Wallace Koopmans Artlog

This lens was made in many different camera mounts but here I have it in Olympus OM. It is a true macro lens providing a 1:1 ratio. I loaded my OM-1 with Fuji 400 film in order to get a little more speed over the 200 ASA I typically use. That one stop can mean the difference between a sharp image and a blurred one. For example while typically you can hand hold a 55mm lens at 1/60 sec that isn’t necessarily true with macro. The reason is that small amounts of movement are magnified at close distances, while an angular shift of a degree has little effect at 100ft it means an entirely different view at 1 foot. Of course a tripod would be a good idea ordinarily but in this case I either hand held or used a mono-pod. As you would expect with a macro lens it is very sharp and has very little distortion.

My only wish is that it were in K-mount so I could use it with my DSLR, I really can’t find any reason to fault it, on the OM-1 it performs great and I was able to use it as a normal lens too.

This is a great lens for either film or digital, as might be expected for a macro lens, it is incredibly sharp and contrasty.  Here I’ve used it with the PZ1p and Ektar 100.

Here are some more images using the Pentax M50 1.7 and the DFA 100 Macro WR.

I’m planning a day trip and was having some difficulty deciding what lenses to take to use with my DSLR.  So today I went to a nearby area and took pictures with one possible lens selection.  I took the Pentax DA18-55 WR, a SMC M50 1.7, and the DFA100mm Macro WR.  This combination gives me a broad focal range and also one fast prime.  While I didn’t mind the manual focusing I would have preferred to have used an A series 50mm that would have provided aperture control through the camera rather than the lens.  Otherwise it was a pretty good arrangement.

I really liked the background colours in this image from today and the contrasting droplet.  It’s difficult to take macro shots like this by hand as even the slight swaying back and forth that happens as you stand effects what is in focus.  By persisting though you can eventually get one that works.

These images where taken the same day as the last DA35 post and have been re-sized but are otherwise processed in the camera.

I needed to wait around for a few hours so I took my Pentax K-7 and only one lens, the DA35 ltd.  These pictures are directly from the camera but re sized.