Hawk's Factory Adapter - the painful reality

My Hawk's factory adapter is really starting to drive me bananas.  I like the idea of this adapter (the ability to focus closer than the far off minimum focus distance of rangefinder lenses is awesome), and it can generate some good images, but it is now becoming a pain in the butt.  There are three things that are now driving me up the wall.

Firstly, as I mentioned in a previous post, the helicoid has a bit of play.

Secondly, there is no lock on the standard position, so when focusing with a lens that has slightly stiffer focus than normal, it starts to adjust the helicoid.  Very annoying.

Thirdly, and by far the most annoying is that the tolerances on the M mount are a little off, and now my LTM to M adapter is jammed on.  As it is a thin adapter, it is very difficult to move.  No matter what I did, it wouldn't budge (and yes I released the lens lock first).

Given I paid $140 used for it, I am pretty ticked off about this purchase.

Sony NEX 5n with Voigtlander 15mm f4.5 Super Wide Heliar and Hawks Factory NEX to M mount adapter

Wedding Shots with the D600 (et al)

This wedding I have been gearing up for ended up going well.  As I wasn't the main photographer, it gives me lots of latitude to experiment and have some fun.  My main responsibility was to get some shots of the guys getting ready, so not too difficult.

As usual, the way I used my gear at the wedding didn't really go according to plan.  I took the Nikon 24-85mm f2.8-4 AF-D, the Nikon 85mm f1.8 AF, Nikon 50mm f1.4 AF-D and the Nikon 20mm f4 Ai; but only the zoom got used.  The space ended up being quite tight inside the house where they were getting ready, so most of the time I kept it on the wide end of the zoom.  This changed to mostly long end for a few shots I took inside the church.

Groom to be checking his bow tie   Nikon D600 with Nikon 24-85mm f2.8-4 AF-D abd Nikon SB800 flash

Bride about to walk down the aisle - Nikon D600 with Nikon 24-85mm f2.8-4 AF-D abd Nikon SB800 flash

What got a lot of use was the NEX5n.  I took both the two old Leica lenses (50mm f3.5 Elmar and the 50mm f2 Summitar) and also threw in the Voigtlander 15mm f4.5 Super Wide Heliar as a last minute thought.

Groomsmen  - Sony NEX 5n with Voigtlander 15mm f4.5 Super Wide Heliar

Due to the tight confines of the house, I ended up attaching the Voigtlander 15mm, setting the camera to Black and White with some added contrast, and snapped away. As this lens is wide and slow, scale focusing is easy.  Setting the focus at 1.5m when wide open will get everything in focus from 0.8m to just short of infinity, very useful for this short of shooting.

Groomsmen in mirror  - Sony NEX 5n with Voigtlander 15mm f4.5 Super Wide Heliar

In the church I continued to use the NEX, and attached the Leica 50mm Summitar.  This lens is really quite capable, and adding a little sharpness and contrast to the camera settings cures a lot of the lens's softness when wide open.  The Elmar wasn't used in the end.  The Hawks Factory adapter actually proved to be a pain in the butt.  It would move off position when focusing and my LTM to M adapter is very difficult to get off it.

Bridal party and parents at the church - Sony NEX 5n with Leica 50mm Summitar

The Happy couple with friends - Sony NEX 5n with Leica 50mm Summitar

At the reception, I dumped all the above gear and just took the Fuji X100.  My wife wanted me around as a date, so I wanted something small and unobtrusive for a few shots here and there.  I needed good low light performance and the Fuji's excellent auto white balance and fill in flash performance is great for this environment.  This generally worked well, and there were some great shots for some memories.

With bridesmaids at the reception - Fuji X100

Post 400

Uh....wow.  This is my 400th post on Snapshot Voyager.   I can't believe I have that much to say about photography!  It's hard to know what photo to celebrate with, but here's a pic of some of my more often used gear, taken with my Nikon D90.

Sony NEX 16mm f2.8 vs Voigtlander 15mm f4.5 LTM mount

Last summer I started doing a full blown comparison between the  Sony NEX 16mm f2.8 vs Voigtlander 15mm f4.5 LTM mount on the Sony NEX3.  As I got further into it I realised how time consuming it was going to be to write a full review, so here's the 'Cole's Notes' version of the results:

I was wanting a sharp wide angle for the NEX, and the Sony 16mm f2.8 lens that I bought with the camera didn't seem that impressive.  A Voigtlander15mm f4.5 in LTM mount popped up and I had read this was a very good lens, so I decided to give it a go.

While these two lenses are very different (APS-C vs Fill Frame, AF vs MF, metal vs plastic), given they were a similar focal length, a test was in order. 

I decided to compare from f4.5 and smaller, give that this is wide open for the Voigtlander.  From these apertures when pixel peeping, I could see that the Voigtlander was very marginally better in the corners, but for all intents and purposes they performed the same.  There is a big drop off in quality from f4.5 to f2.8 on the Sony (which the Voigtlander can't reach), with the corners and borders looking very smeary.

Having said that, when ever I use the Voigtlander I am always happy with the pictures.  They have a snap and crispness about them that I like; something that is not readily repeatable on the Sony.

The results of this test surprised me - I suspected the Voigtlander would run away with this test, but it was not to be.

Sony NEX-5n with Voigtlander 15mm f4.5

NEX-7 Colour Banding

One thing that really worries me about the Sony NEX-7 is the colour banding that has been experienced with wide Leica mount lenses.  Steve Huff’s site shows this result quite clearly.  The edges and corners have a strong magenta colour cast which totally ruins any colour shots, and the wider the lens, the worse this phenomenon becomes.  His test with the Voigtlander 15mm f4.5 (which I have) was absolutely awful, and the Leica 21mm f2.8 Elmarit wasn’t great either.  This leads me to believe that the Voigtlander 21mm f4 Color Skopar that I have likely won’t be any better.

This really puts a dampener on buying a NEX-7 as two key lenses that I was hoping to use now have a very limited scope.  If I was to buy one it means that I would have to keep the NEX-3, which wasn’t really my intention. 

Interestingly the NEX-5n has no issues with this.

Sony Nex-3 with Voigtlander 15mm f4.5 Super Wide Heliar