Zürich, St.-Peter-Hofstatt

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Zurich, St.-Peter-Hofstatt, 2014-12-28, with Sony A7 and Minolta MC 28mm f/2.0.

It's summer, so time for a winter photo. The church in the background is the St. Peter church, one of the five churches in the inner city of Zurich. It has the biggest clock on its tower in all of Europe, bigger than the one on Big Ben in London. The Swiss like to put a Lime/Linden tree on the central town square (in Germany it's the Oak tree). With the near by Lindenhof (square), one of the nicest places in Zurich. And the winter lights certainly don't take anything away from its beauty.

Zürcher Lachmöwe

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Common black-headed gull in Zurich on 2014-11-10 with Sony A7 and Minolta AF 100-300mm f/4.5-5.6 (the non-APO version).

The small gulls are very common around the Zurich lake and Limmat river and masters in catching breadcrumps in flight.

The Minolta AF lens is actually very small (short when focussed to infinity), light, and cheap. It feels plasticy, because it is. But it allows a minimal focus distance of 1.5 m only. The little more expensive APO version is supposed to be very sharp, but for a web picture I am more than pleased with this one.

Golden Moons

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Giant christmas tree ball ornaments in the moon light in Erlenbach, 2014-11-08.

With Sony A7 and Minolta MD 50mm f/1.2.

Family Formation

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2014-08-14, on (my) way to work.. with Sony A7 and Minolta AF 85mm f/1.4.

Movement - A Moment

A photo walk with the Photo International Club Zurich about the topic Movement.



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Sony A7 with Minolta MD 35mm f/2.8 and ND8 filter and the last picture with Sony A7 and Canon FD 135mm f/2.

Wuff

Zurich - Erlenbach, 2013-10-31. With Sony Nex-5R and Minolta MD 135mm f/3.5.

Touch God

Zürich, 2013-10-28.

With Sony Nex-5R and Minolta MD 50mm f/1.7 (my very first lens:).

Nikkor Collection

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Starring from left to right in the foreground:

Nikkor 35mm f/1.4 AIS
Nikkor 55mm f/1.2 pre-AI
Nikkor 105mm f/2.5 AIS.

In the backgroud, lenses seen inside the foreground lenses, left to right:

Nikkor 28mm f/2.8 AIS (only its aluminum ring )
Nikkor 24mm f/2.0 AIS
PC-Nikkor 28mm f/4.0
Nikkor 24mm f/2.0 AIS (again same lens as seen to the left)

And for completeness sake, here is the whole gang:

Both pictures taken with Sony Nex-5R and Minolta MD 28mm f/2.8.

P.S. And there is a Minolta collection as well... I just hope I will never get the Leica bug.

Zürcher Schärfentiefe

Two depth of field exercises (with more, or less - last year for Marcel G.)...


From the entrance hall of the ETH Zürich main building, on 2012-09-14 (with Sony Nex-5 and Minolta MD 35mm f/2.8).


The small model at the Zürich Grossmünster church on 2012-09-15 (with Panasonic G2 and Olympus 9-18mm f/4-5.6).

BTW, Schärfentiefe is German for depth of field, in German also often called Tiefenschärfe. That last word doesn't make much sense however, language wise, as it would mean something along sharpness of depth, instead of the other way around. Like Dickenscheibe instead of Scheibendicke (die Dicke der Scheibe vs. die Scheibe der Dicke), it's just not the same etc. However, if a word is used long enough by enough people, it doesn't need to make sense anymore, it's just a new word (and everybody knows - Stundenkilometer [or Stuckis] is another one)...

Oh, and ironically, in English there is also depth of focus, which sounds more directly a translation of the German word to me, however, it again means something slightly different and is also sometimes falsely used instead of depth of field.

OK, genug der Belehrung:o).

Meiyintang Collection

Museum Rietberg, Zurich

2013-03-24, with Panasonic G2 and Minolta MD 50mm f/1.4.

Züri Day

Züri Day







2012-09-24, Minolta MD 28mm f/2.8, Sony Nex 5.

Nikkor-S 55mm f/1.2

Nikkor-S Kogaku 55mm f/1.2



This is the Nikkon flagship lens from the sixties! Nikon is famous for using the same mount from back then all through til today's DSLRs.



However, the sales person hesitated today to sell me a used Nikon D60 out of fear, it would destroy the electronic contacts inside the camera. Well, I trusted google, that it is one of only four models that can hold this lens without any modification (they are all low end models, as they don't have something that would collide with something in all the other models' hardware - don't ask me what).



So it worked, thought Nikon disabled the light metering functionality (for no reason but to discourage using old manual focus lenses or to sell more high end cameras - ironically it would work using a Canon DSLR with a Nikon adapter!).

So here is a picture with the Nikon lens, the Minolta 35-135mm zoom used for the three photos above, oh, this photo is made with aperture f/4 thought.



But the bigger problem is actually using the lens full open with aperture f/1.2 and getting the focus right. Actually it is difficult to see the final effect without any magnification before making a shot.



Well, I will work on that.

Minolta MD 100-300mm f/5.6

2012-04-22

Saw similar pictures taken with this legacy lens on Flickr on Micro Four Third cameras and liked them very much. Now got a nice examplar of it for myself:). On a Micro Four Third system this lens has an effective focal length of an equivalent 200-600mm lens on a 35mm camera.

Back when I was 14 and got into photography with a Minolta X-700, MD 50mm 1.7, MD 28mm 2.8, and some no name 70-210mm (Soligor? thought I also liked it), a Minolta MD 70-210mm was kind of a dream, did not even dare to think much about this one. However the 100-300mm is quite bulky and with 700 g and without a collar doesn't really hold very well on a tripod attached the comparatively small Panasonic G2. For nice weather walkabouts, so to speak.