Letıs talk about the big lens again. It is a nice and easy topic, and it allows me to post some pictures, which makes this post longer, even though I do not have too much to say.
The big lens, Sonnar 4/300, the heavy, black, big lens, actually does allow to take pictures. It sounds like a given, but we might want to remember that the lens is almost 50 years old. An old piece of technology. Filled with old Dust and who knows what else. Definitely some old memories. It seems that the lens has tiny air bubbles in the first element, very strange. Is this Separation? Separation, the scary, dangerous and almost not reparable decay of old lenses. Some of the Glas elements within the lens are actually glued together because their properties could not be generated by one piece of glass, I guess. A lens is a sort of living gem, it can fall, it is exposed to various atmospheric influences, so it is quite possible that air begins an interaction with the glue in the lens, which might lead to air bubbles in the glue, which in turn can lead to a separation of glass elements, thus a change in the properties of the lens.
Not sure if my Lens is all together still, when I look through it, most that I see seems to be hair and dust.
The Camera seems to see more.
Here we go, letıs just take a look at the degree of magnification possible with the Sonnar 300. The larger picture will not be the entire frame, because I forgot about the film in the camera and ruined some frames. The comparison should give a nice idea of what is going on though.
First the view out of the window here, taken with the minilux. The minilux leica lens is a f2.4/40 lens, so it is a s wide angle. (50 would be a non distorted view, I guess?...)
I marked a little yellow rectangle in the picture. It is the same view, seen through the sonnar f4/300. And here is the picture. Shout out of my hand. No tripod, a bit blurry because of that, maybe... Oh, and the windows here are pretty dusty toom since they are facing broadway. Yes, there is a church in New Jersey and yes, it is not really visible with the naked eye.
: )
So Nahe. (so close)... Sonnar actually comes from Sonne, or Sun, because the low count of glas elements in these lenses, developed for the Olympics in 1936 in Berlin, made them pretty bright. (fast)