Building new UV setup; request for comments

[Andrea B.]

Is there a pin on the back which moves in/out with the switch?

If there is a pin, then as Clark and Col mentioned this switch might move the pin in/out to make the lens fully manual or auto-aperture. It is probably not meaningful for our DSLRs or mirrorless mods. I have such a switch on one of my older Taks but nothing happens when on the Pentax K5.

[Andy Perrin]

Yes! There is. Okay, that must be it, then. But how on earth did the automatic aperture work on a lens that's purely mechanical? Did the pin get pushed in and out or something?

[colinbm]

Somethings that are mechanical can operate automatically, when another part is engaged.....

I was trying to explain that the switch acts like a preview switch, depending how it is connected to the camera.

The switch can open the aperture fully manually or automatically back to the set aperture.

Col

[enricosavazzi]

Yes! There is. Okay, that must be it, then. But how on earth did the automatic aperture work on a lens that's purely mechanical? Did the pin get pushed in and out or something?

Yes, exactly.

 

Another reason for a lever that does not seem to do anything in a mechanical lens is switching between aperture ring clicking at intervals when opened/closed, and smoothly opening/closing without click-stops. The internal mechanism may be worn out or stuck, so it may appear to do nothing. Don't know if it applies to this lens.

[Andy Perrin]

Yeah, it's clear now. I took the lens off the camera and fiddled with it. The switch seems to make the aperture open all the way (and I assume pressure on the pin must gradually close it). I didn't notice when it was on the camera because I think I tested it before with the aperture already mostly open, so the fact that it opened further wouldn't have made much difference. The camera was on the automatic P setting, so I might not have noticed the change in brightness either because it was compensated for.

[Andrea B.]

Andy, is that Steinheil in good condition? No fungus, no haze, no scratches? I might take it off your hands. PM me if you are interested.

[Andy Perrin]

No fungus and no scratches. I'm not sure what a hazy lens looks like yet! I can send you some shots with it, especially if you can tell me what settings would make any haze worse?

[Andrea B.]

Haze looks like translucent filmy patches on all or part of an element, either innner or outer. Kinda like the element is foggy, dusty or dirty. You would notice it immediately upon holding the lens up to light with the aperture wide open.

[Andy Perrin]

Nope, no haze then. I also shot a few pictures with it and they looked fine to me. Will PM.

[Andrea B.]

Okie dokes.

I'm out for the evening but will catch up eventually.

[Andy Perrin]

My camera sensor, or at least the spectrosil on top of it, seems to be very dirty (verging on filthy). I've been enthusiastically squirting air at it with a bulb air-blower, but there is still a lot left. Any recommendations for a next step? I am really hoping none of it is behind the spectrosil! I don't think it is, though, since a lot of the crud has at least been shifted around by the air-blower.

 

Picture of the sky, inverted to show the dust more clearly, pre-air-squirt:

 

Picture of sky (different day, cloudy now), post-squirt:

[Andrea B.]

static electricity? Perhaps one of those sensor brushes?

 

 

REFERENCE: Everything you could possibly want to know about sensor cleaning. :D

http://www.bythom.com/cleaning.htm

 

ADDED Later: It is not necessary to purchase an expensive sensor brush. You can find unsized artist's brushes on Ebay. Can't remember the name right now as it has been a long time since I bought them. Perhaps someone else will chime in here.

[Andy Perrin]

Ahah! Thanks.

[lost cat]

static electricity? Perhaps one of those sensor brushes?

 

 

REFERENCE: Everything you could possibly want to know about sensor cleaning. :D

http://www.bythom.com/cleaning.htm

 

ADDED Later: It is not necessary to purchase an expensive sensor brush. You can find unsized artist's brushes on Ebay. Can't remember the name right now as it has been a long time since I bought them. Perhaps someone else will chime in here.

 

You can buy an electrostatic sensor cleaning brush on Amazon for about $20 with prime or a few wet/dry cleaning brushes for about $10. I ordered a few just yesterday so I can *finally* do my lens testing with a with a clean sensor.

[Andy Perrin]

Okay, I *think* I have the sensor clean, although we'll see.

 

New problem: my Novoflex Noflexar has an aperture ring that is *really* loose. I don't think it's supposed to be so loose that it's practically blowing in the wind. Is there a way to tighten it? I have every screwdriver known to man or woman, but I don't know which thing I need to tighten.

[nfoto]

You aren't confusing the preset closing ring with the aperture ring itself? The aperture is set by the front ring that usually tends to be very stiff and often difficult to shift. One then opens to shooting aperture by a quick twist of the next ring that indeed is very easy to move. By design apparently and as it will hit the hard stop set initially there is no disadvantage of its "loose" behaviour a far as I can observe.

[Andy Perrin]

Edit: Okay, I think I may see what you are talking about. The other ring was so stiff I couldn't get it to move independently, so I thought it was all one ring. I seriously need to read some kind of introduction to interchangeable lens cameras I think.

[nfoto]

The front ring has small engraved number showing the aperture values. The ring itself is very stiff if you try just to rotate it: do apply pressure from the front and it'll move a little easier. As one normally has a step ring to make up for the odd 49 mm threads, you can apply downwards pressure to the step ring while rotating the front aperture collar.

 

Do note you just need to put the aperture to some favourite setting, for example f/8, (perhaps let it stay there for a long period of time) and the use the preset ring which turns easily to open up for focusing then close down for shooting. Takes much longer time to write than to perform in real time.

[JCDowdy]

Andy, if you don't already have it, this might be good to have.

[Andrea B.]

Well John that was a nice link!! Thank you. I think I'll add it to the Lens Sticky.

[Andy Perrin]

Thanks, John! Yes, that will be useful.

[Andrea B.]

Andy, have you pulled apart your Noflexar yet to put it into macro mode? I think it has 3 stages? Scared me to death first time I tried that. Thought I had ruined the lens for sure!!!

 

***

 

As described above the Noflexar has the aperture preset mechanism. I note for the record that it is very easy to bump the front ring back into wide-open "focusing" mode as you have observed. But you get used to being careful with it after using the lens for awhile. :D

[Andy Perrin]

I did that for the first time last night! I found a video on YouTube showing how to extend the macro so I was less frightened then you were because I'd seen how it was supposed to work. I still haven't tried any macro photos yet — my battery died RIGHT after I figured out how the barrel extends.

 

Here is the video:

[JCDowdy]

Don't thank me, thank Klaus for posting it on another forum.

I found it as an alternative to buying one on eBay.

 

 

Danke Klaus!

[Andy Perrin]

I received my filter stack from eeassa (which turns out to be UG-11 2mm, BG-39 2.5mm, by the way). Here are a few shots out the window. I do not yet have any Teflon or even one of those Passport things to white balance off of, so I tried using the freshly fallen snow. All white balance was done in-camera. When I did the white balancing, the camera complained to me with an error, but seems to have done it anyway. Is that normal?

 

I started with the JPG, not RAW. I tweaked the histogram a bit for contrast, and also fiddled with saturation/vibrance.

 

Lens was the Steinheil Edixa-auto-cassaron at F/11. Exposure was 4 seconds, ISO 800.

 

 

One thing I wondered about is how you are all getting the camera's white balance applied to the RAW image. When I import the RAW in photoshop, it never has white balance applied (as one would hope!) but obviously you all have some way of making use of the camera's white balance to adjust the RAW.