Well worth it. The BW shot is the star of the pair in my eyes. K.

A lovely set of classic images. Given many are crops, I'd suggest also cropping No. 2. All that green in the foreground doesn't add much IMHO. I tried it by scrolling the screen up and down and cropping it so the wall on the left leaves the frame a little above the corner works well for me.

Cheers, Kris.

I'm guessing the lens doesn't have a DOF scale on it... One of the advantages of using old glass I guess.

BTW (and more to the point) lovely images.

K.

PS I'd be hopeless at "just a minute".

Lovely. Very minor suggestion: I'd be tempted to clone out the little black splodge (bug?) on the upper petal.

As some of you will know, in an attempt to get away from the 2021 blues I have been doing the "Single in ...." challenge on the US fora. Basically, one tries to take and post one image a day for a month using the same lens. This month I have been using one of the first K-series primes I purchased, the K135mm f/2.5. This one was purchased around about 2009 or so. When I was moving house last December I found a receipt for the 135mm lens I purchased in 1986 which was stolen (along with my M28/2.8, M50/1.7 and MX) on the Paris Metro in about 1999. In those days I didn't have the internet to scour and feed my LBA and I didn't remember that my original lens was also a K135/2.5. The post below is my monthly round-up which I have copied here for anyone who is interested. This month (June) I am going to use one of my latest acquisitions, the K20/4.

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May is often a busy month for me as I have to do a lot of grading. I used to have a trip to the US in the middle but the event was cancelled because of covid in 2020 and hasn't been reinstated. As a result I had a lot of "safeties" including one or two terrible ones which I'll gloss quickly over. The main issue I have with the K135/2.5 is that it is not very close focusing. As a result, my extension tubes got a lot of use this month, often just the thin 13mm one which is enough to bring focusing down to about 1m or so. I have no idea why, but I seemed to have more problems focussing the 135mm using the viewfinder than I did with the K120 earlier in the year. Whenever I could (basically when I could use a tripod), I used live view to refine the focus. Only once did I knock the dial when turning the camera on and accidentally set the focal length to 1135mm. I'm getting better at checking. I also think that the contrast etc. would be improved with a lens hood. I have an original appropriate plastic clip-on hood but one of the clips is not quite right and it tends to fall off, so it didn't get used much. Before I moved house I used to use a metal screw-in Takumar hood which was much better but I couldn't find which box those ended-up in!

All in all, it is a nice lens and I'm happy to have it and use it. It is nice and sharp when you nail the focus and quite bright. I suspect, however, that the K120mm might see a little more use on the basis of the two SIC months with these two lenses, Here are a few unmarkable images.



May 28: rose par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity



May 02: Cougar par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity



May 12: Knebworth churchyard par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity



May 24: walking by par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity



May 07: Hampton Gay par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity



May 06: SV par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity



May 09: odd one out par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity

Hi Rob,

When you buy a LF lens you check it's image circle and make sure it is bigger than your intended film size. Some have more limited image circle than others. You then have to make sure that what ever you do in terms of movements doesn't result in the film being outside the image circle. Usually moderate "normal" movements are fine. The more extreme movements (beloved of people taking photos of LF cameras but almost never used in practice) might cause problems.

For 99% of applications, the TS lens will basically work just as well. On rare occasions the combination of movements on LF is not possible with the TS lens. Additionally, movements of the rear standard have a different effect than movements of the front standard. I never remember the details but there are some good books on the subject.

Sadly, I do not use my LF camera nearly as much as I would like to. I find it hard to find the time, and I really need a good rucksack for it but I haven't found one that works, yet.

Best wishes, Kris.

Harder with a tilt-shift lens but with large format where "macro" is provided via the bellows, you can use tilt to alter the plane of focus in a useful way.

Product photography where you wanted the whole of your packet of cornflakes to be in focus used to be done with large format. In LF, you can also "swing" to tilt the plane of focus from side to side, or do both simultaneously.

The more close-up sort of LF photography is not something I have ever seriously tried but I know the theory. Mostly I use my LF for architecture with some rise and occasionally a little swing. Ooo errrr.

There are 101 options to set to get the best out of the AF. There is a long thread discussing the options on the US site. I've not gone into them as I've mainly been using manual glass.

K.

Available again (now I've found it... Sorry Neil).

It took quite a bit of fighting to get Lightroom 4.4 to work with Windows 10 so I wouldn't hold your breath. The main problem was scaling until I found the right setting in Windows (everything was so small you couldn't see the icons or read the menus). Even now turn the "lightbox" feature (where you make everything black except the image) doesn't work properly (half the image goes black too).

I'm starting to investigate alternatives to Lightroom which is a shame because I really like it. I just do not want to get locked-in to a subscription system which will be fine until I cannot afford it...

Best wishes, Kris.