This blog is devoted to the application of optical fibers in photography. I have several homemade (DIY) flash adapters channeling the light from the flash close to the lens. The technique can be used mainly for macro photography, but I will show examples for wide angle close focus techniques as well. The recent version is called fiberstrobe V3, hence the name of the blog is "fiberstrobe".

Saturday, September 13, 2014

Put the SEL30M35 lens into perspective

I have posted some photos taken with the sony SEL30M35 macro and VCL-ECF1 fisheye conversion lens combo on dpreview forum. I proposed a game not telling anything about the lens (even removed the EXIF information) but let the people to guess. To my surprise it turned out to be very controversial. Lot’s of poster hated it, while others found the thread very interesting. I would quote only from the haters:

“obviously is a lens that can focus very closely,  often called a macro lens. There are hundreds or thousands of these out there. Who would care to guess,”

“Just name the lens and get it over with, this is boring. Nothing special about the photos either, this could be taken with anything...”

“There are thousands of "usual" lenses that work on a NEX-5 and you want us to guess an unusual set-up based on low-resolution images... there's a much better chance of guessing your birthday -- and I've been doing some lens forensics work.”

“pretty pointless thread, but I'll bite anyway ...”

“thanks for the most annoying post on this forum in a long time. sadly, there doesn't seem to be a mechanism to block future posts from you and your silliness.”

Cool, isn't it?? 
I think I’ve upset many self-proclaimed experts, but they are wrong. They have not much clue about wide angle close-up and macro photography and they have no idea about the role of perspective in general in photography.
I made a quite thorough test to achieve similar result with other lenses, what I got with the 30mm macro + fisheye converter combination. Without real success. This proved me that this lens combo is rather unique and really worth to consider in photography.
I tried many lenses and lens combinations, which was suggested during the thread and I added some potential contenders. I took all photos of the test on a tripod with self timer set to 2sec at two apertures, F3.5 and F18. I manually focused to a lego figure (45mm) positioning the head at 1/3 of the photo almost filling it. I tried to fill the picture with this subject in all case, even if the close focusing was not possible, so it was not a real macro but more a close-up set-up. I placed another figure behind but close to the main subject and many other things as environment to test the bokeh and the perspective. I used the following lenses and lens combinations:
sony SEL30M35 30 mm macro
sony SEL30M35 30 mm macro + VCL-ECF1 fisheye adapter
sony SEL16F28 16mm pancake lens
sony SEL16F28 16mm pancake lens + 2dp
sony SEL16F28 16mm pancake lens + 4 dp
sony SEL16F28 16mm pancake lens + VCL-ECF1 fisheye adapter
sigma 15mm Fisheye lens (for full-frame) on adapter
sigma 15mm Fisheye lens (for full-frame) + soligor 1.7X teleconverter on adapter
sigma 50mm F2.8 macro (on adapter)
minolta 100mm F2.8 macro (on adapter)
In case of adapted not native E compatible lens, precise set of aperture was not possible, but I tried to set it almost to opened and closed position to reach around F3.5 and F18). Below you can see the results (The upper one is with opened blende, while the second is always stopped down and has bigger depth of field:
sony SEL30M35 30 mm macro



sony SEL30M35 30 mm macro + VCL-ECF1 fisheye adapter



sony SEL16F28 16mm pancake lens



sony SEL16F28 16mm pancake lens + 2dp


sony SEL16F28 16mm pancake lens + 4 dp



sony SEL16F28 16mm pancake lens + VCL-ECF1 fisheye adapter



sigma 15mm Fisheye lens (for full-frame) on adapter





sigma 15mm Fisheye lens (for full-frame) + soligor 1.7X teleconverter on adapter




sigma 50mm F2.8 macro (on adapter)



minolta 100mm F2.8 macro (on adapter)





Some conclusions: The 30mm macro lens is wide enough, I like it in many situations but it doesn't show much about the environment. Adding the fisheye adapter changes the character and makes it a perfect close-focus wide angle tool. During the test I recognized some optical errors and it is getting really good from F11 but F16-F18 are also a recommended values. The far away subjucts will never be really sharp, so it can't be used as a replacement for a 15mm wide angle lens, it's only good for close subjects. (From now on I compare the rest to this combo)
To my surprise, the 16mm lens was very close but not as wide. However, it lacks the close focus capability. Even stopped down the head is not sharp. Adding close focus adapters (+ 2dp or + 4 dp) don't help either. They don't have big effect on wide angle lenses.
The fisheye adapter was designed for this lens (16mm) and the effect is really cool. However it's much wider and distorted and sharp focusing was not possible. Even at F18 the face is not really sharp. Adding a teleconverter was not a good idea and the close focusing ability was further ruined. I also tried the 50mm and 100mm macro lenses. The results are nice if your aim is to have a soft background, but look at the character of the background. My major conclusion is that choosing a macro lens is not just about how close we can get to our subject (short for flowers, long for dragonflies) but the perspective plays also a very important role. Putting a small subject into the foreground while showing also details from the background (if it's nice) can be very dramatic.
The sony SEL30M35 30 mm macro + VCL-ECF1 fisheye adapter combination is just perfect for this purpose.

8 comments:

  1. Thank you for sharing your results. Although I'm not much interested in photographing insects, this opens new possibilities for using my SEL30 macro and the wide and fisheye adapters. Given the limited number of moderately-priced lenses for NEX, added flexibility is significant.

    Your write-up is well-organized and well-written -- very easy to follow. You handled the variety of responses in the dpr thread gracefully.

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  3. Now you convinced me, I need this! My main subject in macro is Lego, so this photos really helped. I also like the wider distances in perspective, I think it looks better than 50mm or 100mm for Lego. And my birthday is coming up... :)

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  4. Happy birthday! It will be a nice and useful present!

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  5. Hi Marcell. Ipve read all your reviews on this macro lens, very interesting, and even more with the fisheye adapter. I am a kit modeler, 1/72, 1/48 planes, I have a NEX F3 with the kit lens to photograph my finished kits, sometimes pictures are not so sharp, I think the lens is not so good for this task, and that was dissapointing, do you think this lens combo will be useful for me and improve my photos? I put so much work on my kits and I want excellent photos of them. Thank you.

    Cesar

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    1. The cheapest option is to get sel30M35 macro and take your photos on a tripod. In this way you can use some simple constant light (use self timer)

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  6. Thank you for your review of SEL30mm. I'm very new at taking pictures but my work demands that i need to do food photography ASAP. After months of online searches i bought Sony A6000 with kit lens. I am looking for a 100mm lens but so far found FE90mm f/2.8, while i do fall in love with it, carries a heavy price tag, worth 5 months of my pay cheques! The review and test shot you've provided helps me decide on SEL30mm as an alternative lens while i collects more money for FE90mm

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