Canon EOS 350D with Schneider-Kreuznach Radionar 4.5/10.5cm

taken from a broken down, originally cheap 6x9 folder camera (1938)

Veijo Vilva

(Page under Construction)

uncoated lens with low contrast and a certain amount of lens flare
FOV corresponds to a 168mm lens on a 35mm camera
front cell focusing

the lens is mounted with a 43mm extension tube on an M42-to-EOS adapter.
The extension is slightly too short so the lens will focus past infinity.
Prontor II shutter was retained, set at T position
manual focus
AV (aperture priority) or M (manual)

A NOTE CONCERNING THE BOOKSHELF TEST PHOTOS

my test procedure isn't very rigorous
bad results may be caused by bad focusing as manual focusing in dim lighting isn't any too easy when the DOF for this level of expected sharpness is just a few millimeters in either direction
the test only shows that the specific tested lens is at least as good as my results -- even that individual lens might be better, and others of the same make and model may be better or worse
anyhow, the equivalent magnification of the 100% crops is just plain sick, i.e. about 48x on a typical 17", 1024x768 CRT. Normally, 8x has been considered a reasonable maximum for critical sharpness from film. At 48x magnification, a 35mm film frame would be about 172cm (68") wide, and even a 1.6x crop factor dSLR frame would be 107cm (42") wide!

At f/5.6

(full size)
A 100% crop:

Contrast is rather low. Front cell focusing isn't any too easy as it is quite difficult to prevent fingers
from getting in front of the lens.
A 100% crop from a local contrast enhanced version:

(full size)
Scaled down and post-processed:

At this scale, the full image would be about 20" wide.

At f/5.6:

A hand-held shot at 1/200s (full size)

A 100% crop from the above photo:

Not too bad for a cheap, 70 years old, uncoated medium format lens!
This photo would be even sharper if I had used a tripod and focused more carefully.
At the magnification corresponding to viewing this crop on a 17" screen at 1024x768,
i.e. about 48x, the 82mm x 56mm frame of the original camera would be about 4m (13ft) wide!
Even more impressive after some local contrast enhancement:
(full size)

Bokeh
Bokeh at f/5.6:

Bokeh at f/4.5:

Compare the above photo with the photo below taken with Sonnar 2.8/85 at f/2.8.
The bokeh of the Radionar is much better, in fact, almost ideal!

Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* 2.8/85mm

Note: All shots hand-held

Compare this with a photo taken with a Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* 2.8/135mm or
with a Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* 2.8/85mm or
another taken with a Super-Multi-Coated Takumar 3.5/135mm.
The bokeh here is quite nice and well-behaved.

Nothing much wrong here! (A full size copy)
(compare with a photo taken with a Super-Multi-Coated Takumar 3.5/135mm)

(compare with a photo taken with a Super-Multi-Coated Takumar 3.5/135mm)

Note: at a larger size these photos would look a little bit different, somewhat noisier
due to the requirement to adjust levels and local contrast.
(compare with a photo taken with a Super-Multi-Coated Takumar 3.5/135mm)
A 100% crop from the above photo, local contrast enhanced:

Note the text at the lower right corner! At this magnification, a photo taken with
the original camera would be about 2.7 m (9 ft) wide and 4 m (13 ft) high!
This crop would have been about 5 mm (0.2") high on a customary contact print.
The photo would look about like this as a 20" high print, only sharper.
(compare with a corresponding crop from the S-M-C Takumar photo.
Nothing to be ashamed of, here.)

In the Mirror, Darkly