Fujifilm XT-1 Extended Eye Cup

I have  just received my recently ordered "Long Eye Cup" for my XT-1 Camera.

I've found at times I need to shield light coming in from the side, to do this I use my hand, which is not a big problem until you are using a manual focus lens, then you need three hands.


This is a third party Cup being manufactured in China by JJC Photographic Equipment Co Ltd.
Model EF - XTL  
A$13.00 through Ebay.

It's made of Silicon just like the original, and appears to be of very high quality. It slides on perfectly and looks great.

Unfortunately I wear glasses, so it doesn't help a great deal as there is still a great big gap between my head and glasses. 
But with the glasses off, it does a good job of keeping stray light out from the sides.

I can almost get enough correction out of the XT-1's diopter adjustment to allow removal of my specs, but even if I could it still means you have to wear them on your forehead whilst taking pictures.
This eye cup is of course deeper than the standard one, which can make things a little difficult if you slide your camera into its bag or case.

I think this cup will certainly help many people with stray light problems, and is worth trying out.

Pentax 100mm f4 Macro lens Review

Another great manual focal Pentax lens from thirty odd years ago. Many positive comments regarding this lens can be read over on the "Pentax Lens Forum"

Pentax 100mm f4 macro lens

This lens uses a "Heliar" optical design.

• Focal Length:     100mm
• Aperture Range: f4 thru f32 half stops thru to f22  6 blades
• Focus Travel:      350 degrees
• Close Focus:       45cm
• Filter threads:      49mm
• Weight;                370gm

Beautifully smooth focus ring, nicely damped, great lens.

Pentax 100mm f4 macro lens Close Focused

This is a great lens if you like taking shots of insects. Its focal length allows a bit of clearance between you and your living subject, they tend to run or fly away given the chance.
Like its little brother the 50mm it exhibits no aberrations that I can see, no purple fringing no chromatic or general distortions. This lens at f4 does display a small amount of "Coma" at the edge of the frame, it disappears from f5.6 as shown in the picture below.

Pentax K100d 100mm macro at f5.6

 No Coma visible

Eta Carina Region taken with Pentax 100mm f4 Macro Lens

As well as being a close up lens it's also a 100mm telephoto, so if you have an "aps-c" sized sensor in your camera, you get a field of view equivalent to 150mm on "full frame".

Pentax 100mm F4 Macro 100% Crop

Pentax 100mm f4 Macro

more pics to follow

Pentax M 50mm f4 Macro Lens Review

You can read about the Pentax 50mm f4 Macro lens on the "Pentax Lens Forum" , and It's well worth the read.
This lens is over 35 years old, and In my view, it's a little ripper.

Pentax 50mm f4 macro lens

It's a very simple lens in that it's based on the Zeiss "Tessar" optical design. Four elements in three groups. The Tessar design lends itself to a sharp and distortion free lens, but this comes at the expense of speed.
You won't find a really "fast" Tessar lens from any company, Zeiss made some at f2.8 actually millions of them. I don't call that fast, I'd like to try one though, think I will.

• Focal Length:    50mm
• Aperture range: f4 thru f32  5 blades  half stops up to f22
• Filter Threads:   49mm
• Weight:             169gm 
• Close Focus:     23.4cm
• Focus throw:     350 degrees approx

The Lens assembly is set so far back from the front you don't need a lens hood with this little fella either.

Pentax 50mm f4 macro lens close focused

You might say "A bit slow at f4" but who cares, once you step outside into the sun you start at f4, or f8
Being wide open at f4 also allows for some nice "bokeh" as you can focus very close to your subject and have an "iris blade free" background blur.

Pentax 50mm f4 macro lens Bokeh

The only down side I have found is at the far end of things, as you approach infinity the focus travel gets rather small, so nailing focus at that end takes a bit more patience.

As the saying goes "a picture is worth a thousand words" so some pictures.
 

All taken with Fujifilm XT-1 Camera

One of those weeds at f4 and 

100% crop at the right.

Nice flower and

100% crop

As you can see very sharp, and as I believe also free from distortion. No only a great close up lens, but also great as a walk around lens as well.

The following two are straight from the camera, not cropped, just compressed a bit.

The bike is a colour shot

Probably f8.Focused on the motor.

Most likely f8 

Flinders St Station, Melbourne, Victoria