Telyt 400/5 for Visoflex- A few pictures and initial impressions

[fWord]

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It's been a few weeks since I last posted a thread here and messaged a few forumers for advice on this lens. Today the lens finally arrived and it's a beast. Heavy and quite large.

 

I removed the Visoflex housing and attached it to my Canon camera by means of a Visoflex M39-EOS adapter from Fotodiox:

 

 

Interestingly, Fotodiox guaranteed infinity focusing with the adapter but in practice, I find that my lens falls just short of being able to focus to infinity. That said, it focuses far enough to cover the wildlife/ animal photography I'm interested in.

 

Unfortunately the rear element was found to be riddled with fungus, so it's going to be up for a very expensive repair bill. Nevertheless, I was so excited to receive the lens that I immediately drove to a nature reserve for some photos.

 

The camera and lens weighed in at little over 4kg and handholding it for the walk was the best exercise I've had in months. But the lens handles well and was more manageable than I had originally thought. The built-in hood is excellent for the reduction of lens flare and protection of the front element.

 

Initial photos show that the lens has low contrast and moderate amounts of CA, but apparently good resolution nevertheless. Whether the low contrast was caused by the fungus in the lens is debatable. But when I looked at the images from today it made me really happy to have bought this lens. It's old and clunky, but cheaper than most modern 400mm lenses, and has all the old-world charm:

 

An intentionally out of focus image has an unusual painterly appearance.

 

Intentionally heightened contrast to emphasize rim-lighting.

 

Looks like it needs a bum scratch.

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[stuny]

Andrew -

 

Congradulations on your new bazooka. Very nice results, and I especailly like the moment, framing, light, color and detail on #3. It looks like one of the little greys.

[elansprint72]

Have you considered the V-Lux 1

[fWord]

Andrew -

 

Congradulations on your new bazooka. Very nice results, and I especailly like the moment, framing, light, color and detail on #3. It looks like one of the little greys.

 

Thanks Stuart. I'm stoked with this new acquisition, even despite its fungus...animal photography is something I enjoy the most and I haven't had a real telephoto in the longest time. It could indeed be an Eastern Grey. These were much smaller than a solitary one I found in the same area a week ago, which was one of the most imposing things I'd ever seen when it stood straight up and glared at me while I was photographing it with a 180mm lens!

 

 

I was hoping for more closeups this time but apparently the little roos are less approachable.

[fWord]

Have you considered the V-Lux 1

 

Hey Pete, that's absolutely right. The superzoom compact cameras have a lot more zoom in a single lightweight system and have an in-built stabilizer. However I still like a DSLR system for the interchangeable lenses, the fast response time and the image quality.

 

These days, the 'fast response time' doesn't ring true for my setup because all my lenses are manual focus and used with an adapter. But for all-round performance and especially in low light, it has worked really well for me so far. The bulk of those photos were taken at ISO 640 or so from what I remember, and I hardly see any noise unless I peep at 100%.