We’ve produced every possible useful interchangeable lens,” the head of a major camera and lens maker told me. “Name one we haven’t.” I immediately countered, “A fisheye zoom.”

He laughed and was joined by a number of the other top executives of the company. Who would want such a lens?

But one executive seemed more thoughtful. “Not a bad idea,” he whispered.

“Too late to be first,” I said. “It’s been done.” Of course, if you’ve had the pleasure of using the little-known 17-28mm f/3.5-4.5 AF Pentax fisheye zoom on a 35mm SLR, you will second that “not a bad idea.”

It’s been in and out of production over the years. But those who have used it often write me to express their enthusiasm.

Among its charms: No matter how many people are eating or celebrating around a circular table, I can get them all in the shot, somewhere between the 90 degrees of the 28mm and the 180 degrees of the 17mm fisheye setting.

And if I compose using the lines of the circular table carefully, the resulting pictures show little of the lens’ extra curvature. Moreover, if I see too much linear distortion around the picture edges, I can zoom in a trifle to eliminate it. No nonzoom fisheye can do this.

My secret for using the lens at close range? Zoom in tightly on the subject(s), while cropping out straight lines, thereby concealing the lens’ barrel distortion at its wider focal lengths.

If I can’t eliminate straight lines, I put them dead center, where they don’t bend. It’s a lot more challenging (and fun) than simply using the lens to make silly, weird pictures.

The Pentax fisheye zoom is but one of many unique lenses that suffer from lack of recognition (and less-than-stellar sales) for want of aggressive marketing and publicity. How many unique lenses do you see in ads from the big camera makers? Very few.

While they all advertise their cameras thoroughly, the poor individual lenses usually get short shrift. Independent lens makers such as Sigma, Tamron, and Tokina certainly make sure none of their lenses fall by the wayside through lack of visibility. Why don’t we hear more about Canon, Nikon, and Pentax glass?

One of my favorite general-purpose lenses, by another brand, had a conspicuous absence of much promotion and advertising aid. The 24-105mm f/3.5-4.5 Minolta zoom was an amazingly good general-purpose lens, unequalled in compactness and optical capability at a time when every other 35mm marque had buyers settling for 28-105mm lenses.

A number of independent lens makers, knowing a good thing when they saw it, tried to engineer their own 24-105mm lenses, but Minolta had the patents tied up good and tight. If Minolta had publicized the glories of this unique glass more effectively, it may have generated the “buzz” it deserved.

The 17-28mm Pentax fisheye zoom didn’t sell spectacularly well because, aside from its fan club of enthusiasts who had heard me praise it, who knew how useful the lens was?

Four years ago, Fumio Urano, Pentax’s president, asked me what lenses I thought Pentax should make with its new DA, digital-only mount. Naturally, I brought up the fisheye zoom, but in focal lengths appropriate for providing 90- to 180-degree coverage on an APS-sized digital sensor camera.

But, I added, it wouldn’t sell if it didn’t get some help from its friends and the manufacturer. Such a lens is just what Pentax produced and we tested in the June 2006 issue (“Fisheye View”).

While the new 10-17mm f/3.5-4.5 Pentax DA lens, at 1.10 pounds, is some 2 ounces heavier than the earlier fisheye zoom-and, at $400 after rebate (street), only $20 additional-it’s a more useful optic in what I feel is a critical area: close focusing.

Quite often, when going on a picture-taking jaunt, I’ll confine myself to taking just one unusual or unique lens. I took the older fisheye zoom to the open stands beneath Tokyo’s Yurakucho rail station.

Close-ups of the yakitori broiling on dozens of skewers over open fires with diners gobbling ought to make interesting fisheye pictures. Or so I thought.

Impossible! Even at the closest focus-ing distance of 18 inches, all seemed too far away throughout the zoom range. Yes, an 18-inch close-focusing distance seems pretty close-but not at wide angle! Thankfully, the new lens focuses much closer.

While examining it and complaining about this story at Pentax headquarters, I was more than a little surprised when Pentax’s Senior Executive Officer Ko Torigoe jumped up, twisted the new fisheye’s focusing ring to its minimum 5.5-inch focusing distance and thrust his face, nose first, to about one inch from the front of the lens. I took a picture. “Better?” he asked.

You tell me.

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If you ride the special express train 126 miles northwest from Tokyo, you’ll find yourself in Nagano Prefecture near beautiful, blue Lake Suwa, noted for its hot springs, spas, large swan- and turtle-shaped tour boats, and one of the highest geysers in the world. The lake is recovering nicely from industrial pollution. When I first visited years ago, much of the blue was green algae, thanks to many manufacturing plants, including photographic ones, pouring effluences into the lake.

I enjoyed overnight stays at a tiny Japanese ryokan (inn), with open raised daises surrounding a small pool in which carp swam lazily until summoned to be dinner. In the evening, engineers from the nearby Yashica, Cosina, Chinon or Olympus manufacturing plants dropped by for carp sashimi (and horse sashimi, for which the region is also known), and to watch Japanese baseball on TV. There would be plenty of time to discuss cameras and lenses the next day at the factories.

Gone is the ryokan, replaced by a multistoried hotel. Gone, too, are the Yashica, Olympus, and Chinon factories: to Asia or oblivion. But not Cosina, which remains one of the few camera and lensmakers, manufacturing exclusively in Japan.
Those of you who read my last column had a brief introduction to Cosina. For others, let me quickly explain that Cosina builds cameras and lenses to which well-known brand-name camera makers affix their names. In the mid-1970s, three companies had sensationally small, well-selling 35mm rangefinder cameras-the Konica Auto SX3, Minolta Hi-matic 7sII, and Vivitar 35ES -hardly lookalikes. But under the differing cosmetics beat the heart and innards of the same Cosina camera. The lenses-a 38mm f/1.8 Hexanon, 40mm f/1.7 Rokkor, and 40mm f/1.7 Vivitar-were all the same fine, four-group, six-element optic.

When the APS (Advanced Photo System) was introduced to the world in 1996 by the system developing companies (Canon, Fuji, Kodak, Minolta and Nikon), they offered to sell APS manufacturing licenses to all other manufacturers. There was a mad scramble by many to be licensed and get on the market first, but not by Cosina. Its president, Hirofumi Kobayashi, ignored APS completely, thereby saving Cosina vast amounts of money, time, and effort on a loser.

Cosina also makes 35mm SLR lenses. But how did this company manage to create inexpensive autofocus optics such as the 100mm Macro, 19-35mm, and 100-400mm lenses that are sold under the Phoenix and Vivitar brands?
“Usually we first design the very best possible lens, regardless of glass price,” explains Kobayashi. “Then we try to substitute less expensive elements wherever possible without noticeably affecting quality. We stop when we have lowered production costs sufficiently, but have retained quality, and where the difference from our original lens will be negligible to the user.” Kobayashi has gained something of a triumph with his 19-35mm f/3.5-4.5 lens, sold under the Phoenix, Promaster, Ritz Quantaray, Tokina, Tamron, and Vivitar labels, all at the same time.

But perhaps Cosina was best known for its 35mm SLR camera bodies: inexpensive center-the-needle TTL metering, flashless, basic. Cosina later switched from viewfinder centering needle to green-red LEDs, and in time exchanged its all-mechanical metal blade focal plane shutter (1 to 1/2000 sec, X-sync) for an electronic one with aperture-priority autoexposure. While the cameras lacked many features of the posh brand-name SLRs, the Cosinas had metal-alloy body castings and excellent all-glass prism finders.

The cameras were furnished with whatever lensmount was necessary: screw-thread, K-mount, Canon, Nikon or Olympus bayonet. As listed last column, and slightly expanded here, the major camera brands using one or more Cosina-made SLRs included Argus, Bauer, Canon, Exakta, Hanimex, Miranda, Nikon, Petri, Quantaray, Soligor, Vivitar.
(Yes, yes, yes, I know that Chinon and Ricoh also made basic SLRs for many companies, but we have reason right now to follow Cosina’s ventures.)
Then came the digital onslaught. Virtually all Cosina-made 35mm film SLRs were obsolete antiques, not needed by the major-brand camera companies.

I had what I thought was a brilliant idea for Kobayashi. Just as he had made basic, inexpensive 35mm SLR camera bodies with various lensmounts, why not do the same for digital cameras?

“Look at the short life of digital SLRs and their continuously falling prices,” rejoined Kobayashi. “Why should I get into that mess?”

Kobayashi had, as they say, other fish to fry. It would be a completely different camera and he would sell it directly; no more selling cameras only to other companies who would then put their own names on them. But what name should Cosina use? While Cosina had tried its own on cameras for the Japanese market, the Cosina name was not exactly considered the Rolls-Royce or Mercedes-Benz of cameradom.

But Kobayashi was indeed thinking of a camera system that could well be equated with top quality. Where could he find a prestigious readymade name he could purchase or adopt?

Voigtländer, founded in 1756, is the world’s oldest name in cameras. Schering, a pharmaceutical company which owned most of Voigtländer’s stock, sold its shares in 1956 to Zeiss; who then ceased making cameras in 1972 and sold Voigtländer to Rollei; which was acquired by lensmaker Schneider; who in 1992 ran into financial difficulties and transferred ownership of Voigtländer to a German wholesaler, Plusfoto; who, in 1997, sold the name to Ringfoto, a giant supplier of photo products to over 2,500 stores in Europe.

Got it?

What better name than Voigtländer? Kobayashi was licensed by Ringfoto to use the Voigtländer names for both camera models and lenses. APO-Lanthar, Bessa, Heliar, Nokton, Skopar, and Ultron could ride again.

Ringfoto, however, retains ownership of the names, and uses the Voigtländer in Europe as a brand name for some film and inexpensive cameras.

The first Cosina-made, Voigtländer-named, camera of 1999 was an odd bird indeed. Take a standard Cosina 35mm SLR body, remove the prism and mirror housing, retain the 1- to 1/2000-sec mechanical shutter, wind and rewind mechanism and red, green LEDs and centerweighted exposure system. Add a Leica-type screw-thread lensmount, and you have a Bessa L, ideal for mounting the new Voigtländer Superwide 15mm f/4.5 Heliar, or 25mm f/4 Skopar lens (which can be guess-focused). Shoe-mount viewfinders for these lenses were included. The internal body chassis of the Bessa L is an aluminum alloy casting, but external parts, including the swing open back, are plastic and a little tacky.

The lenses were something else. The Superwide 15mm f/4.5 Heliar and 25mm f/4 Skopar were magnificently mounted in ultrasmooth-operating black or chrome lensmounts with engraved figures. With no need to use complicated retrofocus optical designs to clear a rapid return mirror, the lenses were highly compact and spectacularly good, as was the later Ultra Wide 12mm f/5.6 Heliar, the widest lens in production, which was equal in focal length to the discontinued 12mm f/8 Zeiss Holigon, but not in price. The Holigon today costs you about $2,000; the Ultra Wide Heliar, $596!

Can you use these screw thread lenses on other cameras? Why, of course. Just attach an M-mount adapter and presto, they fit Leica M cameras.

No, Cosina did not hew to the same optical designs as the original Voigtländer lenses. The original Skopar was a four-element Tessar design, and the original Heliar had five elements. But like original Voigtländer lenses, Cosina’s Voigtländer superfast lenses were Ultrons or Noktons, and its tele lenses were often APO-Lanthars.

The next year, Kobayashi created a Bessa R by adding a coupled rangefinder-viewfinder using optics quite similar to those on the Leica CL camera, but with four user-selected, projected, parallax-correcting frames for 35, 50, 75 and 90mm focal length lenses. An R2 with Leica M-type bayonet mount followed in 2002, and an R2A, and 3A in 2004, with electronic shutters and aperture priority autoexposure. Just for the fun of it, perhaps, Kobayashi reworked the R2 and produced the Voigtländer Bessa R2C (Contax) and Bessa R2S (Nikon) bayonet-mount rangefinder cameras, complete with the famous front finger-focusing wheels. A line of Contax-Nikon rangefinder bayonet mount Voigtländer lenses appeared.

With every ensuing model change, Kobayashi improved camera construction: metal castings replaced plastic parts, and the cosmetics became more elegant. A blizzard of Voigtländer lenses appeared: a 21mm f/3.5 Skopar, 35mm f/4 Skopar, 35mm f/1.2 Nokton, 40mm f/1.4 Nokton, 50mm f/1.5 Nokton, 75mm f/2.5 Heliar, 90mm f/3.5 APO-Lanthar, 28mm f/1.9 Ultron, 50mm f/1.7 Ultron, 50mm f/2.5 Skopar and a 50mm f/3.5 Heliar. Many available in both chrome and black mounts, and all were optically high-scoring, but with far lower prices than comparative Leica lenses.

Which are better? I’m not going there.

Cosina also made a variety of 35mm SLR Voigtländer lenses in Canon, Contax/Yashica, Minolta MD, Nikon AIS, Olympus OM, Pentax KA and screw-mounts.

In 1999, Rollei decided the world needed a Rollei 35mm rangefinder camera and introduced the Rollei 35RF plus Rollei-made, Zeiss-designed 40mm f/2.8 Rollei Sonnar and 80mm f/2.8 Rollei Planar lenses, with the promise of a 50mm Zeiss or Schneider lens to come. No sign of it yet, but the elegantly finished camera body contours and specs seemed familiar. Under the Rollei cosmetics beat the mechanical heart of a Voigtländer Besse R2.

The Voigtländer R2A and 3A weren’t the only interchangeable lens 35mm rangefinder cameras introduced in 2004. After giving up camera production 34 years ago, Carl Zeiss proudly showed off the new Zeiss-Ikon 35mm rangefinder camera and a new set of seven Carl Zeiss ZM mount lenses, in both black and chrome, for it and any other M mount camera.

Zeiss made little secret that the camera body was the result of cooperation between Zeiss and Cosina. Five lenses were to be made by Cosina and two by Zeiss, but all would be Zeiss-designed. Internal camera specs are almost identical to the Cosina Voigtländer R2A; but the finder system was vastly improved,with the projected frames automatically set by the lenses, and, most important, the base of the rangefinder vastly increased to 70mm, improving its accuracy compared with the relatively short rangefinder base used on the Leica CL and Cosina’Voigtländer cameras. The increase in the rangefinder’s base probably allows it to work even with 135mm lenses. The Cosina Voigtländers have a maximum focal length acceptance of 75mm or 90mm. The rangefinder base increase necessitated repositioning the rewind lever to the bottom of the Zeiss-Ikon. Many users of the camera report that its range-viewfinder equal to that of the M-Leica’s.

Cosina’s optical cooperation with Zeiss doesn’t end with the ZM lenses. Cosina is starting a Zeiss-designed, Cosina-made, manual-focus 35mm SLR ZF series of lenses in Nikon mounts starting with 50mm f/1.4 and 85mm f/1.4 Planars.

Are Cosina, Zeiss, and Kobayashi soft in the head? Don’t they realize the whole world’s gone digital?

Has it?

Certainly, Cosina’s attempts at selling Voigtländers through a U.S. distributor were disasters. Dealers thought they should do well, but the cameras in nearly all stores just sat on shelves. There was little sell-through. Only two sources in the U.S. are now official Voigtländer distributors: CameraQuest (www.cameraquest.com) and PhotoVillage (www.photovillage.com). (However, their enthusiasm, particularly CameraQuest’s, can be catching.)

If you flip through the pages of Japanese Asahi or Nippon photo magazines, you’ll be shocked at how much coverage the new Voigtländer and Zeiss photo equipment and other film cameras get. You may shake your head and figure such equipment must be a Japanese passion.

It is.

The prestige of German equipment names is part of the passion. The other part is a love of precision equipment. It’s the difference between being attracted to an optical instrument and using a kitchen utensil.

Are we now passionless? Pretty much so, I think. Did we ever have it? Yes-once, opening a box containing a new camera and showing it off to our friends with awe was almost an act of worship. With today’s digital SLRs, we’d probably tear open the box and get the camera working. We’re just too practical to get passionate over a camera. Too bad. It made us feel good. I hope at least we can still be passionate about shooting pictures.

Apparently the Japanese can have their passion and practicality as well. And if Zeiss is going to all the trouble of creating cameras to get passionate over, there might be a sufficient segment of Europeans who get passionate over something proper.

Me? I love the convenience of digital, but I get a greater joy from my film cameras, and sometimes think that I get better pictures with them. Must be some Japanese in me.

And what of Hirofumi Kobayashi, who produced lowly 35mm SLRs and budget-priced substitute element lenses? He now has an exclusive monopoly creating optical masterpieces and classic cameras rivaling the best ever made. Prices are quite affordable and steady. Is he better off with his super selectivity of purchasers than the competing armies of digital camera manufacturers?

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Film Lives!

In these digital days, when a camera company decides to add a new 35mm camera to its fleet, you might expect a low-priced, bottom-of-the-feature-barrel camera. Other SLR makers are doing just that. But not Canon.

Maybe this will be Canon’s last film Rebel (gasp) and maybe it won’t (depending on how film SLR Canons sell), but the T2 is strictly top-of-the-Rebel line, replacing the Rebel T1. The existing K2 and GII Rebels will continue to soldier on.

What does the T2 have? A new, cosmetically improved silver-finish polycarbonate body with a top shutter speed increased from 1/2000 to 1/4000 sec, film advance increased from 2.5 to 3 fps, and flash sync up from 1/90 to 1/125 sec. Exposure compensation and bracketing increased from ±2 to ±3 EV. The camera back sports a new fast-acting, four-key AF selection dial with an AF-mode selection button. It’s the first Rebel to have the E-TTL2 flash system built into the pop-up flash, and the first Rebel with custom functions-six of them. These include a choice of first- or second-curtain sync, AF-assist beam on or off, 10- or 2-sec self-timer, and a switch to center AF point with the AF-point selector.

Among other T1 features carried over to the T2: autofocus priority with limited release priority; center crossfield AF sensor plus six linear sensors; five programmed subject modes, shiftable program; shutter- and aperture-priority autoexposure plus manual; 35-zone evaluative, partial central area, and centerweighted metering (the latter in manual-exposure mode only); pop-up flash linked to three AF points; up to nine multiple exposures possible; and film prewinding to last frame with pictures taken during rewind.

The Rebel T2 kit with 28-90mm f/4-5.6 lens will be priced at $299 (street), slightly higher than the T1.

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The anti-shake’s in the body!

Who wouldn’t be skeptical? Canon, Nikon, and Sigma have built anti-shake mechanisms into a selected few, expensive lenses. Why should Minolta optical engineers think they could win at the anti-shake game by putting such a device in the digital SLR camera body itself? And have it work with all Minolta mount lenses from 14mm to superteles, including all the zooms? Will it really work? To find out, we got our hands on a pre-preproduction Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D body.

First, we mounted the toughest lens we could get our hands on, the unique 500mm f/8 Mirror Reflex Maxxum AF lens. We handheld it, autofocusing out the window toward distant buildings. What a great finder view-just like the one on the 35mm Konica Minolta Maxxum 7, which shares most of its viewing, autofocusing, and metering systems with this camera.

Yes, the image bounced around. Then we threw on the Maxxum 7D’s Anti-Shake switch and pressed the shutter release. The image shake from the 500mm lens (750mm with the 1.5X 35mm lens factor) visibly quieted. At the same time, an increasing series of bright green LEDs at the left of the finder screen indicated how much Anti-Shake correction was being applied-a very neat feature.

We then tried a popular-focal-length, non-Maxxum zoom lens. Would Anti-Shake work on a 28-200mm f/3.8-5.6 Macro XR Tamron? It did so impressively.

How does Konica Minolta’s body anti-shake compare with that in Canon, Nikon, Sigma lenses? When we have a production 7D, our lab will find out and analyze all of its features. But there are details we know now.

The 23.7×15.6mm CCD sensor has 6.11 million effective pixels that capture a 6MP (3008×2000-pixel) file. JPEG compressions are standard, fine, and extrafine. There’s also a RAW and RAW+JPEG mode, but no TIFF format. Burst capacity planned is 3 fps with nine frames total. Image controls for color space are sRGB, vivid color RGB, and Adobe RGB. The 7D features five levels of correction for sharpness, contrast compensation, and color saturation. It’s also PictBridge enabled.

The camera accepts CF Type I/II cards, and produces up to 500 pictures on a full charge of its lithium ion battery. Shutter speeds planned are 30 to 1/4000 sec with 1/150-sec X-sync plus TTL wireless sync.

Pop-up flash coverage is for lenses 17mm and longer. ISO speed equivalents are from 200 to 1600 with 3200 possible. White balance for specific light sources can be preset, manually set, or dialed in degrees Kelvin.

The 35mm Maxxum 7’s front infrared AF assist has been abandoned in favor of a preflash in the pop-up flash head. Konica Minolta claims that without it, the AF sensitivity in low light will reach down to -6 BV! (Are brightness values the same as EV? Our tests will show.)

The 7D has a built-in intervalometer with 1¼2- to 60-sec intervals and up to 200-plus frames.

More good news: the street price of the Maxxum 7D body is expected to be between $1,300 and $1,400. Availability: October. For further info: www.minoltausa.com; 877-462-4464.

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It’s damn near impossible to read any photo magazine article on shooting sports, animals, or birds without learning that many of the best shots required a huge, heavy, 500mm- or-longer lens, which few of us own. And many of you, I suspect, have attended professional sporting events and seen those poor photojournalists on the sidelines sweating under the burden of monster lenses.

Amateurs are often advised that they can closely duplicate pro results with shorter-focal-length lenses and a teleconverter or two. Well, maybe, but don’t count on sharp corners and edges or wide apertures. Even the main subject may not have snap.

Now picture this: You’re sitting in the back row at some grand sports event, too far away to see much. Your friends are sitting on their hands with useless cameras in their laps. Oh, for a long tele lens to bring back a great shot! With that, you pull from your coat pocket a lens about 19 percent smaller than a can of dog food, attach it to your camera, and fire away.

“What the devil is that?” you are asked. “Why, it’s a 500mm mirror lens,” you explain. “I just bought it for $69.” Then, to get a close-up, you slip a 2X converter between lens and camera body and shoot, handheld, with a 1000mm lens.

Daydream? Not a bit. Keep reading, and you shall know all.

Now that I’ve left you hanging there, let’s go back to the 1950s, when photojournalists were just beginning to throw away their rangefinder cameras for SLRs. Many of these photographers were covering uprisings, miniwars, and civil-rights skirmishes, complete with ferocious police dogs and water cannons. They needed tele lenses to keep them out of the line of fire but still close to the action. We called these 400- and 600mm lenses “giant stovepipes,” for obvious reasons: The bulky things were long on millimeters and short on portability.

Help came along from the unlikeliest place-the U.S.S.R.

In 1944, Russian scientist Dmitri Maksutov perfected a small, reflecting, 500mm f/8 telephoto mirror lens, based on a telescope design. It was but 5 1⁄2 inches long, and weighed 2 pounds, 9 ounces.

The Maksutov lenses, each packaged neatly in a beautiful wooden case with red, orange, yellow, and neutral-density filters, were discovered by photojournalists traveling through Moscow. Most bought one for themselves, and one to sell in the U.S. Later, a Russian trading company began importing them. At under $200, they were scarce, but highly desirable.

U.S. photographers snapped up the lenses, attached them to their cameras with screw-thread adapters, and added a 2X converter when action got too tight for the 500mm alone. This combo produced a 1000mm f/16 lens. Using high-speed (ISO 400) film with their MTO (Maksutov Tele-Optic) lenses, leading U.S. photojournalists were able to take great news pictures. The compact, lightweight lenses were easy to handhold. Photographers became accustomed to using speeds of 1/250 sec or even slower, with a bit of elbow bracing on floors, chairs, tables, car-window ledges, and roads.

Japanese lensmakers quickly hopped on the mirror lens bandwagon, and soon 500mm f/8 mirror lenses in all forms, shapes, and sizes were available from major and off-brand lensmakers. Amateurs had an optical field day with them. Besides being highly useful teles, many also focused extremely close-to 1:4; some, even closer. Warning: These lenses often came up fuzzy when macrofocusing. Called catadioptric (or simply CATs) based on their optical formulas, the lenses started at about $80, and had a great run among pros and amateurs alike. Then, just as suddenly as they had multiplied, they virtually vanished in the 1980s.

Major camera and lensmakers went back to producing larger, bulkier, all-glass transmitting lenses. What happened? Probably one or all of the following reasons:

1. Donuts went out of fashion. The secondary mirrors, located centrally in each CAT lens, produced round, black centers in out-of-focus highlight circles At first hailed as a nice artistic touch, photographers grew tired of donuts, and picture editors began to look on them with disfavor. What I think: I still find that donuts add interest to pictures, but if you don’t like ’em, avoid out-of-focus highlights. See my photographs.

2. Many 500mm f/8 mirror lenses turned out to have less light transmission and more focal length than marked. The MTO, for instance, was closer to a 550mm T/9.5 (T being the true light transmission), thanks to the secondary mirror, which not only produced donuts but also held back some of the transmitted light rays. What I think: With ISO 800 and 400 film what does a loss of f/8 to T/9.5 amount to anyway? Only a half stop.

3. Mirror lenses only have a single, smallish aperture that many pros and amateurs found objectionable, especially when using relatively slow film. Others wanted even smaller apertures to cut down on transmitted light. Attaching ND filters is the inconvenient way to do this, but ND filters do not increase depth of field as a smaller aperture would on an all-glass lens. What I think: F/8 (or T/9.5) is a good shooting aperture. I have a set of such ND filters for my CAT lens, and I’ve never used them.

4. Some mirror lenses produce considerable light falloff at the picture edges. What I think: Unless you’re shooting a natural-light subject, such as a blue sky, chances are you won’t notice the falloff. The wide exposure latitude of print film may also hide the falloff completely.

5. Mirror lens manufacturing requires high-precision components and assembly. Many lenses, particularly those made by small factories for off-brand labeling, are not of high enough quality. What I think: Try before you buy. Make sure you can exchange lenses or get a refund if your mirror lens is a dog. But remember: Don’t be too surprised if the macro settings yield poor results.

6. With the advent of autofocus SLRs, AF-mirror lenses weren’t available (except one, as we shall see). Manually focusing an f/8 mirror lens on an autofocus SLR viewing screen requires great care. Older SLRs often have split-image rangefinders, but with a 500mm f/8 they are usually unusable since one of the rangefinder semicircles goes black. What I think: If I can focus manually on SLR groundglass screens, so can you.

Mirror lens you can buy new

|| |—| | How it works: Folded loght path keeps mirror lens compact| | | Light from subject enters corrector lens, at left, travels to main mirror, is reflected back to secondary mirror, is reflected again through a hole in main mirror to field-flattener lenses, then through any filter in place, and finally to film or sensor at the focal plane.| Yes, there is an excellent autofocus 500mm f/8 mirror lens: the 4 5⁄8-inch- long Minolta AF, weighing 23 ounces, and focusing to 13 feet. If you have a Minolta Maxxum, you’re in luck. But you’ll need more than luck; you’ll need around 500 bucks! Worth it? I think so.

Sigma and Tamron also produce outstanding light, compact, manual-focus mirror lenses. The Sigma is a 600mm f/8, weighing 23 ounces, and focusing to 79 inches (approx. street price: $380). The 500mm f/8 Tamron weighs 23 ounces, focuses to 67 inches (1:3), and has a street price of about $435, including its adaptall mount.

And now comes what must be the best bargain in new mirror lenses ever. The 500mm f/8 Phoenix (made in South Korea by Samyang) is 11 1⁄2 ounces, 3 3⁄8 inches long, and focuses to 67 1⁄2 inches (1:2.7), though it’s not too sharp that close. It comes with a soft pouch and three rear screw-thread filters for…$100!! That’s Adorama’s price. But you can, of course, check with your favorite local dealer, who can probably order it for you if it’s not in stock. You’ll also need a T-mount lens-to-camera-body adapter, $15-$16; for Leica Rs, $20.

I did promise you 500mm f/8 lenses for $69, didn’t I? How’s your sense of adventure? When 500mm f/8 lenses fell out of favor, many were traded in or sold, and have remained paperweights on the used-equipment shelves of major camera stores such as Adorama and B&H Photo. The inexpensive ones often bear U.S. importer- or store-brand names such as Cambron, Sakar, Kalimar, Rokunar, or Soligor, and can vary in price from $60 upward. All each needs to be functional again is a T-mount screw-thread adapter. Yes, there are manual T-adapters that will allow manual focusing on Canon, Nikon, and Minolta autofocus cameras. (If you need to unlock a Minolta Maxxum to use the T-adapter, send me a self-addressed, stamped envelope and I’ll mail you the directions on how to do it.)

Trying to locate used 500mm f/8 lenses on store web sites can be quite wearying. It’s best to call the store’s 800 number, and ask for the Used Equipment department. You’ll likely be transferred to a salesperson standing near the lenses, who can describe them to you and offer some advice. But remember, as I’ve said, these are high-precision optics. They can easily go out of wack. And you don’t want one that’s been dropped from the top of the Empire State Building, handled carelessly, or has been an optical dog since birth in the lens factory. See my directions on how to buy this type of lens and how to use it.

I hope the three photographs I’ve shown will inspire you to get into the tele swing with a 500-600mm mirror lens. I shot all handheld, both with and without some bracing, at speeds from 1/30 to 1/125 sec. Whether you wind up with a $500 Minolta Maxxum AF lens or a $69 marvel, you can make great pictures with these remarkable little tele babies, and have a lot of fun doing it. Good hunting!

What used mirror lenses might you find?
Here’s a sampling of my lifetime collection, rare and not so rare, clockwise from 12 o’clock: Swift Lynx Catadioptric Spotting Scope, Spiratone 500mm f/8 Mirror-Ultratel, Questar astronomical-terrestial telescope, Vivitar 450mm f/4.5 Series 1 VMC, Sigma 400mm f/5.6 Mirror Telephoto, no-name 500mm f/8, Cambron 500mm f/8 reflex, no-name 500mm f/8, Tamron SP 500mm f/8 Tele Macro, Minolta AF 500mm f/8 reflex, redesigned MTO 3M-5A 500mm f/8, and Questar 700mm f/8. Center: original Russian 500mm f/8 MTO in wooden box with filters.

How to buy a used mirror lens

|| |—| | | Bargain hunter’s delight: How much for a small, compact, used 500mm f/8 mirror lens? Anywhere from $60 up. Any good? Better test it.| 1-Call photo stores and ask for the Used Equipment department. Inquire about the availability of mirror lenses in the 450-600mm range.
2-If possible, go to the store with your camera body to examine lenses yourself. You can probably try lenses right there and maybe even shoot some test pictures at the store.
3-If an in-person visit isn’t possible, ask the salesperson to describe lens by phone: indicate its size, weight, close-focusing capability, price, warranty, and shipping and handling costs. Check on the price of a T-mount for your camera. Make sure you can get a money-back guarantee.
4-When you receive the lens and T-mount, attach them together and then to your camera body. If lens scales are not at top, loosen three T-mount screws with a jeweler’s screwdriver. Turn lens so scales are upright on camera, tighten screws.
5-Make a quick, simple lens test: On a bright day, load camera with ISO 400 print film. Find a set of buildings or a scenic with details at infinity that appear at the center and edges in your viewfinder. Place camera and lens on a suitable tripod or other support. Focus carefully on subject using camera focusing screen. Select aperture-priority autoexposure. Ask your photofinisher for an 8×12 enlargement. Examine sharpness at center and edges. If the sharpness pleases you, keep the lens.
6-Alternatively, make a more precise lens test: Load up with ISO 100-200 fine-grained slide film. Find a detailed building façade at least 25 feet away that is parallel to your tripod-mounted camera’s film plane. Shoot as in 5. Now, change lens and mount one of your non-mirror lenses that you know to be sharp. Approach the building until you frame the same view as the one you shot with the mirror lens. Make an aperture-priority exposure at f/8. When slides are processed, compare results using a 10X or greater magnifier. Quality of mirror lens photo should approach picture made with your non-mirror lens. But don’t expect the mirror lens picture to equal it.

Eight tips for using mirror lenses
1. At close range, stationary subjects are easiest to shoot. My bird remained perched long enough for me to focus carefully; the matador stood stock still waiting for the charge of the bull; the lion and I stared at each other for quite a while.
2. To handhold lens steady, rest lens in left palm. Hold camera to your eye. Draw arms and elbows into body as far as possible. Press shutter release very gently.
3. Buy a beanbag. When using a tripod is inconvenient (which it often is, since handholding a lens gives you so much more fun and freedom), try resting your lens on a beanbag if you can. Most camera stores have or can order them. Plastic pellet-filled bags are lightest and best. Figure on spending under $10.
4. While the old rule of thumb calls for you to use the reciprocal of the focal length as the slowest shutter speed (1/500 sec for a 500mm lens), if you practice, you’ll be able to shoot at 1/125 or 1/250 sec. With bracing (see bird and lion photo captions), even 1/30 sec is possible.
5. For a fairly accurate check of your lens’ light transmission, aim lens on camera at a clear blue sky, an evenly lit wall, or place directly on top of light table. Check the shutter speed reading using aperture-priority mode. Replace mirror lens with one of your regular lenses and make the same reading at f/8. The difference in the shutter speed indicates the approximate true light transmission loss. For instance, if your mirror lens gives you a 1/60 sec reading but your regular lens shows 1/125 sec, that’s a loss of a full stop. So that mirror lens would have a light transmission close to T/11. Mirror lenses can vary from 1⁄2-to 1 1⁄2-stops of light loss.
6. While many mirror lenses may have light transmissions less than the f-stop markings, conversely the focal length is often greater than marked. While there is no easy, precise way to check true focal length, you can find if there is a large discrepancy between actual focal length and marked focal length. While in a camera store, ask to check out a 500mm tele or zoom set to your mirror lens’ focal length. View the same focused area with both lenses. Note how much greater the mirror lens image probably is. Some cheap mirror lenses may indeed have shorter focal lengths than marked. This method lets you check it.
7. The focusing ring of your mirror lens will probably revolve further than the infinity or closest-focusing markings on the lens barrel. Worry not. This is merely an allowance for the lens barrel’s expansion or contraction due to temperature fluctuations.
8. For shots within range, don’t forget to use flash when possible to freeze action and minimize the effects of camera shake. But make sure your flash beam clears the barrel of the lens.

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|| |—| | | DIGITAL NIKON D100 VS. FILM N80-SO SIMILAR, BUT SO DIFFERENT: Body construction, mechanical controls, pop-up flash, and optical systems are nearly identical, but using memory cards instead of film-with their respective image-quality choices-makes using the D100 a different ballgame.| I’m sitting here with a strange (at least to me) SLR. It’s a Nikon D100 digital camera (tested in September 2002, page 88). It’s not mine. It’s Nikon’s, on loan to me for six months. I didn’t ask for it. Nikon suggested I try it, and I bowed to the inevitable. (I intend to keep you up-to-date on all SLRs, both 35mm and digital.) If any other manufacturer of interchangeable-lens AF SLRs had been first to offer me the use of such a camera, I would probably have gone with that brand. But no matter the make, I have no plans to switch from or add to my beloved 35mm SLRs and lenses unless I find that the picture-taking convenience and practicality of a camera such as the D100 is superior.

In POP’s offices, digital cameras are used for getting functional equipment pictures for technical stories to the printer swiftly and economically. Practically all the equipment that appears on POPULAR PHOTOGRAPHY & IMAGING’s covers is shot digitally.

If I worked for a newspaper or a news magazine requiring high-speed transmission of images to make deadlines, I’d unquestionably use a digital camera. But, like many of you, I do the bulk of my shooting with a film SLR. Even though I usually only have 4×6- inch prints made, I’m hooked on producing the most creative images of the best possible quality. And if I do take an outstanding shot, I want to be able to produce a critically sharp enlargement of it-up to a 16×20-inch print.

While I admit I sometimes play with my cameras for the sheer joy of focusing, zooming, and clicking the shutter, my main concern is capturing images. I hope that now, and in articles to follow, we’ll see just how well digital cameras and digital photography, in general, fit my needs-and, I hope, yours.

Since I had no AF Nikkors of my own, Nikon lent me the very practical 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5G Nikkor. In 35mm camera terms, it’s the equivalent of a 36-127.5mm focal-length zoom, since Nikon’s smaller-than-35mm-frame CCD digital sensor adds, in effect, 1.5X magnification to the Nikkor’s marked focal lengths when attached to Nikon’s digital cameras. The street price of a D100 with this lens is about $2,325, very reasonable today for a professional digital SLR and in the range of a number of professional 35mm cameras, but scandalously high when compared to comparable 35mm amateur SLR gear such as the Nikon N80.

Users of tele lenses and tele-zooms will be delighted to find that the 1.5X magnification works in their favor, lengthening focal lengths by 50 percent. For instance, an 80-200mm lens produces images equal in magnification to a 120-300mm zoom on a 35mm SLR. However, wide-angle enthusiasts may be dismayed that their lenses suffer the same focal-length increase compared to 35mm SLR lenses. To get something close to the focal-length equivalent of a 20mm f/2.8 Nikkor lens on a 35mm SLR ($500, street price), D100 enthusiasts would have to purchase a 14mm f/2.8 Nikkor ($1,450, street price), or a less costly independently made 14mm for their cameras. Such lenses are far larger and heavier than 20mm lenses and are still only the equivalent of a 21mm lens in terms of angular coverage.

|| |—| | | REMARKABLE LOOK-ALIKE CONTROLS: Can you spot which camera is the Nikon D100 digital SLR, and which is the N80 film camera? (The D100 is on the bottom.)| Yes, Nikon will introduce a special, yet to be priced, 12-24mm f/4 DX Nikkor lens (18-36mm 35mm equivalent) later this year. But it will only be usable on Nikon digital cameras. That still leaves fisheye enthusiasts like me out in the cold.

Wide-angle users could, of course, bypass the entire magnification factor by choosing another brand of digital SLR that uses a full 24x36mm digital imaging sensor. But the cost of these is relatively astronomic at present and the weight is considerable. The new Canon EOS-1Ds (tested February 2003, page 54), which has a 24x36mm sensor, costs $7,000, street price. It weighs 45 ounces, roughly four times as much as one of the new budget-priced compact 35mm SLRs. My camera-carrying shoulder hurts just thinking about it.

In comparison to other digital SLRs offering lens interchangeability, the Nikon D100, at 25 ounces, is on the light and small size, but is slightly larger and heavier than comparable 35mm SLRs. For instance, the Nikon N80, on which many of the nondigital features of the D100 are based, measures 5.6×3.9×2.8 inches and is seven ounces lighter than the slightly larger 5.7×4.6×3.2-inch D100. The D100’s standard battery is a rechargeable EN-EL33 lithium ion, which isn’t the kind of battery you will find at a supermarket or drugstore. Anyone buying a D100 might wish to think about purchasing a spare battery ($45, street price) to keep handy when the the supplied battery needs recharging. However, our lab tests indicate that the battery is good for over 400 shots, including a good percentage with flash, before recharging is necessary. Recharging, according to the very clear D100 directions, takes two hours; I found this slightly optimistic. In contrast, the N80 requires two CR123 nonrechargeable lithium batteries (about $8 apiece, street price), easily available at local stores.

After you insert the battery into the D100, you need the digital equivalent of film. With film, you have a one-size cartridge and your choice of 24- or 36-exposure rolls capable of making acceptable 16×20-inch enlargements-slides or prints, even ISO 400 versions. The D100’s digital equivalent is the Compact Flash memory card. No matter how swiftly you can load, rewind, and unload a 35mm automatic SLR, exchanging memory cards takes a fraction of the time.

How much information (and thus number of pictures) can these cards contain? This depends on the number of megabytes (MB) in each card. Cards are designated 16, 32, and 64MB, generally doubling progressively up to 640MB with a 1GB (gigabyte) card at the present top of the heap. The more MBs, the higher the price of the card, but the lower the price for each megabyte of memory. And remember, you can erase all shots you don’t want to keep, and reshoot. A 16MB card, at this writing, sells for about $20, a 32MB for $25, a $64MB for $35, a 96MB for $44, and a 128MB for $55 (all street prices).

I wish I could report that there is a specific correlation between the MBs and the number of pictures the cards can store. There isn’t. Much depends on the maximum number of megapixels your camera’s digital sensor can capture, and just what level of picture quality or image compression will satisfy your needs. If you find that you’re using up all the space on your memory card with the quality setting you’re using, but have many more shots to make, you have two choices. You can erase unwanted images already shot, or lower the quality setting for the pictures remaining to be shot. With a 96MB card, the Nikon D100’s maximum quality settings will yield nine pictures (see chart at right) which, according to our lab tests, can provide a maximum photo-quality print size of about 10×15 inches when viewed at a normal distance. If you are a viewer who insists on examining the print inches from your nose, make that 7×10 inches.

|| |—| | | GOING ULTRAWIDE WITH NIKON THE D100? IT’LL COST YOU: 20mm f/2.8 Nikkor (left) weighs in at 9.5 ounces, sells for roughly one-third the price of the 23.6-ounce 14mm f/2.8 Nikkor that you would need on the D100 to get wide-angle coverage equal to a 21mm on a 35mm Nikon.| If this maximum size disappoints you, think how few photographers really make larger-sized prints (such as the 11×17-inch photos gracing my office walls). For the vast majority of D100 owners, the camera produces great 5x7s or 8x10s. At the opposite extreme there are digital camera owners who merely want pictures suitable for e-mailing. For that purpose, the same 96MB card can deliver more than 300 images. How? By first changing the resolution, then modifying the JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) compression level. But JPEG compression takes its toll on image quality after a certain point. At the finest JPEG settings, most photographers won’t see much difference between an uncompressed file and a JPEG image. But when compression increases beyond 1:10, artifacts-such as moiré patterns, wrong coloration, and jagged edges-can appear.

How much compression can you stand? It depends on how well you recognize JPEG effects. What might be rejected by one viewer may well be very acceptable to the next, just as a 10×15-inch print from a RAW format D100 file might be rejected by a persnickety viewer but would be quite acceptable to most photographers. Subject matter also plays a role.

The D100 offers three levels of JPEG compression-from least to most: fine, normal, and basic. At each JPEG level, you have your choice of three different levels of resolution (see chart on previous page). The less resolution you need, the more pictures you can record on the memory card. When I have time, I promise myself I will try all three D100 JPEG levels, each of which has three levels of resolution, plus a JPEG with no compression, and make prints of all to see the differences. We’ve suggested that procedure to new owners of the D100 or other digital cameras.

Alas, each different digital SLR seems to have its own set of quality levels so the D100 chart we’ve shown will not be applicable to other digital SLRs. The D100 has its own Nikon Electronic Imaging Format system as well as the ones I’ve mentioned.

Fortunately, as you change quality levels, the D100 camera’s frame counter on the back LCD and in the viewfinder indicates the approximate number of pictures left on the card. How many pictures remain also depends on the subject matter you shoot. Simple subjects don’t require as many MBs as complex, detailed ones, so you may get more shots than the “pictures remaining” counter indicated.

For beginners, the D100 has a default setting that you select by pressing two buttons with green dots simultaneously. This sets normal JPEG compression (see chart), large image-size resolution, speed equivalent to ISO 200, automatic white balance and central-area lockable autofocus. The instruction book says the default setting is “ideal for snapshots.”

When you become more conversant with the camera, you can change any image size and quality settings to ones that suit you better. The instructions specify “snapshots” for the default setting, but they don’t explain what size snapshots. I guessed it was equal to a 4×6-inch print and thought the default setting could probably produce a 5×7 print at most.

|| |—| | | BATTERIES COMMON AND UNCOMMON: CR123 single-use lithium batteries for 35mm SLRs are widely available but cost $8-$10 per battery. D100’s rechargeable lithium ion battery is a rare bird, except at Nikon dealers, but lasts for over 400 shots. A backup battery costs $45.| Unlike a film SLR, you can switch quality levels in mid-card for each picture if you wish, or if you need more room for more pictures at lower quality.

The D100, like all other digital SLRs, can shoot single frames or continuous bursts. In continuous mode, the D100 provides up to six frames at three fps. However, it takes time for digital cameras to transfer images to the memory card. The camera will hold up to six sequenced images in a buffer memory. Then it pauses until the buffer has had enough time to transfer at least one image to the memory card. Depending on the quality level the camera has been set for, the time can vary from a few seconds to a few minutes (see chart on previous page). The directions provide a table of the time required to record all images once the buffer has been filled.

For my first foray into picture-taking land with the D100, I used the default setting. At a photo exhibit by our contributing editor, Elinor Stecker-Orel, and her husband, Mano Orel, I decided to make a double portrait of them.

Lacking sufficient existing light, I used the D100’s pop-up flash on program exposure, although I worried about the reflections from my subjects’ eyeglasses. Since I was familiar with the N80, I found operating the D100’s controls a snap. Returning to the office, I removed the Compact Flash memory card and sent it to our local minilab. The 4×6-inch prints were ready the next day. I judged them comparable to film prints, but decided to enlarge one of the Elinor-Mano portraits to 5×7 and 8×10.

How could I indicate to the minilab which picture I wanted enlarged? I had no negatives with numbers, and no film frame number on the back of the print. However, I could easily scroll through the pictures on the camera’s LCD screen. There was the best one, numbered 100-31. However, our minilab asked that I leave the 4×6 print with them so the operator would be certain to print the right image.

I inquired what other enlargement sizes the minilab could make, and was told 10×15 was the largest. I decided to have one of these made as well. The various print sizes would let me see how much enlargement this “snapshot quality” default setting would allow before the image started to be unacceptable.

Was I ever in for a surprise. The 10×15 enlargement was sharp, clear, and, of course, grainless, even though the default setting included 1:8 JPEG compression. Not only were Elinor’s eyes crystal clear, but so were the bifocal correction elements of her eyeglasses!

POP’s digital experts were impressed and had difficulty finding digital defects in the enlargements. If I had included some highly detailed subject matter, such as a checkered sports coat, digital artifacts would probably have appeared.

WORKS LIKE A FILM SLR?

|| |—| | | FILM VS. MEMORY CARDS: With 35mm film, you get a definite 24 or 36 exposures. With digital memory cards, you can erase images you don’t want and take others to replace them. Or you can stretch out the number of pictures recorded by lowering quality of shots not yet taken.| The D100 is a sophisticated, pro camera that from the get-go became the hottest selling digital SLR on the market. All the other current digital SLRs are also pro-oriented. Their basic optical design and overall shape-plus the outer lever and knob controls-work like film SLR controls. Digital image quality levels, however, are determined with exquisite fineness and precision through menus on the rear LCD screen. Using these takes some getting used to. And you’d better know your pixels.

Most pros and many advanced amateurs determined to master these digital SLRs will be able to thread their way through the morass of pixel technology required. But what of average amateurs? For them, digital SLR designers can surely come up with less complex quality settings that can be reached by knobs and levers and don’t require deciphering of charts and tables.

Until then, you’ll probably find me at the D100’s default setting. That’s a JPEG 1:8 compression. Maybe I can venture one step higher to a 1:4 compression ratio and make some 11×17-inch enlargements after all.

Or maybe I’ll use film.

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A mighty lump of a camera: The new Olympus digital SLR might look like this mock-up-or it might not, says Olympus.

Ever since the mid-1930s, when Exakta decided to go it alone with its own bayonet lensmount, we have suffered the proliferation of many noncompatible 35mm camera lensmount systems. Nikon, Canon, Minolta, Leica, Olympus, Mamiya, Contax, Miranda, and Petri are only a few of past and present SLR makers who have made it impossible for consumers to join lens A with body B. There may be some truth in the accusation by photographers that this Tower of Babel in lensmounts has been encouraged by each company’s bean counters to make certain that once you decide on a camera and lens system, you are darn well going to have to stick with it. But many camera and lens designers insist that they have evolved their respective lensmounts to be more capable and convenient than those on other brands.

Digital SLRs with interchangeable lenses have compounded the problem. Because so many digital SLRs use smaller-than-24x36mm sensors, you must, in effect, multiply the marked focal length of the lens by a specific value to calculate the 35mm-equivalent focal length. For instance, a 28-105mm zoom becomes a 39.2-147mm zoom if the multiplier is 1.4, or 47.6-178.5mm if the multiplier is 1.7-all because we are basing digital SLRs on 35mm camera bodies and lenses which actually cover greater areas than needed for cameras with smaller sensors.

Because of this multiplication factor, ultra-wide-angle lenses are only available on digital SLR cameras using big (and expensive) full-sized 24x36mm sensors. With a sensor requiring a 1.5 multiplication factor, you need a super-big and expensive 14mm lens to reach the 35mm equivalent of 21mm.

Olympus is proposing we ditch the whole business and initiate an entirely new digital SLR system. Based on a 4/3-inch (diagonal) sensor size, and lenses covering just that size sensor, digital cameras would be smaller and lighter. But Olympus is going far further by proposing that the 4/3-size sensor be made a standard for future digital SLRs built by other companies, along with a common lensmount, back focus, and the same lens-to-camera-body electronic interface. Thus lenses and cameras made by all manufacturers would be readily interchangeable and all lens’ focal lengths would be as marked.

Further, Olympus is suggesting an industry-wide Universal Digital Interchangeable Lens System Forum to promote the acceptance of the “4/3 Standard” by other camera manufacturers. Olympus announced that Kodak has already climbed on board as a partner by agreeing to implement the system, and that Fuji has also agreed to participate.

Olympus points out a distinct optical advantage that the smaller-diameter lens system and smaller-diameter sensors would have optically over the larger-diameter 35mm lens system. Olympus explained that light rays striking a digital image sensor at angles of much less than 90 degrees may not be captured by CCDs with sensors having tiny micro lenses at the front, thus causing poor imaging performance. This particularly affects image corners when using wide angle at wide apertures. Other camera and lensmakers, however, say that this effect is less when 35mm system lenses are used with smaller-than-35mm sensors, and that some of the new full-frame 24x36mm sensors, notably the CMOS type, can virtually eliminate the problem.

This isn’t the only optical battle shaping up among lens makers. Many lensmakers are now claiming their lenses are specially computed for use on digital cameras. A lot have digital-capable identification markings (Olympus has Di on such lenses, and Sigma’s are marked “DG”). Other manufacturers say that special digital-capable lenses aren’t needed at all. Film-capable lenses will do just fine, thank you.

But we haven’t yet finished with Olympus’s proposal for a digital camera standard. Other camera makers might readily accept using a common sensor size, back-focus distance, and lensmount. But they may have grave reservations about a standardized interface between camera bodies and lenses. Wouldn’t this mean that designers would be prevented from adding their own unique operating systems and software, thus differentiating one camera and lens system from another? Why buy one brand of camera or lens over another? It should be an interesting Forum if it ever gets off the ground.

But without other lensmakers adopting the new lensmount and electronics, Olympus might find itself with an insufficient variety of lenses for its SLRs. And it is doubtful if independent lensmakers would produce lenses for one unique camera maker’s lensmount. Would Olympus go ahead with plans for their interchangeable lens digital SLR based on the 4/3 system if no one else does?

What will Olympus’s camera look like? Top secret! In my October column I showed a drawing of what it might look like, floating amorphously, in a fortune teller’s crystal ball. Now we have something better than that. Well, maybe. Stating that it was just a mockup and probably bearing no resemblance to the real thing, Olympus unveiled what appeared to be a wooden block, not too cleverly disguised as a camera-and a big camera at that. It remained out of reach in an inviolable display case in the Olympus booth at Photokina.

What do you think about Olympus’s proposed 4/3 lens standard? And why designate it by an improper fraction? Discuss at www.POPPHOTO.com > Forums > Respond to Pop Photo.

More lenses than we expected
Also on display at Photokina (turn to page 34 for our full show report) was a plethora of lenses. Why were so many new 35mm camera lenses introduced at Photokina? All the better to serve digital as well as 35mm SLRs. Not so, however, with the 90mm f/2 ASPH Leica APO Summicron R, which won’t fit on any digital camera we know of. Contax showed a newly designed 85mm f/1.4 Planar T and 400mm f/4 Carl Zeiss Tele-Apotessar T for the Contax N. Tamron had five new lenses: a 17-35mm f/2.8-4 AF Di, a 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di Macro focusing to 13 inches (a hair less than 1:4), a 70-200mm f/2.8 Di with a unique Filter Effect Control that allows polarizing filters to be rotated easily without removing an attached lenshood, a 180mm f/3.5 SP AF Di, remarkably focusing to 1:1, and a 200-500mm f/5-6.3 SP AF Di also with Filter Effect Control, but as an accessory (the “Di” stands for “digital”). Tokina’s new lens is a 28-70mm f/2.8 AF AT-X PRO SV.

An indie stabilization lens!
Certainly the highlight of the Sigma lens collection was the 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6 EX OS. “OS” stands for Optical Stabilizer, Sigma being the only lensmaker, aside from Canon and Nikon, to offer this feature. Mode 1 handles camera shake in vertical and horizontal panning. Mode 2 detects vertical camera shake of the camera itself, such as when you are standing on a shaky support. Both 1.4X and 2X converters can be added to the lens. Sigma showed a 28-70mm f/2.8-4, a 300-800mm f/5.6 EX IF HSM, and a 120-300mm f/2.8 APO EX IF HSM lens.

Elicar had 600-1200mm and 800-1600mm f/10-20 manual-focus lenses, the former close focusing to 1:3 and the latter to 1:4. Cosina showed a remarkable collection of lenses. For Nikon-mount rangefinders there was a 28mm f/3.5 Voigtländer SC-Skopar, a 50mm f/2.5 SC-Skopar, and an 85mm f/3.5 S-Apo-Lanthar. A chart indicated which ones would also be usable (within the depth of field) with Contax rangefinder cameras, and at what distances and apertures. A 35mm f/1.2 Aspherical Nokton for Voigtländer M mount made its appearance, as well as a 180mm f/4 APO-Lanthar SL lens, the latter focusing to 1:4 in a wide variety of SLR mounts.

There was activity, too, in medium format. Besides the new Fujinon lenses listed in our report on the Hasselblad H-1, Contax had a 45-90mm f/4.5 Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T for the Contax 645 and, stuck away in a corner of a show-case and missing from any press release, a 45mm f/3.5 Technoplan-T3 shift/tilt lens inscribed “Limited Edition for the Contax 645AF.” No Zeiss name on this one. Mamiya unveiled an amazingly wide 26mm f/4.5 lens for their 645 camera and an ultrawide 43mm f/4.5L lens for the RZ67.

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While total sales of 35mm SLRs may be slowly declining-probably due to increasing digital camera incursions-the number of actual 35mm SLR purchases remains very high and we intend to continue leading the pack.”

So spoke the Canon executive as he handed me an early production sample oof what we had been expecting for a year, the successor to the Canon EOS Rebel 2000, namely the Rebel Ti, which Canon has labeled the “new-generation, world standard camera designed to fend off rival models.”

Cosmetically it bears no resemblance to any previous Rebel or any other camera. It’s not black and it’s not chrome either. The polycarbonate body is finished in silver (except for a gray top plate inset and the black bottom plate). A matching silver-finished 28-90mm f/4-5.6 Canon EF is included in the kit, one of the ways the Ti will be sold. Camera and lens make a striking cosmetic concoction. Gone are the traditional Rebel straight edges. Contours have been rounded and sculpted. The shutter release has been moved considerably upward where it’s more convenient to press. The right hand grip is much deeper, making the camera easier to hold even without any rough gripping surfaces.

Unlike its rivals who seem to be playing an “anything you can make, I can make smaller and lighter” game, the Rebel Ti body at 12 ounces is a fraction of an ounce heavier than the Rebel 2000. Still, its weight is within an ounce of its ri

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| Top-notch improvements: Rebel Ti (top) reverses command dial position of Rebel 2000 (bottom), provides shorter camera body. Silver 28-90mm f/4-5.6 Canon lens matches body, is available only in kit.| The Ti’s seven-sensor CMOS autofocus system operates in precisely the same manner as the Rebel 2000’s. But while the pattern on the viewfinder screen has a central cross sensor and six linear sensors in exactly the same pattern as in the Rebel 2000, the sensor rectangles showing correct focus now have central red dot LEDs to show when they’ve been activated.

Why not have lighted rectangles? I suspect that the CR2 lithium batteries may not supply sufficient lasting power and that cost was also a factor. Are the dots sufficiently visible? Only a field test of a full-production camera under various light conditions will give us the answer.

The Rebel Ti viewfinder, unlike that of the Rebel 2000, has a diopter-correction slide switch control beneath the removable rubberized eyepiece. The finder uses a mirror prism like the Rebel 2000.

AF speed and predictive focus have been improved, according to Canon. The Rebel Ti’s AF speed is now equal to that in the EOS Elan 7 and predictive focus “is on a par” with that in the Canon EOS-1N. Single focus is usually set, but continuous focus is available in the PIC action mode.

The 35-zone evaluative exposure metering is the same as in the Rebel 2000, but Canon says a new algorithm has made metering more precise and stable. Evaluative metering is standard except in the manual mode, when centerweighted averaging is set, and in the creative zone modes when partial metering operates if the AE lock is used.

Compared to the Rebel 2000, the Rebel Ti’s shutter time lag (between pressing the shutter release and the shutter operating) has been cut considerably as has viewfinder blackout time. Continuous maximum frame-per-second advance has increased from 1.5 to 2.5 fps. Like the Rebel 2000, the Rebel Ti prewinds film to the end of the roll when the camera is loaded, and then takes pictures as the film rewinds into the film cartridge. This, of course, prevents shots already taken from being accidentally ruined by someone prematurely opening the camera back.

A stainless steel lensmount replaces the Rebel 2000’s polycarbonate one. As in the Rebel 2000, exposure modes include full auto, manual shiftable program, shutter- and aperture-priority autoexposure, metered manual exposure, plus portrait, scenic, night, closeup, and action picture modes, as well as Canon’s automatic depth-of-field calculating mode. Flash-off is in a new setting, which primarily allows the novice using the full auto mode (green rectangle on the command dial) to shoot by existing light. Shutter speeds remain 30-1/2000 sec with X-sync at 1/90 sec.

Like the Rebel 2000,

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| More power to you: EOS Rebel Ti’s 300V battery pack (street price, about $35) has vertical shutter release and loads with four AA alkaline energizers or rechargeable nickel-hydride batteries. (You can’t use AA lithiums, darn it!)| Flash control remains as it was in the Rebel 2000 with the built-in pop-up using three-zone TTL flash metering around the center AFpoint. With an Ex-series Canon Speedlite, E-TTL metering centers on the bright areas of the 35-zone metering sensor.

At a kit street price (including lens) of about $350, Canon hopes the attraction of the 28-90mm lens (instead of the 28-80mm lens on rival kits) will continue to drive consumers Rebelwards. But the Rebel Ti will still have a very attractive, low-priced, feature-laden group of pack rivals nipping at its heels, with Nikon and Minolta kits costing $50 and $75 less than the Rebel Ti, but with 28-80mm lenses.

The Ti will be available body only, for about $240. A date quartz back model will be about $260.

Other versions of the Ti are in the planning stages for the future, and at least one kit with the 28-90mm USM lens in place of the current EF lens.

While a critical comparison of the Rebel Ti and other-brand rivals would be fun for me to write (and I promise I shall do it), such will take time, but the time was now to give you a quickie report on the early production Rebel Ti.

In the meantime, my admiration for the Rebel Ti’s beauty is great. Time and tests will tell whether beauty is only skin deep.

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