5 shots with the Fujian 35mm f/1.7 CCTV lens + Nikon V1

[Pangloss]

Hi everybody,

It wasn't raining today at the very end of the afternoon so I stuck this $20 lens on its $10 C-mount to Nikon 1 adapter and exchanged it for the Nikkor 1 10mm lens on my V1, set the camera on [Manual], and then outdoors. The idea behind such a cheap lens becomes obvious after a few shots: this is not about exceptional sharpness or contrast, and also remember that this 35mm wide angle lens becomes a 95mm equivalent i.e. a short-medium telephoto lens on the V1. The main point here is the f1.7 max. aperture and all the shots here were taken at f/1.7~f/2.2. So one has to work around the lens limitations, experiment and have fun. Focus is obviously manual and honestly if the V1 didn't have a EVF I wouldn't even try it, but with the EVF it becomes sort of second-nature after a few minutes. Not easy, but not particularly difficult. Metering is also manual, so I just do a couple of test shots beforehand and get a range of acceptable shutter speeds, today the speeds ranged from 1/80 to 1/160 I think, so camera shake was not a problem.

These are OOC JPEGs, I didn't correct for exposure, and the color shots are not corrected in any way either. I did the b&w conversions in ShowFoto, a free (as in freedom) photo editing program in Linux, added a little bit of film grain, etc just for fun, again the idea for me is to experiment and not waste time pixelpeeping.




Hotel des Indes, The Hague, Netherlands






Escher Museum, The Hague, Netherlands






Light and reflection






Walking the dog






Self-portrait



Thanks for your kind comments!

--
Andrew
Novice photographer

 

[var1]

Nice little combination and images.

 

[Swaleck]

Nice, I enjoyed your shots ! I played around a bit with the c-mount lenses on the Pentax Q when I had it, I was surprised how well they performed when stopped down just a bit. Lots of fun for few $$$, enjoy

Scott

 

[Pangloss]

nt

 

[Pangloss]

Swaleck wrote:

Nice, I enjoyed your shots ! I played around a bit with the c-mount lenses on the Pentax Q when I had it, I was surprised how well they performed when stopped down just a bit. Lots of fun for few $$$, enjoy

Scott

 

[Pangloss]

White V1 with Fujian 35mm f/1.7 and C-mount to Nikon 1 adapter

The Fujian 35mm looks OK on the white V1 imho. It feels solid (it's an all-metal lens) and balances quite well on the V1. The focus and aperture rings rotate smoothly enough but I have noticed the focus has a little bit of play, so fine-tuning focus requires some back-and-forth adjustments.

Optically the lens is what it is, what can one expect from a $20 lens? Not much. Still, it's a good investment if you can work around the limitations of the lens and keep your expectations reasonable.

--
Andrew
Novice photographer

 

[Pangloss]

In the same series, experimenting with this lens and the V1.




Colors and bokeh are OK in this one imho.






Again testing the bokeh.






And again testing colors (contrast and saturation).



That's about it for my tests of this little $20 lens. Do I think it is worth carrying in my bag with the other better performing lenses? Yes I do. Would I prefer to carry a much heavier and larger, $500 Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 + FT-1 combo? Not so sure about that, even though the IQ would probably be a lot better.





--
Andrew
Novice photographer

 

[PhilouG]

I tried and have the same combo, but having no exposure mesurement at all (eventhough the sensor can perfectly mesure the amount of light it gather) was too much a pain for me. I had to try and guess every F/speed to get a correctly exposed shot. It's doable, but in average you need 3 test shots before getting it right.

I wish Nikon would fix this.
This lens is quite a joy to use on my Nex-3n

Anyway, you got nice pictures from it congrats !
The funny thing is, I was in Den Haag last week-end and went to this exact museum (loved it)

 

[Pangloss]

Hi PhilouG,

PhilouG wrote:

I tried and have the same combo, but having no exposure mesurement at all (eventhough the sensor can perfectly mesure the amount of light it gather) was too much a pain for me. I had to try and guess every F/speed to get a correctly exposed shot. It's doable, but in average you need 3 test shots before getting it right.

Well, if the light changes a lot during a shooting session, then yes, you have to fiddle a lot with exposure. But usually it just takes 2~3 shots at the beginning of a session to get you in the ballpark with a proper ISO, aperture and a speed preferably around 1/125s, and then you just change the speed up or down one notch to take into account the brightness of your subject and for the rest you can adjust brightness in postprocessing (I always shoot raw + JPEG fine). At least that's what I have been doing and it sort of works for me.

I wish Nikon would fix this.

As far as I can tell, unfortunately Nikon is not going to fix anything in the firmware of any of its Nikon 1 cameras. :-(

This lens is quite a joy to use on my Nex-3n

Does it vignette a little bit on the 3N? On the V1 it doesn't vignette at all, but it's only ever sharp in the center. I like the fov of this lens, so I guess I'll try to find an old Nikon 35mm f/1.8 lens that I can afford.

Anyway, you got nice pictures from it congrats !

Thanks!

The funny thing is, I was in Den Haag last week-end and went to this exact museum (loved it)

It's great, isn't it? It's one of the few places in The Hague that really shouldn't be missed. Glad you liked it.

Cheers,

 

[PhilouG]

This lens is quite a joy to use on my Nex-3n

Does it vignette a little bit on the 3N? On the V1 it doesn't vignette at all, but it's only ever sharp in the center.

I vignettes a tiny bit when fully opened on the 3N, and it get fuzzy quickly but it still fun and the bokeh is weird too (I like it ).

I like the fov of this lens, so I guess I'll try to find an old Nikon 35mm f/1.8 lens that I can afford.

You could look for some russian M39 lenses around this fov, it's should make a compact combo with the V1