# New lens - custom made for fun artsy fartsy stuff



## SquarePeg (Jan 18, 2018)

Pretty happy with this new lens.  Its a custom made lens made with a Pentacon 80mm 2.8 AV lens from Russia and a Fuji X mount. I found it on eBay (long story for another day) from a seller in CO. It’s got that “Trioplan” like bubble bokeh which I wanted for flower and night shots.  Couldn’t justify paying for a real Trioplan - $1600!!!   Picked this one up for just over $200.  I didn’t buy it for its sharpness but even that is better than I expected. It was dark out when they delivered it today so had to make do with my kitchen lights, some twinkle lights for background and some flowers.  No post on these.  A bit of a learning curve for me with MF but I’ll get there. Can’t wait to get out and use this in good light!





[url=https://flic.kr/p/23xFFGy]
	


[url=https://flic.kr/p/23AuvAz]
	


[url=https://flic.kr/p/23xFN2s]
	
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## Derrel (Jan 18, 2018)

Has an interesting bokeh ball signature! Some people don't like the bright ring bokeh balls, others like them a lot, and still others don't care one way or another. How big is the lens, physically?


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## Peeb (Jan 18, 2018)

Especially like #4.


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## katsrevenge (Jan 18, 2018)

Lovely. 

I find it irksome that as soon as I find out about these 'cheap' fun lenses...the prices skyrocket. Ah well.


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## SquarePeg (Jan 18, 2018)

Derrel said:


> Has an interesting bokeh ball signature! Some people don't like the bright ring bokeh balls, others like them a lot, and still others don't care one way or another. How big is the lens, physically?



I was specifically looking for the ring bokeh.  The lens is smaller and lighter than a can of soda.  Bigger than the Fuji 35/2 and smaller/lighter than the Fuji 18-55.  I’ll post a pic of it tomorrow side by side. 

The test pics above were all with the background lights the same size and an equal distance away so very uniform looking.  Hopefully in a more natural environment it will be more diverse like with dappled sunlight or a streetscape.

Finally ordered some extension tubes for the X mount and they should work with this too.


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## SquarePeg (Jan 18, 2018)

Peeb said:


> Especially like #4.



Thanks!



katsrevenge said:


> Lovely.
> 
> I find it irksome that as soon as I find out about these 'cheap' fun lenses...the prices skyrocket. Ah well.



Iknow what you mean.  As soon as I bought this one I took a class on Creatuve Live that was all about Lensbaby and was kicking myself over not waiting!


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## Derrel (Jan 18, 2018)

Extension tubes are pretty much a must-have, in my book. Keep in mind that they can actually move the focus point to _inside the lens_ itself when the focal length is short, so the tubes might not work on the short end of many zooms, but will work on the longer focal lengths. You'll most likely find that tubes in the 12mm to 20mm lengths are the most useful,most of the time.


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## Gary A. (Jan 18, 2018)

Fun stuff!


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## SquarePeg (Jan 19, 2018)

Photos of the lens compared to Fuji 18-55 kit. Similar in size but much lighter. 

It’s a bit taller than the kit when compacted.  


 

A bit shorter at full zoom. The MF on the custom lens moves the barrel so it expands but it is not a zoom. 





Size reference. 





X mount. It’s a nice fit. No sticking. Very smooth. I was worried about that as I’ve read that cheap adapters can be tight and could damage the camera.  There’s an 18 blade aperture  in there but it doesn’t function as an aperture adjust. You can use to vignette or you can sort of swirl the bokeh a bit. Haven’t really tried that yet.  





Front of lens.  No threads for a lens hood.  Any suggestions?


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## jcdeboever (Jan 19, 2018)

Nice rendering. IMO, a lens doesn't have to be sharp. I wish Fujifilm would copy some of those art type lens from back in the day. I really like my Tiar 11A 135mm, m42 converted, it has a very nice look to it, similar to what your getting but not lit up edges of the balls. I just picked up a Petri 55mm for $5.00, what a strange bird, not sure about it yet to post anything. As far as the extension tubes, the MCEX-11 doesn't work well on my Tiar 11A, not sure why, probably would be ok on a tripod with a macro rail and a lot of patience.  The MCEX-11 works pretty nice on that 18-55 for what its worth. Works crazy good on a NIkon AIS 50mm 1.8 with adapter too.


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## Gary A. (Jan 19, 2018)

I have a LensBaby.  I need to use it.


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## pjaye (Jan 19, 2018)

That bokeh...


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## katsrevenge (Jan 19, 2018)

SquarePeg said:


> Peeb said:
> 
> 
> > Especially like #4.
> ...



After I saw your post I searched "Trioplan" and some of its relatives. (That effect is very neat!! ) Some used to be cheap, and by that I mean 10-25 bucks!! That seems to be the case a lot.. I mean..the helios lenses...or the more interesting (and adaptable) lenses for other things... Ah well, always late to the party, that's me! LOL 

I have a lot of the lensbaby stuff...but I was very patient on the fleabay. I don't know what system you use (and I hope it's ok to mention!) but I do have a composer and double glass optic for sale on this forum. I got it as part of a lot, have no use for it. There is also a single glass optic and case, but didn't have it on hand when I took those photos so it's unlisted till my ad falls off the first page, LOL.


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## SquarePeg (Jan 19, 2018)

Gary A. said:


> I have a LensBaby.  I need to use it.



 I think you need to do Lensbaby across America.


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## SquarePeg (Jan 19, 2018)

katsrevenge said:


> SquarePeg said:
> 
> 
> > Peeb said:
> ...



I use Fuji X.   Advised on another forum that I should buy the lens baby with Canon or Nikon mount, for me it would be Nikon, and then use an adapter and a lens turbo?  To create a bigger field of view I guess and better use the effects of the lens?  Still researching all that.  Also resell value might be better for Nikon?  I’ll take a look at your post,thanks for the heads up but after my last gas attack I probably have to wait a while lol.    

 The short version of my trip down the eBay rabbit hole...  a few of the people I follow on Flickr had some beautiful photos made with the real Trioplan - which is way out of my price range. I went on eBay to search and ended up on a bunch of sites reading about adapted lenses and DIY conversions and then started looking at sample photos of the Russian lenses.  In the end I bought a Helios 44-4 and a Meyer Gorlitz Domiplan 50 mm from Ukraine.  A little risky but they were both pretty cheap so I figured I’d chance it.  Those will need adapters and may or may not work and the 3 week delivery window was too much time for me to wait patiently.  The next day I was checking on eBay again (I was obsessed lol), and suddenly there was that custom made Fuji mount with the Pentacon 2.8 AV that I had read was the “poor man’s Trioplan” lens.  Because it was custom-made with a Fuji mount already, I wouldn’t have to do any of the adapter and DIY stuff that I had read about.  It was a total impulse buy knowing I’d regret it if I passed it up.  I’m happy with it so far.


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## katsrevenge (Jan 19, 2018)

SquarePeg said:


> katsrevenge said:
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> > SquarePeg said:
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I think the one I have up is Sony, it's not a system I use, I use Nikon. I just got it as it was priced right for the rest of the lot (that I wanted.) Even if it sits forever on a shelf I still saved money buying like that. 

I'm not sure about the lens turbo, interesting idea. I figured that one day I'd just go full frame. But not today. Have you used one before? Are they worth it?

I haven't tried to adapt anything to a Nikon, I've read they are finicky about infinity focus. Instead I have a wee m4/3rds that I stick weird stuff on, LOL. My helios came with an adapter, thank god. I like that thing enough that I kind of want to buy an infinity fixed version helios for Nikon. Who knew all-manual lenses would be that much fun??!

Yeah, your post has made me add Yet Another Lens to the list of crap I will buy One Day.  Even if I have to deal with Russians.


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## gk fotografie (Jan 21, 2018)

SquarePeg said:


> Pretty happy with this new lens.  Its a custom made lens made with a Pentacon 80mm 2.8 AV lens from Russia and a Fuji X mount. I found it on eBay (long story for another day) from a seller in CO. It’s got that “Trioplan” like bubble bokeh which I wanted for flower and night shots.  Couldn’t justify paying for a real Trioplan - $1600!!!   Picked this one up for just over $200.  I didn’t buy it for its sharpness but even that is better than I expected. It was dark out when they delivered it today so had to make do with my kitchen lights, some twinkle lights for background and some flowers.  No post on these.  A bit of a learning curve for me with MF but I’ll get there. Can’t wait to get out and use this in good light!



In the first place, this lens is made in East-Germany (GDR=DDR) and not Russia.
Secondly, this lens is not a camera lens, but a lens for a slide projector.
These Pentacon AV 80mm lenses are (as a projector lens) for sale in Germany for less than €20
The lens has a so-called "schneckengang" as it's called in German, so you can extend it to get sharp images at different distances - originally intended when the lens was mounted in a slide projector to get sharp images on a screen or wall.  The mechanism has more or less the same purpose as a helicoid, which is normally the method to (manually) focus camera lenses.

The only type of lenshood you will be able to use, I guess, is the push-on, Leica used to work frequently with these type of lenshoods, but they are still quite expensive on ebay and I doubt that you'll find one with the correct diameter.
Creating  your own lenshood with a plastic lens cap + plastic lens hood or for example Cokin filter holder (it does not have to be difficult) seems the only option.
Many years ago I created a plastic tube + Cokin filterholder for my Canon G9 because the camera doesn't have a filterthread, but I wanted to use a lenshood, filters etc.
FWIW, I think you've paid a little too much for this custom lens (although it looks neat), but I'm not really a fan of 'bokeh' so that will explain my doubts.  Hope you have a lot of fun with this special lens!


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## SquarePeg (Jan 21, 2018)

gk fotografie said:


> SquarePeg said:
> 
> 
> > Pretty happy with this new lens.  Its a custom made lens made with a Pentacon 80mm 2.8 AV lens from Russia and a Fuji X mount. I found it on eBay (long story for another day) from a seller in CO. It’s got that “Trioplan” like bubble bokeh which I wanted for flower and night shots.  Couldn’t justify paying for a real Trioplan - $1600!!!   Picked this one up for just over $200.  I didn’t buy it for its sharpness but even that is better than I expected. It was dark out when they delivered it today so had to make do with my kitchen lights, some twinkle lights for background and some flowers.  No post on these.  A bit of a learning curve for me with MF but I’ll get there. Can’t wait to get out and use this in good light!
> ...



Thanks for the clarification on the origin of the Pentacon.  Yes, I’m sure you’re right that I could have bought the lens and mount separately from eBay and taken a chance on condition and then tried to figure out how to convert it to Fuji and rig some type of MF system but I would never have done any of that.  Considering the Trioplan for Fuji is selling for $1600. I’m ok with what I paid to get a similar effect.  Your not being a fan of bokeh would definitely make this not for you.

I’m not DIY inclined so not sure what to do for a lens hood but will look into your suggestion.


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## SquarePeg (Jan 21, 2018)

Weather was nice today so took the dog to the park.  Not much to shoot there this time of year but wanted to see how the new lens handled bright light.  There’s quite a learning curve to use this but I think once I get the hang of it it will be fun and is exactly what I wanted as far as backgrounds and soft focus.  Here are a few examples from today.  Can’t wait to get out in the botanical gardens with this thing!









This is the vignette effect when you close the blades:


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## JustJazzie (Jan 21, 2018)

I absolutely love the look you are getting here! Very surreal. It grabs my attention in a positive way! Cant wait to see more from this lens!


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## SquarePeg (Jan 21, 2018)

JustJazzie said:


> I absolutely love the look you are getting here! Very surreal. It grabs my attention in a positive way! Cant wait to see more from this lens!



Thanks.  I messed around with a few of them adding some color since it’s all brown and gray here.  I like the way they came out.  I know this style is not for everyone but I love Impressionist photography and a soft look.


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## Derrel (Jan 22, 2018)

It's very impressionistic and very soft. It has a neat way of rendering things. A lens does _NOT_ have to be bitingly sharp to make good pictures,and in fact on many types of pictures, a lens with a less-sharp, more-dreamy type of rendering can be exactly the magical ingredient. With the huge malleabililty of raw-format digital images, a tremendous amount of manipulation can be thrown at the files created by any lens.


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## SquarePeg (Jan 22, 2018)

Derrel said:


> It's very impressionistic and very soft. It has a neat way of rendering things. A lens does _NOT_ have to be bitingly sharp to make good pictures,and in fact on many types of pictures, a lens with a less-sharp, more-dreamy type of rendering can be exactly the magical ingredient. With the huge malleabililty of raw-format digital images, a tremendous amount of manipulation can be thrown at the files created by any lens.



I’m a member of an Impressionist Photography group on Facebook and I’m continually amazed at how creative people can be with software.  Beautiful works of art. Created in PS or Topaz labs from an ordinary photo.


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