[paulh]

Tokina RMC 80-200

[paulh]

Tokina 80-200 again, from the same evening as the above image:

[GUB]

Magnolia Delavayi
This is from a Tamron 95-205 f5.6 that I have just acquired for about US$30. It is the younger brother of the 95 - 205 f6.3 that I used for the Bird of Paradise flower a few posts back.
It is about 1965 vintage. Less common than the 6.3 apparently and I don't think it is quite as sharp or as good a bokeh as the earlier one. But it is early days yet and I have more experimenting to do!
Wide open at its closest focus, handheld at 1/45.

[monochrome]

Magnolia Delavayi
This is from a Tamron 95-205 f5.6 that I have just acquired for about US$30. It is the younger brother of the 95 - 205 f6.3 that I used for the Bird of Paradise flower a few posts back.
It is about 1965 vintage. Less common than the 6.3 apparently and I don't think it is quite as sharp or as good a bokeh as the earlier one. But it is early days yet and I have more experimenting to do!
Wide open at its closest focus, handheld at 1/45.

For a 'not as good as' image that's pretty damn good. Really grabbed my eye.

[paulh]

For a 'not as good as' image that's pretty damn good. Really grabbed my eye.

Agreed - looks very nice to me as well!

Poison ivy decorating this tree, seen in November. Cosmicar A35-70/4

[GUB]

Thanks for that guys. An old lens like that is a pleasure to use. What are the oldest zooms you are using?.

[paulh]

Thanks for that guys. An old lens like that is a pleasure to use. What are the oldest zooms you are using?.

I think my oldest is the M35-70/2.8-3.5. It's descended from the old "autofocus" Pentax ME-F, and developed into a standalone MF lens. I really like the sharpness and rendering of this old zoom. My newest is probably the Tokina RMC 80-200, which has the "A" setting. Nice color and rendering, but relatively big and heavy, and has a serious case of zoom creep. But I only paid $10 for it, and I'm always amazed at how well it performs.

[GUB]

So that would be the early 80s for the 35 - 70 ?

[paulh]

So that would be the early 80s for the 35 - 70 ?

According to the review here on the forums, production ran from 1979-84.
SMC Pentax-M 35-70mm F2.8-3.5 Reviews - M Zoom Lenses - Pentax Lens Reviews & Lens Database

[GUB]

And grumpy to boot!!
Tamron 95 - 205 f5.6 @ f8
Cropped a little

[paulh]

And grumpy to boot!!
Tamron 95 - 205 f5.6 @ f8
Cropped a little

Nice one.

Leaf on her face (Cosmicar A35-70/4)

[GUB]

It rained all day until just before sunset. So I took the Tamron 95 - 205 f5.6 out for a walk taking landscapes of my surrounding hills sunlit against the receding rainclouds. The images are very soft on the edges.

[paulh]

It rained all day until just before sunset. So I took the Tamron 95 - 205 f5.6 out for a walk taking landscapes of my surrounding hills sunlit against the receding rainclouds. The images are very soft on the edges.

Nice shots with very unique tones!

A35-70/4 again:

[Stagnant]

SMC Pentax A-70-210

- Port of Tallinn and Tallinn city as seen from on-board Eckerö Line M/S Finlandia.
- A view of Helsinki from on-board Eckerö Line M/S Finlandia.
- A view of expanding Länsisatama (Port) in Helsinki. from on-board Eckerö Line M/S Finlandia.

These are some of the shots from my New Year's Eve trip to Helsinki. All of these photos were taken using tripod. First of all it is very windy on the deck of the moving ship. Another thing to keep in mind is vibration coming from the ship's engines. The light was very dim, so to achieve shutter speeds fast enough I had to raise the ISO. Technically I could have opened the aperture to F4, but at 200 mm, the images taken wide open, are too damn soft. The first shot was the hardest to do as it was very tough to focus the lens accurately because of the gusts of wind and the mist in the air.
Post processing these shots was also damn hard. I deliberately underexposed the first shot by roughly 2 stops, to avoid motion blur. When I fixed this, I ended up with an extremely flat looking image. Besides, the noise combined with the mist in the air further decreased the image quality. I was not able to achieve satisying results with Silkypix DS PRO 7, so I switched to DxO 9. After some fiddling I finally managed to get the results that satisfied me. The last image was hard to process because of the dynamic range of the scene. I exposed for highlights, which resulted in a rather dark image, then in SilkyPix DS 7Pro I fiddled around with tone curve, exposure slider and various tools to brighten the shadows. It took me more than half an hour and 5 or 6 versions to get a more or less realistic looking picture.

[ivanvernon]

Selfies.