Re-purposed old 17-35mm EX HSM to Sony

So, I printed an SD14 image (of an old stone church clock tower). At arm's length it looks pretty good, more than acceptable to put on the wall.

However, it gets worse towards the edges. It might be a depth of field issue or perhaps that 17-35mm isn't so great at the edges even on a 1.7x crop sensor.

At a viewing distance of 1 metre to 4 feet (Brit style mix and match units!**) it looks good. Under close and critical scrutiny, the weather vane at the top of the frame is quite smeared as are the steps and windows at the bottom of the image. The Sd14 seems detailed enough in the centre. Whether the lens has problems or whether this shot just needs a bit more depth of field ought to be obvious once I shoot it on the Sony.

Even so, this pretty much supports my contention that too much angst is expended on camera image quality. They're all good enough unless you have rather extreme needs.

Ted

In respect of the resampling, I leave that to Lightroom's behind the scene magic. I set it to 360ppi in the print dialogue, print sharpening to medium. It seems fine to me. I am printing on a very smooth matte paper, maybe these things are more important on ultra sharp glossy papers?

** Temperature measurements are the best: on a cold mid winter day it's 0 degrees C. On a baking summer day, it's 90 degrees F. Whichever unit makes it sound worse!

p.s.

My 16 year old has never heard of Fahrenheit. It'll be hilarious if Boris succeeds in his crazy plan to return the country to the glory days of Empire. Firkins, anyone?

I ran my old Epson R2400 on Epson ink, Marrutt ink, MIS Eboni ink, and Octoink ink, the 3rd party inks all being bulk inks and a CISS system.  I had no real problems with the printer with these inks, they were all excellent quality pigments. I had to switch to bulk inks because as the printer aged, it used up all the ink in Epson's tiny carts just doing cleaning cycles.  The bulk inks didn't care about wasting 10ml on a cleaning cycle but it emptied the Epson carts in no time.  The change of ink brand extended the lifetime of the printer by several years. I saw no loss of quality either and it about 1/4 the price.

However, if you go down this route you need to be prepared to roll up your sleeves, do a lot of messing about and mopping up and constant fiddling with the system. Not for everyone. You'll also need to do your own print profiles.

What I would advise against is buying bargain basement ink carts from mysterious 3rd parties at 1/10th the price. You have no idea what you are getting and I agree it can really mess up your printer. Stick to OEM or use a reputable large 3rd party (there are about half a dozen).

xpatUSA wrote:

DMillier wrote:

So, I printed an SD14 image (of an old stone church clock tower). At arm's length it looks pretty good, more than acceptable to put on the wall.

However, it gets worse towards the edges. It might be a depth of field issue or perhaps that 17-35mm isn't so great at the edges even on a 1.7x crop sensor.

At a viewing distance of 1 metre to 4 feet (Brit style mix and match units!**) it looks good. Under close and critical scrutiny, the weather vane at the top of the frame is quite smeared as are the steps and windows at the bottom of the image. The Sd14 seems detailed enough in the centre. Whether the lens has problems or whether this shot just needs a bit more depth of field ought to be obvious once I shoot it on the Sony.

Even so, this pretty much supports my contention that too much angst is expended on camera image quality. They're all good enough unless you have rather extreme needs.

Agreed. Too, a lot of angst is expended on stuff that is outside the limits of Human Vision.

Ted

In respect of the resampling, I leave that to Lightroom's behind the scene magic. I set it to 360ppi in the print dialogue, print sharpening to medium. It seems fine to me. I am printing on a very smooth matte paper, maybe these things are more important on ultra sharp glossy papers?

Thanks for the SD14 result.

** Temperature measurements are the best: on a cold mid winter day it's 0 degrees C. On a baking summer day, it's 90 degrees F. Whichever unit makes it sound worse!

Excellent.

p.s.

My 16 year old has never heard of Fahrenheit. It'll be hilarious if Boris succeeds in his crazy plan to return the country to the glory days of Empire. Firkins, anyone?

Good grief! Tell me it ain't so ... I still remember, courtesy of Heath & Co, buying cloth a yard or 48" wide by the meter length ... glurk.

Having said that, I still bask daily in the use of Imperial (a.k.a. U.S. Customary) units.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/31/boris-johnson-imperial-measures-unfathomable

DMillier wrote:

xpatUSA wrote:

DMillier wrote:

So, I printed an SD14 image (of an old stone church clock tower). At arm's length it looks pretty good, more than acceptable to put on the wall.

However, it gets worse towards the edges. It might be a depth of field issue or perhaps that 17-35mm isn't so great at the edges even on a 1.7x crop sensor.

At a viewing distance of 1 metre to 4 feet (Brit style mix and match units!**) it looks good. Under close and critical scrutiny, the weather vane at the top of the frame is quite smeared as are the steps and windows at the bottom of the image. The Sd14 seems detailed enough in the centre. Whether the lens has problems or whether this shot just needs a bit more depth of field ought to be obvious once I shoot it on the Sony.

Even so, this pretty much supports my contention that too much angst is expended on camera image quality. They're all good enough unless you have rather extreme needs.

Agreed. Too, a lot of angst is expended on stuff that is outside the limits of Human Vision.

Ted

In respect of the resampling, I leave that to Lightroom's behind the scene magic. I set it to 360ppi in the print dialogue, print sharpening to medium. It seems fine to me. I am printing on a very smooth matte paper, maybe these things are more important on ultra sharp glossy papers?

Thanks for the SD14 result.

** Temperature measurements are the best: on a cold mid winter day it's 0 degrees C. On a baking summer day, it's 90 degrees F. Whichever unit makes it sound worse!

Excellent.

p.s.

My 16 year old has never heard of Fahrenheit. It'll be hilarious if Boris succeeds in his crazy plan to return the country to the glory days of Empire. Firkins, anyone?

Good grief! Tell me it ain't so ... I still remember, courtesy of Heath & Co, buying cloth a yard or 48" wide by the meter length ... glurk.

Having said that, I still bask daily in the use of Imperial (a.k.a. U.S. Customary) units.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/31/boris-johnson-imperial-measures-unfathomable

My 16 year old participated in the Jubilee Pageant without an imperial measure in sight. She was part of the 1970s decade and rode a space hopper down The Mall.

xpatUSA wrote:

DMillier wrote:

I ran my old Epson R2400 on Epson ink, Marrutt ink, MIS Eboni ink, and Octoink ink, the 3rd party inks all being bulk inks and a CISS system. I had no real problems with the printer with these inks, they were all excellent quality pigments. I had to switch to bulk inks because as the printer aged, it used up all the ink in Epson's tiny carts just doing cleaning cycles. The bulk inks didn't care about wasting 10ml on a cleaning cycle but it emptied the Epson carts in no time. The change of ink brand extended the lifetime of the printer by several years. I saw no loss of quality either and it about 1/4 the price.

However, if you go down this route you need to be prepared to roll up your sleeves, do a lot of messing about and mopping up and constant fiddling with the system. Not for everyone. You'll also need to do your own print profiles.

What I would advise against is buying bargain basement ink carts from mysterious 3rd parties at 1/10th the price. You have no idea what you are getting and I agree it can really mess up your printer. Stick to OEM or use a reputable large 3rd party (there are about half a dozen).

Thanks for the well-meant advice.

Yes, we bought the third-party carts on ebay with little regard for the quality thereof.

Now it's an all-in-one Canon MG8120 and only Canon carts, so far, so good.

That little Canon is a marvel. There are several models all very similar. We have one for office printing.  I think it cost £35 or somewhere abouts. Excellent at what it does.

None of my old lenses are on the list either but the only one that doesn't work with the MC-11 adapter on my Sony A7C is a really old 70-300 which doesn't even have all of the pins.

All the others seems to work without any real problems even if sometimes they are a little quirky.

This for example was taken with my 15-30 DG, which was bought for my SD-9.

The MC-11 is well worth the money if you have old lenses.

I think the MC-11 adaptor makes sense if you have a bunch of SA lenses. But I only have one. If I really wanted a cheap ultra wide with aperture control I'd be better off getting the 17-35 EX in a Nikon fit with aperture ring for £100 or an F mount 15-30 for £150.

The adaptor is £219.

I went out with jury-rigged 17-35 all day yesterday at the coast and forgot to try it!

Finally remembered to use the 17-35mm + dumb adaptor while out shooting Monk Bretton Abbey ruins (Barnsley, Yorkshire) yesterday. It works!

This was shot at 17mm on my A7rii (aperture permanently locked to f/8). I think as a free lens retrieved from the attic, it can do a job.

Lots of geometric and perspective distortion correction required in post. It would have been a heaviliy distorting lens uncorrected on film in its day.

xpatUSA wrote:

DMillier wrote:

Finally remembered to use the 17-35mm + dumb adaptor while out shooting Monk Bretton Abbey ruins (Barnsley, Yorkshire) yesterday. It works!

This was shot at 17mm on my A7rii (aperture permanently locked to f/8). I think as a free lens retrieved from the attic, it can do a job.

Lots of geometric and perspective distortion correction required in post. It would have been a heaviliy distorting lens uncorrected on film in its day.

Very nice!

OT, but my M42s are pretty good too, especially on the G9.

I have a little collection of M42 lenses: 28mm Vivitar, 35mm Chinon, 58mm Helios, 135mm Vivitar, 200mm Chinon. I'm working on a new series on my website "Serious photography on the cheap" about cheap cameras and lenses. Something to include in future.

I'm going to do a 16" x 16" print of the above image, see what it looks like printed.

DMillier wrote:

xpatUSA wrote:

DMillier wrote:

Finally remembered to use the 17-35mm + dumb adaptor while out shooting Monk Bretton Abbey ruins (Barnsley, Yorkshire) yesterday. It works!

This was shot at 17mm on my A7rii (aperture permanently locked to f/8). I think as a free lens retrieved from the attic, it can do a job.

Lots of geometric and perspective distortion correction required in post. It would have been a heaviliy distorting lens uncorrected on film in its day.

Very nice!

OT, but my M42s are pretty good too, especially on the G9.

I have a little collection of M42 lenses: 28mm Vivitar, 35mm Chinon, 58mm Helios, 135mm Vivitar, 200mm Chinon. I'm working on a new series on my website "Serious photography on the cheap" about cheap cameras and lenses. Something to include in future.

I'm going to do a 16" x 16" print of the above image, see what it looks like printed.

Looks great! Bargain free lens for full frame!  17mm @ f/8 is all I need for an ultra wide.

This lens has mixed reviews online, especially on forums where people think it is poor. Admitted f/8 is probably the sweet spot and square shots remove the corners, but the 16" print is just as sharp as the 6" print and the 10" print.

And I love having a quality printer again after so long.  There is just something about the aesthetics of a paper print. Especially on smooth matte paper where there are no nasty reflections at any angle which you means you can look deep into the print's details. And the print in black and white with a subtle warm tone is "quiet" - it doesn't shout at you for attention.