I must admit I like my 135mm lenses, especially the f3.5s. Why? Because they are small, light and real fun to get to the details of my subject. These lenses are usually so light you hardly notice the extra weight on the camera and you can carry them around all day. The above image was taken with the Olympus OM 135 f3.5 which is quite a good lens. My other 135mm lenses incluse a Pentax, Nikon, Konica and Minolta. What does spoil it somewhat is the adapter required to use the lens which does add to the overall length of the lens. In some cases it nearly adds 40% to the length, which isn't ideal but is the price you pay for using these lenses on modern digital cameras.

Some of these lenses are easier to use than others and the Olympus is one of the easier ones. If you use these lenses wide open then more care must be taken when focusing. It's even harder with the f2.8 versions which also adds some weight to the whole rig. Of course, the longer the focal length the harder it is to use.  Blurry images is also possible because there is no image stabilisation with these older lenses and the Sony bodies doesn't have IBIS. The Olympus M43 bodies are a diffeent story however, and I must say, I have become a big fan of this great function. The Panasonic GX7 also has IBIS and I take my hat off to Panasonic for implementing this feature in their latest camera.

This is the last image from the Leica Elmarit 90 f2,8 for now befor I post some images made with some very nice 135mm lenses. All of these lenses are legacy manual focus lenses and have an aperture of f3.5. The reason I like these f3.5 lenses is because they are small, light and don't stick out too much. I have a couple of f2.8 135mm lenses and they're quite a bit bigger and heavier. It really amazing how much glass weighs and how much more glass there is in the f2.8 lenses.

Again, I find using these lenses easier on the A7 because the shutter is not as drastic as on the A7R. I will conquer these two cameras as they were purchased for my manual focus lenses. I find it so much more fun using a manual focus lens and saves me a lot of space on the hard drive as I tend not to take as many images. Just pointing the camera, focus with the AF and holding down the shutter is too easily done. Using the manual lenses just slows me down in every aspect of my photography.

Some people might say that there is nothing special with the above image, and they may be right but it's an image that I like so I'm posting it just because I can. I can see exactly where I focused and nailed it too. This is one reason why I like the longer focal length lenses. The longer the lens the less depth of field you have and at this focal length and at an aperture of f2.8, you have very little.

I hit the nail on the head again with this shot. I try to get it first time but sometimes it just takes more than one try to get the focus to be where I want it. In this case, it only took one try (because the wife won't stand still long enough for more than one shot). If I bring the camera out around the house she hides immediately. I think she's had enough.

I've had the Sony Alpha A7 and A7R now for a couple of weeks and I must say, I frefer using the A7. That loud double shutter sound bothers me on the A7R and I get a lot more "throwaways" than with the A7. It's probably technique and not the camera so I'm going to have to work on it a lot more. I'm also starting to get a workflow in LR5.3 and Photoshop but that needs some more work too. The files are nice and since I only shoot raw, the jpg engine doesn't bother me. Anyway I like the post-processing (I know I'm wierd that way) and I don't consider it a chore at all.

Another example with the Elmarit 90 f2.8. If you're wondering what this lens looks like on the A7 see this post:

Obviously I'm not going to show you my bad to very bad attempts at manual focusing but I will show you the images I manged to nail because when you do manage to get the subject in focus, the image quality is just fantastic. I'm sure Sony will release a firmware update for some minor problems with these cameras. I just can't imagine they won't otherwise they'll lose a lot of customers (present and future).

Now this is one nice lens on the Alpha cameras. I'm not certain which one I prefer, this one or the Zeiss Tessar 85 f4. But one thing is certain, that extra stop is nice to have and the subject/background separation is great with good bokeh. As you can see I'm still practicing with different lenses and this is the third that I can honestly recommend for the Alpha cameras. More to come.

As you can see I've been practicing quite hard at this manual focusing stuff on the Alpha cameras. Do I find it getting easier, well yes and no. It all depends what lens I've got mounted. Presently the best lenses I've used are both Zeiss, the 50 f2 Planar and the Tessar 85 f4. Both exhibit excellent colour and are very sharp. The best rendition I've seen on the Sony sensor so far. Some of the Voigtländer lenses have a very long throw and I'm in real trouble with a couple of them. I think these will be used more on the Nex line and my M43 cameras where they perform very well.

The image above was taken during the blue hour and in low light conditions. It was actually nearly dark and the lens was wide open at nearly MFD. This is one that I nailed but it doesn't happen often with this lens. I must find the correct settings for nailing focus without using the magnification function, as that puts me off totally.

This is me prcticing my manual focusing skills. At least winter has something going for it, and if you haven't guessed it yet I just don't like winter (although it's not too bad if we get snow which is rare where I live). As you can see I do sometimes nail the focusing with these manual focus lenses, and when I do, I'm quite impressed with what can be achieved in terms of dynamic range and lens rendition. Sharpness is also very good and the Nokton 35 f1.2 II is sharp wide open but only at close focusing. I would not recommend this lens for anything nearing infinty. Well, I don't use it for that anyway.

I must admit I'm having problems with manual focusing on the Sony Alpha A7 and A7R cameras. I find it much easier on the Nex family and evn on the M43 cameras. It must be the FF sensor thing. The Zebra function the cameras offer is great in my opinion and once I figured out how it actually works I never switched it off again. To get the best possible use out of it, ensure that you see some Zebra stripes in the viewfinder. If you don't then you're underexposing the frame. The way I set it is to use EC to back off the expsure (if required) until I don't see any stipes in the viewfinder and the bring the EC back up until I do see some. This gives me my required exposure for the shot; and it works.

Theproblem I'm having is nailing the focus on the exact spot where I want it. On the Nex and M43 cameras I was able to do this quite quickly and I could be pretty certain the focusing was correct. I'm not able to fo that with these Alpha cameras, my focusing is just off what should be in focus. Sometimes I've got backfocus and sometimes front focusing, caused by myself of course and not the camera because it's me that's focusing the lens.

I'm going to try the following methos for awhile to see if things get better. Set the cameras to raw + jpg and set the jpg for B&W. Turn down the peaking setting to low and colour to red which seems best for me in this config. You might prefer yellow because it's really a personal thing. Hopefully this will help me focus on the correct point.

As you can see in the image above, take wide open at f1.2, I don't think I nailed focus correctly on the bench, but it hard to see in my opinion. Anyone out there have any more tips to help me get better at this. One point though, I do not like using the magnified view, maybe that's my problem but I really have trouble with this function and I don't intend using it in the future.

Having purchased this lens specially for the Sony Alpha series, I can say that I'm not disappointed by it's performance. It has it's own special signature and very close to the classic Leica look; something I can see in an image but find it extremely hard to put down on paper. This image was taken while panning as the floating hotel went up the main river. Converted to B&W using a gradient map.