Sunrise with 1954 CZ Jena tessar 50mm f2.8

This was the only bright part of the day, the sunrise peeked under the overcast for less than 5 minutes, so I was outside with my KX and the Carl Zeiss Tessar lens I have that cost me 40 dollars off a guy in Greece. I did the post processing while listening to Vangelis' Blade Runner soundtrack, so perhaps thats why I made it in an anamorphic aspect ratio

The lens is single coated and prone to flare, but I like it , and I dont know why,but  it has a great rendering that the more modern lenses dont do, is it more contrast? less definition? I dont know , but it was made when black and white photography was the norm, so when used to take colour, it seems to really generate excellent images

Ray of Gold : Super MC Takumar 50/1.4

Ray of Gold

taken with a Super MC Takumar 50mm f1.4 at f1.4 on my Pentax KX

 On the way back to the car during an evening photo trip  the golden sunset was almost done,but a ray of light shone through the forest and landed on this leaf , so I took a picture of it naturally :)

 I like this lens, even if it is a bit yellowed with age , the thorium coating causes the cement inside to discolour over time!

Bokeh Christmas tree! Takumar 50mm /f1.4

Super Multi Coated Asahi-Pentax Takumar 50mm f1.4 at f1.4 on my Pentax KX

I had the lens wide open to get the circular highlights,  if you stop it down below F2 it turns them into octagons, and by f4 they are perfectly symmetrical . Quite cool!

Frozen Sunset : Helios 44m-6 58mm/f2 on Pentax KX

On the way home from a Xmas eve meal with some workmates I saw a bush that had frozen droplets on it, so I walked back there with my camera and a Helios 44m-6 to see what I could get before dark

This one is a full shot as there werent any cars driving by :)

shot at F2 , I love the swirly bokeh!

Zeiss Planar 85 T* : Another desktop for you

Another desktop shot, this one taken with the Zeiss Planar lens from 1984 T* 85mm f1.4 @f1.4 on a Canon rebel XT T*

 Its a triptych , an artsy way of saying a 3 piece :) put together using photoshop.

Some people couldnt figure out what it was: its the light from outdoors shining through the patterned glass on my front door , this is the hallway wall!

Bokeh Inferno : desktop wallpaper Zeiss Planar 85mm f1.4 wide open

this one taken with a Zeiss Planar 85 T* on my Rebel XT using a fotodiox Contax/yashica > EOS adapter


The lens itself is a beauty and its a rare German made MMG model, it was made around the time zeiss was working with yashica, so the originals were made in W Germany, then the production was moved to Japan with German technicians and quality control engineers

Helios 40 85/1.5 M42 : Xmas light bokeh

So here goes my first blog post, how trendy........

here is a desktop image for the holidays that I took , click on it to see it full size

It was taken with a Pentax K-X and a Soviet era Helios 40 85mm f1.5 which is a clone of the 1939 Carl Zeiss Biotar 75mm. Its a tank gunsight and weighs almost a kilogram, not what i really intended my KX to be used for, but it makes the out of focus highlights become elliptical and/or lenticular , which i find intriguing

happy holidays