Hello,
We all brag about our favorite camera brand been capable of using every single lens ever made since the dawn of civilization. But, how many actually do it? Does it really work?
Well, I wanted to find out.
Around 1989 I bought my first true camera: a K1000 which is still in use. As a college student back then, I couldn't really afford much, but I was very interested in telephoto zooms. So I mail ordered a fully manual Korean made "famous brand" (read cheap) 60-300 f4-5.6 lens from the ad pages of Popular Photography mag. The lens brand is Samyang. Never heard of it before or since. Anyway, I used it a little bit, was not impressed with it especially with the low contrast and it ended up in it's original box in a closet for well over 15 years.
Recently, I thought "why not try it in the K100D?" So I tried it with low expectations. Again, contrast is a low point but this time, I can manipulate the image in Photoshop. So maybe, just maybe, all is not lost.... Hmm....
Here is picture of a "Bread fruit" tree behind my house, shot handheld at full zoom. I understand that the 300mm lenght would lously translate to about 450 in the digital frame.
Low contrast.
and this is the image after only a minute or 2 in Photoshop, working ONLY with levels.
Here is a more dramatic case: Again handheld full zoom. Manual focusing this rig is a bit of a challenge but that's another story.
Before:
After playing with levels and a minor cropping:
Another full zoom handheld
Before
After:
Last sample. This time zoomed all the way back to the widest 60mm
Before:
After:
I know these images can be processed much further. They were shot in JPEG so raw may have even more possibilities. I feel like I just got a zoom lens for free
What do you think?
Thanks,
Last edited by ismaelg; 04-15-2009 at 10:59 AM.