Monday December 9, 2013

NEW YORK NEW YORK – More old lenses. Today I’m experimenting with a 5cm Nikkor-S (Contax mount) f1.4 with a Contax to Leica adapter that I found on ebay (the focusing helicoid for the Contax was on the body, not the lens, so this is a complex adapter). This lens, which is from the mid-1950s, does much better at close focus than infinity, where there is all kinds of junk going on in the corners. Here are two samples on taken with my Monochrom. This lens has a lovely signature in an intimate setting.

A second old lens: an 8.5 cm f2.0 Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar from 1937, also in Contax mount with a modern copy of the adapter referred to above. The mount had a slight ding which caused serious hassles fitting it to the adapter. After fussing with it on and off for a couple of months I finally got it working this week. The focus cam is not correct for Leica so the rangefinder is only accurate at close focus (1.15 m) but is extremely accurate there. This with an M so I could use the EVF to focus and converted to black and white. This is a sensational, charismatic lens, especially given that it is 75 years old. I’ll be doing more work with it.

The Nikkor from the Mad Men era:

The Sonnar from pre-War Germany – not a great image – I’m trying to figure out what this lens can do.

On this day one year ago: White House.