Fontana]

oh, sorry

I forgotten to say that the guy from Tekno, a pro photo supplier here, did ring me up the day before he intended to bring the lens; someone already bought it, so he didn't had a spare one for test.

So no test from my side.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

... someone already bought it, so he didn't had a spare one for test.

No problem, it just looked interesting enough to ask.

Bart

[Michael Fontana]

the Hartblei is here now; heavy peace of glass!
I can test it untill monday.

The prize e is about 3600 €, arround 5000 $....

[Michael Fontana]

I took 2 snappies, for showing the size, 1. 5 kg !!, and its features:

It shifts 10 mm, and can tilt 8 degrees.

There' s a "pan-button"; to pan the lens 360 degr, with some stopklicks.
Shift and tilts are possible from center in one direction; example: from center to the right, but not the left. Therefore the "pan-button" - in the image named orientation.

Unfortunatly, they gave me the nikonversion, with a EOS-adapter, so this is not as rocksolid, as the lens itself; the lens is a tank ;-)

http://imago.macbay.de/OPF/size.jpg

http://imago.macbay.de/OPF/features.jpg


A first impression: it has the known and reputated Zeiss lens quality

- the pan-button is a bit clumsy; I don't have large fingers, but it's not easy to catch it,
especially with the batterie section of the 1 Ds-2.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

I took 2 snappies, for showing the size, 1. 5 kg !!, and its features: ...

Hi Michael,

Is this the 'Prototype 4/40 IF TS' version, or the regular Hartblei superrotator?

Looking forward to your observations, especially since they raised the price of the 40mm prototype to EUR 3999.

Bart

[Michael Fontana]

Bart, this is not the classic Rotator, but the Carl Zeiss Distagon 4/40 IF T*, otherwise used on the hassi. It has still the hassilenscover for the frontlens.

Basically, they applied the Superrotator-idea on better glas.

The one I have for testing, is out of the first serie; after the protoype and a zeroserie of 33 sets with all 3 new lenses, the 40, 80 and 120. These sets were sold with a 26 % discount... and they are thinking (??) about making another serie of sets.

Look at the english site here (http://www.hartblei.eu/en/index.htm)

As only few outdoor shots were possible this afternoon - it started to rain - I did some tests, here in the studio; but I want to verify them.

The outside shots showed the typical Zeiss-quality. I had a quick look at them, only...

[Michael Fontana]

As for the tests, I' d like to make some camparions, vs good other lenses, off course:

- Hartblei 40 vs Canon 50 mm macro , in the studio....

- Hartblei 40 vs YCZ distagon 35, = flatstitch vs realstitch, the singleshots beeing in landscape orientation = 3 hor. single images.

Same cam, for the distagon 35, I will use my homebrew horizontal panohead:

http://imago.macbay.de/panos/hor-panos.jpg

Agree?

[Michael Fontana]

ok, let's talk about the image quality of the lens, compared to the canon macro 50 in a studioshot, taken in the same light conditions, the same tripot position, and the same RAW conversion. Therfore no corrections of the lens colors, etc.

Here's the full image:

http://imago.macbay.de/OPF/FF.jpg

and the crops now; it's a exaggeration, in 330%, resp. 300% to get the same size, as the different focal lengths create different "sizes". The crop is taken near the center:


http://imago.macbay.de/OPF/330_300crop.jpg

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

ok, let's talk about the image quality of the lens, compared to the canon macro 50 in a studioshot, taken in the same light conditions, the same tripot position, and the same RAW conversion. Therfore no corrections of the lens colors, etc.

Hard to say. The 50mm benefits from its longer focal length, but the 40mm has good contrast.

If you want to avoid the inevitable apple and pear risk, I suggest you make an image of something quantifiable (a Siemens star pattern, or even better a slanted edge target (http://www.openphotographyforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=33189&postcount=4)).

Hope the weather gets better while you have the lens. I'd love to see some more results, thanks for sharing.

Bart

[Asher Kelman]

Michael,

This Zeiss lens seems awesome. However for $5000 one can get an entire 4x5 LF camera and a first class modern lens! So shouldn't the images be compared with LF film too?

To me $5,000 spent here will be not at risk since these are high quality lenses. Still, it's a breathtakeingly expensive!

In the pictures posted there's a jpg jagged artiface. Any chance you can post the ~50mm comparison with a slightly less compressed file?

Thanks for this great contribution!

Asher

[Michael Fontana]

Hard to say. The 50mm benefits from its longer focal length, but the 40mm has good contrast.

If you want to avoid the inevitable apple and pear risk, I suggest you make an image of something quantifiable (a Siemens star pattern, or even better a slanted edge target (http://www.openphotographyforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=33189&postcount=4)).

Hope the weather gets better while you have the lens. I'd love to see some more results, thanks for sharing.

Bart

Good morning Bart,

I see.
I' ve got the problem of not having a lot of time at the moment; and during week-end even less. The guy, who brought me the lens, catched me on the wrong feet - timewise.

So sorry, I basically need to reduce the tests on the aspects, that are unique to this lens: shifting and tilting.

Not having a bubblejet-printer - true, a photographer without that exists - as I' m delivering my files on CDs/DVDs only. If a client wants some prints, once in two years, I' l let it make on the lambda, therefore outside.
Yep, I could go and find someone doing the bubbling for me, maybe it works; I' ll try...

[Michael Fontana]

Asher, yep, I' ll do so; it might take a bit of time, though.
I chose the 50 mm lens, as it's a reference here, when lenstesting; plus a it's good lens.

When I compared the two lenses visually - by eye - as far as one one compare them whithout a Siemens Star, I found them beeing pretty comparable, the Hartblei 40 beeing unshifted.

Asher, can you tell me, if the next image has jpg artefacts as well? Still from yesterday's studio shot. A extreme corner crop, at the left upper corner.
The Zeiss at 225%, the Canon at 200%. The Canon 50 macro shows a slightly more CA, at 100 % it's less obvious.

http://imago.macbay.de/OPF/L_u_corner.jpg


Is it better to compare allwith at 100%??


I try to shoot this afternoon a outdoor flatstitch with the Hartblei 40, compared to a "realstitch" with the distagon 35 YCZ... both with horizontal shots. Simply, this is the task I would use that lens most; kinda Zörk PSA.

[Asher Kelman]

Hi Michael,

You posted that fast! Thanks for the effort and there's no jpg artifact obvious to me now!

The Zeiss lens seems to show more dimensional "bite" than the EF 50 2.5. Is it that the lighting was different or is the Zeiss lens picking up more detail and contrast to define the texture of the surfaces better.

The CA is really very minor and fo all essential purpose if not going to ever be discovered in real life.

I have a Zork with a 45mm 6x7 Pentax lens. Works well!

Asher

[Michael Fontana]

the light was identical, a simple studio ligth with two strobes....

as mentioned, the very same RAW converter settings were applied; therefore the idea wasn't to mimikry.

Studio shots are fine, to have a look at the lenses contrast, etc, as in outdoors shot, the light changes very fast.

[Michael Fontana]

So here the studio-shots:


http://imago.macbay.de/OPF/Hart_40%20/studio-comp.jpg

And the resulting 100%-crops; from the Hartblei, now, the left shift - Cl_Hartb_L_16 - is shown, meanwhile the canon 50 off course can't shift; so its the center position, the Cl_canon 50_16.
The °16° means the f-stop. Outdoor, I wouldn't use f 16, but in the studio, it's not unnaturally to have a big DOF...
the Hartblei starts with f = 4, meanwhile the macro with 2.5 .....

http://imago.macbay.de/OPF/Hart_40%20/Hartleft_macrocenter.jpg

No surprises - for both lenses; the canon 50-image is a bit darker, the Hartblei shows better resolution, this could be expected.

If someone wants to use the Hartblei in the studio, I recommend strongly a split-viewfinder and a loupe, as shown on page two of that thread. I have both, but without that, it' ll become difficult to focus correctly. BTW: The focus was set on the ruler, for both lenses...

[Michael Fontana]

The rotation-pin is a dealbraker: it's hard to klick it, between the body and the tilt-ring, as it is very small; for a 180 deg-rotation, one has to keep it down all the way arround, or klick it several times. Having the rotation-pin on the other side, near the battery-section, is a pain, too.

http://imago.macbay.de/OPF/Hart_40%20/rotation.pin.jpg

Probably, this works better on other cams, but having such a lens on a 1.6 crop is rather a unlikely scenario...

C'mon Hartblei, this is a bug; on a sFr 6'000 lens, I want this to be easy!

When flatstitching, its important to shoot the 3 singelshots in a fast succession; moving clouds, etc will make the flatstitching more complex!

This problem could be resolved with a L-pin, instead of a i-pin.

[Michael Fontana]

I had to send the Nikon - Eos-adapter away, as the company, which gave the lens
for testing, needed it for a other customer on saturday.

Still another test was possible:
Using the Hartblei for flatstitching, vs a real stitch, with 3 vertical images of the Canon 50 macro. This will - looking at the horizontal FOV - result in similar images.

So this test not beeing a scientific, but rather about the use of the Superrotator, in a daily photographer's work, like the mine.

I need to work the files, but first have other jobs to do....

[Asher Kelman]

Thanks Michael for the input! How does one actually rotate. Do you have to push those cogs?

Asher

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Thanks Michael for the input! How does one actually rotate. Do you have to push those cogs?

Same question here. The Canon TS-E lenses can also rotate by pushing an unlock 'control/cog' on the lens barrel, but they snap lock at 90 degree intervals. How does this work on the Hartblei?

It's too bad your local dealer surprised you at such an unfortunate moment for making the lens available, otherwise I could have produced an MTF curve from a test image of a slanted edge. Having seen some of your test images, I guess I'll ask my local dealer for an evaluation copy for testing on the 1Ds Marks II and III when I get the latter (even finer sampling pitch). The latest prices, of both the lens and the Mark III body in Euros, remains a concern at the current exchange rates though.

Bart

[Michael Fontana]

Back again....

Yep Asher, one has to push down (against the center of the lens) these cogs a good bit - which is fine for keeping fix the desired rotation.

It has 16 stops on 360 degree- rotation, so 8 stops for 180 degr. If one can push the cogs down entirely, one can rotate through, but this wasn't possible with the 1 Ds-2, as there's just little space left, for entering the finger, and push down the cogs. The knobs for tilting stay in the way, too.... if you want to rotate for 180 degr; therefore my critic...

A macro shots, about 2:1, it' s not the thumb, but the finger beside it.


http://imago.macbay.de/OPF/Hart_40%20/finger.jpg

With a lens adapter - the copy I could test had a Nikon mount, plus they gave me a Nikon to EOS-adapter, I had several times unsharp images, as the lens adapter isn't build strong enough, to keep that heavy lens straight.

Working on the testimages now, I could take prior to send the adapter away......
I could have the adapter back, but decided to stop testing with that adapter; as it's useless; for getting relevant informations.

And here's a better shot of the cam and the lens; you might notice the importance of a shade:

http://imago.macbay.de/OPF/Hart_40%20/dimensions.jpg


sorry Bart; I had first to built up my files and backupsystem again, after that desaster with the Sonnet-firmware; it took me about a week, including a new PCI-Express-card, to get it done. At the beginning of that desaster was a - by Sonnet - on its webside wrongly linked firmware-update (!!); which caused kernelpanics, even when booting from the external OS-backup, from a FireWire disk. .

it broke the internal mirror RAID, too, so I had to move some TB arround. Bringing the kext-files from the backup onto the machine didn't worked, and finally the playback of the OS from the external backup failed, as well; so I had to set-up everything completly new. Meanwhile I had to do some assignements.....

[Michael Fontana]

Good morning!

once more, - for the last time - I promise, but I hate things to be clumsy, when shooting - the rotation-pin, aka cog, in the lower position; red arrow:

http://imago.macbay.de/OPF/Hart_40%20/rotationpin.jpg

Behind the finger is the ring for the tilt; that one might be unscrewed, for easier access, as I noticed, this morning. There might be some work-arrounds; I could do a few tests with it, only, so look at it as first impression, but IMO, this has to work immediatly. I noticed too, that you have to take much care for not touching the focusring, when rotating.

Now, a comparison of a flatstitch with the Hartblei/Hassi 40 - center shot, then shiftet 10 mm and rotated 180 deg. around to get the 2nd shift - vs a °real° stitch with a panohead, and the Canon 50 mm. Let's have a look at the resulting images, and its FOVs:

http://imago.macbay.de/OPF/Hart_40%20/flatstitch_vs-stitch.jpg


The resulting horizontal FOV is nearly identical; easy to see that the Hartblei-image has the vertical size of the the 1 Ds-2 beeing in landscape orientation - 3328 pix - meanwhile for the stitch with the 50 mm, the cam had been in vertical position, with a image height of 4992. As stitcher for the Canon, PTGuiPro was used.

You might notice the lens distortion of the Hartblei; which is quite noticable at 100 %, meanwhile PTGui corrects it in the stitched image from the Canon. It 's possible to correct the distortion of the Hartblei 40 with software, as well; Hartblei recommends Acolens, from Nurizon (http://www.nurizon-software.com/en/), there should be some generic lensprofiles for the Hartblei.

As I didn't had it available - I didn't wanted to spend a few 100 € just for testing - I used PS for the flatstitch.

[Michael Fontana]

A correction for the rotating-pin:

when Mr. Hochstrasser came today, for picking up the lens, I told him about my problems with the rotating-pin:

We discussed a while arround that issue, then he remembered, that he'd showed me the wrong one; so the' re two rotation buttons; the good one is seen here:

http://imago.macbay.de/OPF/Hart_40%20/another-rotation.jpg

I hope I can show tomorrow the results of the flatstitch....
to late now..

[Stefan Steib]

Michael

Hartblei is aware of the problem with the rear rotation knob which is to be used for the tilt mechanism.
And yes we will change that to an L-form as you thought about. The short knob is a leftover of old
analogue bodies which had to be even closer to the bajonett on some models. As we have decided that this will be a 99 % digital lens for most of the people this is no longer needed.

Too bad tekno did not supply you with the canon mount that we also have sent them. It´s only 4 screws and you have a firm connection to the bajonet mount. The cheap china made adapter that I sent with the nikon mount was just for fast demos to be able to switch between Nikons and Canon bodies.

If you have any additional questions I´d be happy to answer those.

BTW: for your cutout comparison of the Hartblei to the canon Macro you should take a look in Photoshop to the Red, Green and Blue channels(in BW). All of them are much clearer, especially the blue channel has up to 15 % more punch
then with the Canon. This is typical to other results that I have achieved also comparing the Hartblei 120Macro to the Nikon 105 Macro. Simply spoken- the T* coating is absolutely superior.


greetings from Munich

Stefan Steib - CEO Hartblei Optica - München-Kiev
www.hartblei.de

[Asher Kelman]

Stefan,

You mention the T* coatings! That is interesting to me.

It's amazing about the differences in coating. I have a new Canon 50mm 1.2 L and amazingly it is very flare resistant, converting the brightest lights as into rich glows of angels. The other lens that surprised me is the Cooke soft portrait lens the f4.5 210 mm PS945. When I opened the impressive metal presentation box, I thought "Great, they have a built in lens shade', only after I tentatively put my finger into the space of the lens shade did I find the lens surface! There are essentially no reflections, that how perfect the lens coating is and this shows what is state of art for hand made lenses.

So when you talk about the T* coating being superior, I'm very much interested since this alone, even without the superior resolution really is helpful. I like being able to shoot not fearing reflections! So how do the T* coatings today with the new lenses differ if at ll from Zeiss lenses made 5 or ten years ago. Has the formula remained constant?

Asher

[Stefan Steib]

Asher sorry for the delay, still recovering from new year...........;-)

I frankly don´t know. I think that the coating was pretty good already 10 years ago, but for details I have to ask at Zeiss. I´ll do that as soon as they are back here at work which will be on the 7th.

What I DO KNOW is how much effort we have put into defeating stray light and flare inside the lens to get this down to a minimum. I can also tell you that we are working on additional lens shades to be not in the way at full movements.
There is a recent document of Contax in English I found about the T*coating:
source http://www.contaxcameras.co.uk/digital/tvsdigital/tvsdigitaloverview.asp

Carl Zeiss T* anti-reflection coatings ensure the virtual elimination of unwanted reflections inside the lens. This means that only image-forming light reaches the image plane of the camera. Your photographs will have greater impact due to higher contrast, deeper color saturation, more shadow detail and cleaner, crisper colors.
Each of the seven layers of the T* anti-reflection coating is optimized for a portion of the total bandwidth of white light and together the seven layers cover the entire visible spectrum. The thickness of each coating layer is 1/4 wavelength of the frequency of light that the layer is dedicated to. Light is phase shifted 1/4 wavelength as it passes through the coating the first time. If the photon is reflected, it passes through the anti-reflection coating again and as it passes, it is phase shifted again 1/4 wavelength. Now, the reflected photon is 180 degrees out of phase and it is annihilated.
Carl Zeiss invented anti-reflection coatings and their continued dedication to the elimination of internal reflections is complete. T* optical coating represents the most advanced optical technology available. It is so good you can see the difference. And T* coatings are only available on Carl Zeiss lenses.

More details soon.

Greetings from Munich

Stefan

[Asher Kelman]

Thanks Stefan for this marvelous answer. I'm impressed with the ability to take each group of colors and shift them 1/4 wavelength. I wonder whether Cooke uses their own system or something licensed from Zeiss. For that matter, I am intrigued about where Canon gets the coating for hte 50 1.2L which is remarkable good too.

When Canon lenses appear on other digicams, it's easy to see the common technology or when MF backs are specified as using a Kodak or Dalsa back, we know then too. Coatings however, don't seem to be disclosed as I guess it's a black magic that people like to keep very secret.

In fact, when I see Zeiss lenses on Sony cameras, I ask myself, 1."Have they licensed the name, the design or just the coatings?" and then 2. "Who actually makes the "Zeiss" lenses?

I know that there's a lot of potential interest here in using the superior Zeiss optics in getting great wide angle images that are up to the resolving power of the 1DsIII.

Asher

[Stefan Steib]

I don´t know about Sony, but here is a document about Rollei HFT Coatings
source here - http://www.dantestella.com/zeiss/coatings.html
originally from a Zeiss publication of 2001:

How do Zeiss T* and Rollei HFT compare?

Since this has recently grown into a frequently asked question we feel it is appropriate to provide an official and unequivocal answer from Carl Zeiss:

HFT, meaning "High Fidelity Transfer", is a multi-layer anti-reflection coating system co-developed by Zeiss and Rollei. This occurred several decades ago at a time when Zeiss T* coating was new on the market and could only be applied at the Zeiss Oberkochen plant to rather small camera lens production batches. Rollei envisaged very large volume production in their then new Singapore plant and therefore encouraged this joint development.

Today the situation is this: HFT has become a well established trademark for Rollei's proprietary multi-layer anti-reflection coating. The optical performance of this Zeiss/Rollei co-development is so close to the performance of the original Zeiss T* that one can hardly detect any difference in all practical picture taking.

The Planar®, Distagon®, Sonnar® lenses that Rollei produces under license from Carl Zeiss are all HFT coated by Rollei. All the lenses that Carl Zeiss produces for Rollei at the Zeiss Oberkochen plant are actually Zeiss T*. coated. However, the designation on these lenses is "HFT" in the interest of remaining fully consistent throughout the Rollei product range.

Camera Lens News No. 13, Spring 2001

Sony published this http://sonystyle.ca/html/CybershotGlossary/quality_lens.html in 2006
quite informative and instructive with graphics.

I also experienced this with several of my Contax KB lenses (28,35,85,135) that I use on my 5D and all of them show much stronger blue channels , compared to my other brand lenses.

regards

Stefan

[Stefan Steib]

found it here:

http://www.zeiss.com/c12567a8003b58b9/Contents-Frame/c7fb960ed6f52805c125711e004ad17c

"3. Why are ZEISS lenses for Sony cameras produced in Japan?
Sony produces digital cameras of different types in extremely high numbers in several factories in Japan. The lenses for these cameras have to come from lens factories near the Sony camera manufacturing facilities to ensure reliable deliveries and minimize the economic risk of interrupted supplies.

ZEISS lenses for Sony digital cameras are developed by lens designers at the Carl Zeiss plant in Oberkochen, Germany. This includes all required quality assurance measures (test methods, test criteria, test devices, test procedures, lens performance target values, etc.) The lenses are then made in a lens production facility jointly chosen by Sony and Carl Zeiss. Quality assurance specialists from the Carl Zeiss plant in Oberkochen implement the ZEISS quality assurance system in the chosen facility. Many ZEISS optic measuring systems are installed. Carl Zeiss audits the lens production areas on a regular basis.

All these measures ensure that ZEISS lenses in Sony digital cameras meet the expectations demanding users associate with ZEISS lenses."

[Asher Kelman]

Hi Stefan,

This is slightly "off topic" but can you tell us whether we can use these modern Zeiss optics on the new Hy6 cameras wqith the Rollei mount? This is important since we are about to be testing the Hy6 and would love to have suitable wide angle lenses!

If there is such a possibility, we'll move the dialogue to its own thread!

Asher

[Stefan Steib]

Sorry Asher

as we use the additional 30mm of the medium format lenses for our shift and tilt mechanism, these lenses do exclusively work on 35mm SLR cameras. There is the exception of the rule: Sinarcam, Alpha, Sylvestri etc. Cam Bodies which use a 35mm mount for their medium Format backs can use our Hartblei Zeiss lenses too.

Regards
Stefan

[Asher Kelman]

Yes, Stefan,

I thought that might be the case, just for now at least. But if the Rollei lens mount takes off, then for sure this would not be too much of a challenge to make non-shift addapter from the original Zeiss lens to the Rollei mount. I mention this because there's going to be a need for wide angle lenses of high quality for the new Sinar and Leaf backs to go along with the Hy6 platform. Seems that there might be a lot of people that would love to have a choice of a first class modern Zeiss Distagon!

Just a fantasy!

Asher

[Stefan Steib]

Asher

you know that there is an announcement for a 35mm wideangle for the Rollei/Leaf/Sinar ?
I don´t know if this info is available in english, but there is a german brochure
http://www.profifoto.de/images/pf_spezial_67.pdf look at page 9
which tells the lens will be made by Schneider (Schneider AFD 2,8/35 PQS),
unfortunately this is NOT true (I was told by the product manager of Schneider).
I mean maybe they will offer a 35mm, but Schneider denies this to be a lens they build.
Very mysterious.
Actually I wish them luck, I only hope they can keep this HY6 project running.

Greetings from Munich

Stefan

[Michael Fontana]

Sorry, I just saw yesterday night the thread going on.

Here are screenshots of a 300%-crop of the blue channel - from the already shown back of the Macplus:


http://imago.macbay.de/OPF/Hart_40%20/blue-channel.jpg


The Canon's 50 mm macro has been reduced in size of 85%, to get approx. the same object size - for better comparison. It's 50 mm vs 40 mm.

Yes, its a bit cleaner on the Hartblei's side; identical raw conversion; the Hartblei is a tiny bit more dense, too. It could be expected, I am using some contaxlenses on the 1 DS-2, too.

I personally find - for my photographic needs - others mileages might vary (tilt-function), the stitching route beeing more interesting:

Stitching 3 x Canon 50 macro results in a 9128 x 4968 pix-file, the flatstitched Hartblei 40 shows 7780 x 2667, all at 300 dpi!

With my stitching set-up, including a panohead, I use 7 different SLR-lenses; - the distagon 28 und 35 and going to test the planar 50 as well - so this is much more versatile to me, than a single flatstitch-lens.

I' ve been using the Schneider PC-28, the Zuiko (OM) 35-shift, and the Zörk-Hassi-combo (50 & 80 mm) for a good while, so I' m familiar with the flatstitches possibilities.

As for the time used - yes, it's a factor in a daily prof. photographer's world - to get the flatstiches vs the setup of the panohead, it was kinda similar. For my needs as architecture photographer, I would need the Acolens-Software, for correction of the Hassi's 40 mm distortion as well; I don't think it will be really that faster than to stitch 3 images together.

For photographers working more in the studio than I do, plus wanting the tiltfunction, the 80 or 120 macro from Hartblei might be a good decision.