First shots with the old Minolta 100mm F3.5 macro plus Olympus E-M1

Tuesday was a good day to play hooky from work and spend the morning at our local botanic garden with my "new" old Minolta 100mm macro. I have had it a few weeks, but this was the first time we'd gone outside to play.

I was hoping for more flowers at the garden, but it is late in the season.  Many of the flowers looked a bit well-worn.  On the other hand, we've had little rain this summer so expectations should be kept realistic.

The Minolta is a heavy lens weighing in at 22 ounces. That's a whopping 25.5 ounces with adapter!  But I lugged it around on the E-M1 for 2 1/2 hours and didn't feel that it weighed too much.  In fact, I had the Olympus 36R flash in the hot shoe the entire time too; although I used the flash perhaps only 1/3 of the time.

I used a small "kiss" of flash with these four:

All my shots were hand held at 1/250 sec or more.  This lens has an effective focal length of 200mm.  All the formulas suggest that for this focal length a shutter speed of 1/250sec should be fast enough to remove camera shake.

I left in-body-image-stabilization on.  Some might argue that I should have turned it off because it was unnecessary at that shutter speed.

I switched back and forth between F4 and F8.  Both F stops seemed sharp. I believe the lens is sharper on the E-M1 than my two other manual lenses of similar focal length, the Nikkor 105mm AI-S F2.8 and the Tamron 90mm F2.8. I was pleased also to see no CA, a problem that I find on both the Nikkor and Tamron.

Focusing was a challenge, even with the focus aids in the E-M1.  These focus aids work almost the opposite of those on the Sony a6000, so I am looking forward to trying my hand at that combination in a few days.

Here were my two focusing challenges:

1) Focus peaking.

a) I find that the Olympus focus peaking is not selective enough to be accurate for macro work.  For example, if shooting down at a 45 degree angle onto the horizontal surface of a flower, I might see a speckled band of white (the focus peaking is set for white) 1/4" wide across the flower, supposedly highlighting that which is in focus.  Yet the actual depth of field, where sharpness is adequate, might only be expected to be 1/16" or 1/8". One would surmise that the middle of the 1/4" band would be the sweet spot; however, I often found that the sharpest "plane" of focus was slightly behind where I intended it be.  Perhaps with more experience and practice I will make some mental adjustments and get the focus on target more frequently.

b) As soon as you half press the shutter the peaking disappears.  Perhaps not a problem with a landscape, but I find with macro work that there is too much operator time-lag between focusing and full release of the shutter.

2) Magnification

The magnification works great.  I like the fact that the magnification is maintained even when the shutter button is half pressed or fully pressed. The bad news is that while in magnification mode, you loose sight of your frame.

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Next up: I'll try the same lens on the Sony a6000.

I've bought another old manual focus Minolta lens

Now that I have purchased (for a reasonable price on eBay) my third manual focus Minolta lens, I feel I officially have a "collection".  This assumes I am allowed to call 3 or more of anything a collection!

Seen below are, left to right: 100mm F3.5 macro (newly acquired), 50mm F3.5 macro, and 35-70mm F3.5 macro zoom.  Also pictured below are the adapters (about $20 each on eBay) that allow me to use the lenses joyfully on my two mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras, a Sony and an Olympus. 

In addition to making nice images (with limitations due to old technology and being designed for film), I have "collected" these lenses because they look and feel great.  The focus rings are smooooth and the lenses are all metal.  

I love all the markings you find on the lens barrels as you focus (or zoom on the 35-70) and the lens telescopes out..., although other than the distance scale, the f-stop, depth of field scale, and the focal length adjustment on the zoom lens, I frankly don't know what some of the other markings mean.  One guess is that some of them relate to light gathering adjustments that are made as focus changes. Since I use a live histogram on the camera all the time, I don't really need the information on the lens barrel to make EV adjustments. Other markings are clearly related to magnification ratios at different focusing distances.

UPDATE

I received some additional information by email from my friend Dennis Mook.
Dennis first owned Minolta gear in 1971 and still has the Minolta SRT-101 camera plus Minolta Rokkor 55mm F1.7 lens it came with.

Here is what he writes about the various markings on the lenses:

As far as your lenses, on the zoom, the red lines reflect where one would correctly focus the lens if one were using infrared film.  Infrared light focuses in a different plane than visible light.  The three lines reflect three different focal lengths.  So what you would do is to focus the camera thought the lens, then move your focus point over to the appropriate red line, depending upon the focal length in use. 

On the macro lenses, the white markings reflect magnification of the image when using the lens alone.  As you can see, it only focuses to 1:2, or half life size.  Minolta also made an extension tube so the lens could focus to life size, or 1:1.  The markings off to the sides are the required exposure compensation for different magnifications.  When these lenses were manufactured, almost no camera automation existed. The rule of thumb that I remember was you had to open up two stops for a life sized or 1:1 magnification. 

The curved lines are depth of field scales (for 35mm sized film or sensors; they won't apply to other sized file or sensors) for pre-focusing and/or zone focusing. 

Dennis

Check out Dennis' wonderful photography blog at www.thewanderinglensman.com and/or his Web site at www.dennismook.com)

A few more from Maine: Blue sky and (mostly) puffy white clouds

One of my favorite things to capture "on film" (I don't use a film camera any more, but I can't think of a digital equivalent... "on sensor"?) are landscapes with bright blue sky and puffy clouds.  Add water to the mix and compositions (at the correct angle to the sun) will scream for a polarizer.  In fact, I've been finding that if I have blue sky + clouds + water (or any two of these three), I just leave the polarizer on.  In such a scenario there's always enough light not to worry about the polarizer blocking one or two stops of light.

The images below were all taken with a polarizer and all but the stone tower were taken at ISO 200 (base ISO on the E-M1).  The stone tower was mistakenly shot at ISO 1000 which was entirely unnecessary.

Pursuant to my last post, I find that only 5 of the 16 images below were left "untouched" at the Olympus' native 4:3 aspect ratio.  The other 11 were cropped to 3:2, which is my preferred aspect ratio for landscapes.

Mcloon's Wharf, Spruce Head Island

Somewhere near Thomaston

Miller's Lobster Company (shack and pound, too)

Tower on Mt. Battie, Camden

Belfast

Belfast

Searsport

Penobscot Narrows Bridge, Bucksport

Old Farm, Cape Rosier area

Goose Falls

Penobscott Bay

Stonington Bridge

Weir Cove

Camden

Penobscott Bay

An hour-and-a-half during one morning in Maine

I smiled as I wrote this title because all the pictures below were taken within a couple of miles of the grocery store that is featured in Robert McCloskey's children's book One Morning in Maine.

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On a recent vacation trip I woke up early each morning (well, almost each morning) to walk, coffee in hand, down to the rocks below our cabin at the edge of Penobscot Bay.  Each morning was different but all the sunrises were awesome.  However, there was really only one morning where I thought the images I created had any "wow" factor to them.

On this one particular morning I spend most of an hour and a half sitting on the rocks below the cabin, going back to the cabin a couple of times to chat with my wife, who was watching the morning unfold from screen porch, and to refill my coffee mug.

The fun thing was watching the morning develop.  The sunrise itself was not that spectacular, but it was the fog coming in that was so interesting to watch.  Maine is one place where you can have fog on a sunny day!  Add a lobster boat and a row boat to the scene and my interest was peaked.

The photos below are in chronological order over a one-and-a-half hour period on August 5th, from 5:45 a.m to 7:15 a.m.

All were taken with an Olympus E-M1 with either the legacy FT 14-54ii zoom or the mFT kit 40-150 zoom.  Usually I crop landscapes to a 3:2 aspect ratio, but a greater number than usual were left at 4:3 to capture some additional blue sky to juxtapose with the fog.

Why I like my Sony a6000 more than my Olympus E-M1: Part 6: The 3:2 aspect ratio

I guess now that I'm writing part 6 of this little series on the reasons I prefer the a6000 I should mention again that I can also write a series of posts (and I do plan to do that) as to why I prefer the Olympus E-M1 over the a6000.  Both cameras have their advantages and disadvantages.  And both have reasons to prefer it over the other.

Below I have written about my Olympus images from a June trip to Prince Edward Island, Canada. I didn't bring the a6000.  That's because Olympus has one big trump card... LENSES.

Although I used the Olympus E-M1 on this trip, the camera unfortunately (in my opinion) has a 4:3 aspect ratio.  This is what most point and shoot cameras and my iPhone have.  It's a bit squarer than the 3:2 aspect ratio of the Sony a6000.  The 3:2 ratio is the standard format on dSLRs and film SLRs. For travel photos I prefer the 3:2.

The other night I uploaded a set of favorites from the PEI trip to my Web site. If you are interested, please take a look here:
http://www.peterfraileyphoto.com/pei2015

I noticed in this batch that although there were 25 landscape-oriented images from my Olympus, I cropped 20 (80%) of them to 3:2, and two of them were cropped even narrower, to 2:1.  It's too bad to waste the pixels, but the cropping improves the composition in my opinion... or I wouldn't have done it.

At 16 mp, the Olympus resolution measures 4608 pixels x 3456 pixels.  Crop to 3:2 and you have 4608 x 3072. This calculates to 14.2 mp.

I like what you get from the a6000.  With its native 3:2 ratio and 24 mp sensor with resolution of 5059 x 3373, one can employ the full 24 mp when capturing a landscape at 3:2.  This is quite a bit more resolution than what I am getting with the Olympus. Combine this with the fact that each pixel from a 24mp APS-C sensor is slightly larger than each pixel from a 16mp mFT sensor, you can see that the Sony provides both more and larger pixels. I am not sure this makes a difference to the human eye, but all things being equal more and bigger pixels is a good thing.

[Here's my math.  The squared dimension of the a6000 sensor is 60% bigger than the squared dimension of mFT sensor.  And 24mp is 50% more than 16mp.  Therefore, because the a6000 is 60% bigger and only has 50% more pixels, then each pixel is bigger on the Olympus.]

4:3 (native Oly aspect ratio)

3:2 (my preference)

4:3 (the result of some recent fly tying)

3:2 (my preference)

Why I like my Sony a6000 more than my Olympus E-M1: Part 5: Autofocus with native lenses

When it comes to autofocus with native lenses (Sony E mount and Olympus mFT mount), until two months ago, I would have given the Olympus the edge... slightly. I feel certain that when using single autofocus (AF-S), the Olympus is a tad faster than the Sony. This seems to be especially true in low light situations. Yet, I've never noticed the difference to be enough to actually make a difference in my type of shooting.

However, in the last couple of months, I've begun to use what is called "back button focus" (BBF).  I will explain how this works further below, but it basically allows you to obtain either single autofocus without changing out of the continuous autofocus mode.  

It is with continuous autofocus that the a6000 shines (compared with the E-M1). On the a6000 I find AF-C to be as fast and confident as AF-S.  On the Olympus I do not have the same confidence in AF-C.  It seems much slower and more tentative, going in and out of focus repeatedly and at a rapid pace, as it seemingly hunts to achieve  focus.

Now let's go back to setting up "back button focus" on the a6000:

I have set the a6000 to operate in AF-C. Then I  programmed the AEL/AFL button on the back of the camera to be a focus lock button. In the menu, you also need to turn off "AF w/shutter". I generally I use the smallest single "flexible" focal point.  (There are other good focus area options that are beyond the scope of this post.)

I've programmed this button as the AFL button.
It's in a perfect location for my thumb while maintaining a good grip.
The button is a nice size and gives a nice click.

This is how BBF works:

If you are photographing a still object like a landscape, press the AFL button with your thumb and release. I generally use the center focus square to achieve focus on the intended main subject, and then recompose if the main subject is to be off-center. You can now take one or more images without refocusing.

Now let's say a deer runs across your view.  Here's a chance to use continuous autofocus. Just press and hold the AFL button and it will continuously focus as you pan the camera, but you must keep the focus point on the deer. There are some other cool focusing options that I have played with but not used.  In particular, the AF-C with "lock on" seems to have great potential, as it would in this case lock onto the deer and follow it around the frame. Additional features can be realized by choosing a different focus area, like wide or zone, but I won't go into that here.

Now with the Olympus, you can also set things up with BBF. It's just that AF-C seems so sluggish.  But more importantly to me, the actual button is in the wrong place and too small and squishy. I guess it's an ergonomics issue for me.

This button is too far to the left to easily reach with your thumb while maintaining
a good grip. It's also smaller and softer than I like.

Why I like my Sony a6000 better than my Olympus E-M1: Part 4: Focusing with old manual lenses

What I am talking about here is using manual lenses with adapters on the a6000 (and Olympus E-M1).  Obviously one difference is that the focal length of any given lens differs on these two cameras.  For example, my Tamron 90mm macro lens works out to an effective 135mm on the Sony and 180mm on the Olympus, due to the respective crop factors of 1.5x and 2x. On the Sony it's a nice portrait length.  On the Olympus, not so much... but it gives a nice reach for flowers at botanic gardens.

What I like about the Sony is how it handles focusing with my old manual Minolta, Nikkor,and Tamron lenses.

One of my favorites.  A Nikkor 58mm.
At a 1.5x crop factor it makes a very nice portrait lens with an
equivalent focal length of about 85mm. And it's F1.4!

According to the serial number this is about 50 years old.
I inherited it 40 years ago.  Though I am slowly selling off my old manual lenses,
I doubt I will ever sell this one.  It was my first lens!

Like the Olympus, Sony has focus peeking, and I do use it. With focus peaking activated via the Sony menu, it will function without touching the shutter. Just hold the camera up to your eye or watch the LCD and focus the lens with your left hand. But more importantly to me, Sony's focus peeking feature operates even while half pressing the shutter.

This is what I do: 

I press the shutter half-way and hold it there while I am focusing the lens with the left hand.  When the subject shimmers from the peeking (I like the yellow peeking choice, but you can choose also white or yellow... my E-M1 offers only white) I then fully press the shutter. I like the fact that once I've focused, my shutter finger is already half-way to activating the shutter.

On the other hand, with the Olympus I feel there is too much of a delay between reaching focus and activating the shutter.  This is because the peeking only works with the shutter button unpressed.  As soon as you half-press the shutter the peaking unfortunately ceases.  It may be all in my head, but this makes me feel momentarily lost.

Summary:

Basically with the Sony, once you have achieved focus you are only a half-press away from capturing the image. With the Olympus, you are a full press away. Especially for macro photography I feel it's easy to lose focus with the Olympus during the full press of the shutter.  (Please note that I am not talking about native lenses. What I've described is how these cameras function with non-native lenses.)

Why I like my Sony a6000 more than my Olympus E-M1 (Part 3: The flash system-page 3: The Nissan i40 flash

This is the third (page 3) of three posts about how I use the Sony flash features and capabilities.  The first post about the a6000 flash feature is here and the second post is here. Please read those posts first because in them I described the very nice way (in my opinion) the Sony flash firmware on the a6000 (and at least the NEX-5R and NEX-6) works with my preferred ISO setting: Auto ISO.

All of my flash use is with the in-camera flash or with a flash mounted on the camera, almost always being bounced. I have not done any remote or triggered flash as that is currently both beyond my knowledge base and beyond my interest.

The Nissan i40 is a small but highly capable flash which is also available for other camera brands.  It operates in various modes but my interest is in TTL and manual modes.  It also provides flash for high speed sync should you be using the flash for fill-in on bright days outdoors.  However, the high speed sync only works in manual mode.

To get an idea of the diminutive size of the i40, I have pictured it here with an Olympus FL 36R and a Metz 50 AF-1 flash.  [Incidentally, both the Metz (my copy is programmed for Olympus cameras) and the Olympus work just fine on the Sony when operated in manual mode.]

Left to right: Nissan i40, Olympus FL-36R, Metz AF-1

The i40 rotates 180 degrees in either direction and angles upward 180 degrees, with 6 positions when rotating left or right (I presume 30, 60, 90, 120, 150, and 180 degrees), and 3 elevation positions above 45 degrees horizontal (60, 75, and 90 degrees).

For the baby pictures that follow, I rotated the flash head 120 degrees (4 clicks) to the right or left, depending on where I was standing relative to the natural light coming through the lightly veiled windows at the hospital (where baby Evan was born the day before). This allowed me to use flash without any direct flash on the baby's face.  I also elevated the flash head to 45 to 90 degrees above horizontal depending on whether I was aiming downward toward Evan or was shooting at his level.

Three generations

Catching up on emails, texts and Facebook

My wife is a happy grandmother

Also three generations

Happy parents are looking pretty good, I'd say