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  • Fujifilm GFX50R and Third-Party Lenses (35mm)

    (This is definitely a work in progress; I’ve still got more lens adaptors to buy and more lenses to test)

    So I have a new Fujifilm GFX50R with one native lens (63mm) and my fortunes don’t extend to buying more lenses any time soon. Yet I hear that some 35mm lenses will work even though they’re designed to cover the smaller sensor of 35mm (or in many of the cases below 35mm film).

    As someone who has been sticking third-party lenses (and I don’t mean Sigma lenses with an EF mount) on my Canon cameras for years the obvious thing to do is buy some adaptors to test the lenses I have.

    And on the grounds that I would find this information useful if someone else had posted it (and I’d found it), I decided to put this out there. No guarantees on the accuracy though!

    Caveats :-

    1. No, the images aren’t meant to look good; most of this testing was done inside after a long day staring at a computer screen. The subject is boring, the focus may be off, and if you think these images represent what I’m capable of I’ll just roll about the floor laughing (and I’m not that good). When of course I add the images to this posting.
    2. If you have to have a “smart” lens adaptor for Canon EF lenses, choose a good one. The first one I bought was rubbish; I’ve since gone with a Kipon branded one.
    3. The column for “soft vignetting’ is particularly dubious; I’m not great at spotting it in the first place and until I move the images onto a computer screen and take a closer look I wouldn’t guarantee anything.
    Lens Photo? Soft Vignetting Hard Vignetting Sample (links)
    Zeiss Makro-Planar 2/100mm ZE ✓ No No 1
    Zeiss Distagon 21/2.8 ZE ✓ No Yes 1
    MC Zenitar 16/2.8 ✗ – Yes
    Sigma 12-24 @ 12mm ✓ No No
    Sigma 12-24 @ 24mm ✓ Yes Yes
    Canon 24-105mm f/4.0 L ✗ Yes Yes
    Canon 200-400mm mk1 @ 200 ✗ No No
    Canon 200-400mm mk1 @ 400 ✗ – Yes
    Leica Elmarit-R 2.8/19mm (1977) ✗ – Yes
    Leica Summilux-R 1.4/50mm (1971) ✗ Below f/11 No
    Leica Elmarit-R 2.8/35mm (1984) ✗ Yes No
    Leica Elmarit-R 2.8/180mm (1975) ✓ No No
    Leica Elmarit-R 2.8/90mm (1966) ✓ No No 1
    Leica Macro-Elmerit-R 2.8/60mm (1977) ✓ Below f/4.0 No
    Leica Summicron-R 2/50mm (1965) TODO TODO TODO
    Olympus OM 18mm f/3.5 ✓ – Yes
    Olympus OM 85mm f/2.0 ✓ Yes No
    Olympus OM 35mm f/2.8 ✓ Yes No
    Carl Zeiss Jena 3.5/135mm ✓ No No 1

  • We Are A Plague On The Earth

    Not.

    I encountered this sign today at lunch when walking past a bunch of environmental protesters. I agree totally with their intentions, but this particular message is just wrong.

    The earth (if sentient) is just about waking up and wondering what we are – the whole of human history and pre-history (the bits that weren’t written down) is no more than a blink in the eye of the earth. If we successfully cause an extinction-level climate change event (and so far it looks pretty successful), our entire extinction will be just another layer in the geological record – just a bit more unusual than other thin extinction layers.

    The earth will quite happily get used to a warmer (or colder if it eventually settles down that way) climate equilibrium and might just (if sentient) wonder where we’ve gotten to.

    The earth will go on without us; barely noticing we were here.

    We’re not a plague on the earth; we’re a plague on our children.

    And when you come down to it, the slogan “We Are A Plague On Our Children” is far better – it’s accurate and more personal, and harder hitting.

    Early Morning Seatrip

  • Foggy Itchen Bridge

    Posts in a Foggy River
    Voyage Into Mystery

  • Antisemites Are Jew-Haters

    The most peculiar thing about antisemitism (except for the concept itself which is frankly ridiculous) is the phrase itself. The words “Semitic” is in fact today used to refer to a group of languages rather than a group of people.

    And that group of languages is used by a wide collection of different people – including Arabs, Maltese, and yes, Hebrew speaking Jews.

    The phrase “antisemitic” was first coined by Jew-haters to make their hatred seem more normalised and scientific. Yet, the word has been normalised and accepted by their opponents – essentially letting the Jew-haters win.

    According to Jonathan M. Hess, the term was originally used by its authors to “stress the radical difference between their own ‘antisemitism’ and earlier forms of antagonism toward Jews and Judaism.”

    It is not for me to dictate to anyone, but it seems to me that we should perhaps give these scum back their original names. Call a spade a spade, and a Jew-hater exactly what they are.

    The Edge Of The D (Curved Brick Wal)

  • Manually Setting IP Addresses – Use CIDR Format!

    Normally when you set an IP address manually on an interface you do not get a whole lot of choice of how it is done – very often you have to specify the IP address itself and a network mask. The addresses and masks are almost always specified as “dotted quads” (10.0.0.1) rather than the real address in binary or decimal (167772161).

    The network mask specifies what parts of the IP address are the network address and which are the host address – to determine whether a destination needs to go via a gateway or is on the local network. This is expressed as a bitmask like 255.255.255.0. Having said that, rarely some devices (Cisco routers in the dustier parts of their code) require the reverse – 0.0.0.255.

    An alternative approach is to use the CIDR format to specify both the IP address of the device and the size of the network – 10.2.9.21/24. This is used (at least) on Palo Alto Networks firewalls and is probably the simplest way of configuring a network address I have come across.

    Having configured hundreds of devices with static addresses … and helped solve oodles of network configuration issues, I feel that the CIDR format method is likely to be far less error prone.

    If you do need to set a netmask, use ipcalc to check what it is (and use it to cut&paste rather than risk typos) :-

    ✓ mike@pica» ipcalc 10.2.9.21/24 
Address:   10.2.9.21            00001010.00000010.00001001. 00010101
Netmask:   255.255.255.0 = 24   11111111.11111111.11111111. 00000000
Wildcard:  0.0.0.255            00000000.00000000.00000000. 11111111
=>
Network:   10.2.9.0/24          00001010.00000010.00001001. 00000000
HostMin:   10.2.9.1             00001010.00000010.00001001. 00000001
HostMax:   10.2.9.254           00001010.00000010.00001001. 11111110
Broadcast: 10.2.9.255           00001010.00000010.00001001. 11111111
Hosts/Net: 254                   Class A, Private Internet
    Through The Gateway