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Testing the New WATE


Guest guy_mancuso

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Guest guy_mancuso

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Well it just showed up and i have NO viewfinder yet . I orderedone but I did these freehand and guessed although i did use the 28 frame line as some help to keep it level. Distortation looks pretty good , easy fix in Pano Tools or one of the programs for 16mm. The converging lines are more ME than anything. Did these handheld and guessed at my level. Okay this first set 16/18/21 at ISO 160 at F8 or so. I did these in LR and just wanted to see how they look .

 

BTW this WATE is showing 18mm across the board there is no magic pixel dust going on . Who nows what that lens at PMA was doing but I'm 18mm across the board here.

 

BTW NO IR filter , may tape a 60 down on the filter holder until I get a 67mm or some different setup

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Guest guy_mancuso

This series again i am guessing at everything . LOL But i shot at ISO 640 at 5.6

 

The room has daylight and tungsten and again no IR filter yet but i just lowered the color temp to taste.

 

16/18/21

 

I will test more when I get my finder but this is a very very nice lens

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Guest guy_mancuso

Hmmm no streaks , no blobs, no vertical banding, no two folds,no ghosts , good noise nice color. Yes it was the M8 and it still works. ROTFLMAO

 

Could not resist

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You know I have to do a lot of interiors and the cyan vignetting is always there, this inspires me to shoot a few minus the 486, there is nothing problematic about this color rendition. The tungsten looks warm like it should in relation to the daylight coming in. I think it also shows how good lightroom looks on the M8 dngs.

 

Is it me or is there more snap to the 21 end of the zoom than the 16 end? I could be being fooled by the fact that everything is just larger?

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Guest guy_mancuso

Robert there maybe a exposure shift i shot them on A mode and AWB. i will try on manual next time just to be safe though. Exposure will change in A mode from the differnt focallength becuase it will read more or less.

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I am very impressed by the WATE's overall performance but am underwhelmed by len's front design. You need an adaptor for the requisite filter(s) and this adaptor sits precariously atop a newfangled ring with a rubber O ring. Experience with this Rube Goldberg-like contraption on the recent trip to Antarctica was very disappointing as the adaptor ring froze and the O ring malfunctionned. I will probably wait for a redesigned WATE...:D :D Seems eerily similar to the TE Mk1 vs Mk2 debate years ago !!

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Guest guy_mancuso

Rectangle IR filter to just fit inside the hood would be a interesting trick . Or leica builds a new hood for it. Thinking of some ideas. Marks working on something also, like to see that final result. Don't think you will see a redesign lens but a redesigned hood would be a great plan to put in place

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It's interesting to see how little difference there is between 16 and 18mm... I think I would have settled for a 16mm lens and be done with it.

 

the difference is being under-emphasized by the crop factor in the camera-

 

this goes to how all lenses render on reduced sensors, you have to back up to get the same field of view, and then all the "character" goes out of the lens-for example there was a post here about the leica 24 and filters the gentleman had used on his M7-what was striking was how the foreground was exaggerated and it had that "wide angle" feel, my thoughts were, yes, that is how a 24 should "look" you can get close but still see everything.

 

On cropped sensors a lot of that feel is lost because you are not in the same location and the perspective exaggeration is lost. It reduces the "spatiality" of wide angle lenses on the M8, everything seems "flatter."

 

IMO, this is one of the biggest downfalls of any reduced frame camera, the upending of traditional lens/drawing relationships.

 

<edit> maybe that is not quite right, as you could stay in the same place and just exchange lenses for wider, but I do believe the "drawing" will still be differrent.

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Well ... I want a wide lens -- AND I wan't a fast lens.

 

What was it they said about the bird in the hand?

 

Based on these pix, I'm leaning toward throwing my 30% at the WATE. I noted in the price list that there's a special deal including the WATE Finder.

 

Hmm ... Guy, how 'bout some skin? With some of your fabulous lighting? You have all weekend, but just skin, you don't need the horses.

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I have been examining the pix above. It's interesting how the shorter focal length lends immediacy to the photo.

 

I suppose it's the added proximity since it's the same lens (mostly).

 

It's particularly noticable in the outdoor shots. The images get more "welcoming" as you move toward the 21 end.

 

BTW, this view of your house is more fun than the one taken from the other side, from the driveway across the street. We saw those in the early M8 days.

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I have been examining the pix above. It's interesting how the shorter focal length lends immediacy to the photo.

 

I suppose it's the added proximity since it's the same lens (mostly).

 

It's particularly noticable in the outdoor shots. The images get more "welcoming" as you move toward the 21 end.

 

BTW, this view of your house is more fun than the one taken from the other side, from the driveway across the street. We saw those in the early M8 days.

 

the first sentence confuses me, do you mean the 16 has more "immediacy" than the 21, but the 21 is more welcoming? I am not sure I follow-

 

I do know from shooting interiors however, that a lot of photogs immediately grab for the widest lens possible and often that destroys the room relationships by artificially spreading them out. My idea is that I try to actually use the "longest" lens I can to render an interior as close to natural as is possible. The widest is not always the best, and a sense of "intimacy" or welcoming as you put it is the result.

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Here is the text pertaining to M8 and WATE problems in the Antarctic. This comes from Luminous Landscape and is just a snippet of the complete report...

 

"There were four people aboard who carried Leica M8's, myself among them. I primarily used mine in Buenos Aires for a bit of street shooting, and aboard ship for some snapshots of ship life. My only real problem was that the 67mm filter holder on the new 16-18-21mm Tri-Elmar jammed on, freezing the aperture ring. Some dissection followed and the eventual solution when I finally was able to remove it showed that there is a thick rubber O-ring used to seal both it and the lens shade, but that it is very easy for this to become cross-threaded when the filter and shade are being interchanged. Once this happens and the ring is dislodged, it appears impossible to get it to work properly again. I have found that I now have to use a bit of black plastic electrical tape to hold the lens shade in place. Not the usual quality of materials and construction that one expects from Leica" :(:o:confused:

 

In fact, the aperture ring was frozen only because of a filter holder malfunction due to an easily dislodged O ring.... I will wait for this to be perfected...

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Marks working on something also, like to see that final result.

 

I am indeed, it's in the queue at a local engineering company to make it.

 

Imagine a ring of the same diameter as the lens which carries the filter glass and screws on to the red thread with the red thread replicated at the front for mounting the hood, all sized to take account of the moving front lens element and to avoid vignetting.

 

It will add about 9mm to the length of the lens but allow the standard hood and lens cap to be used. One issue is that the only reason the hood/lens carrier goes tight when it is screwed on is because of the O-ring. There will not be one on the front of my new ring, so I'm using a knurled locking ring behind the hood to lock it square. The filter will be no more than 1mm in front of the front lens element at its furthest position forwards.

 

It will be almost impossible to develop this without some cosmetic scarring of the lens, because it is all we have to work to, so the lens is currently wrapped in a protective layer, including the front lens element, with just the front rim of the lens exposed. I expect the red anodising will take some scarriing so it may go back to Solms for re-work, they'll be wondering what I've been doing to it.

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when you say "froze" I don't take it to mean as in cold-you meant cross-threaded correct?

 

My question is, once the filter goes on and the holder, is there any reason to ever take it off?

 

I understand now.

 

I think my "solution" would be to mount the filter and leave the hood in the box. Then you would never have to swap it out. I can't imagine the hood does much on the zoom anyway, and didn't Michael Reimann say that he could not provoke flare no matter how hard he tried?

 

My feeling is that the hoods on all the leica wides are insufficient to really protect the lens from flare, and now that we have instant review, it is much easier to see a problem immediately and correct for it. The hoods on my 21 and 28 block too much of the finder so they currently "protect" my desktop mostly.

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Something like this I sketched out a couple of months ago. This was done before I got the lens. The actual design sized from the lens is similar except the filter glass sits closer to the front lens element when the ring is mounted on the lens.

 

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Guest guy_mancuso

Sounds interesting Mark . Keep us in the loop. I wonder though if there was a double ring thread. You have a piece that screws on the lens than the tube is as long as the 16mm setting lens element than your able to place just the filter ( holder just the glass) in a slot with outside threads than put the hood on to hold it in place. Than all your really doing is a fancy adapter .Hmmm

 

Is this basically the same thing

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