Tilt and Shift lens review of Hartblei 35 SR

[Mike K]

I just posted a lengthy review with a description and pics of this interesting tilt/shift lens, the Hartblei 35 f2.8 Super Rotator:

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/367685

One of the most interesting features of this lens is its flexibility, the tilt and shift axes can be fully rotated with respect to the camera and each other.

Also I show performance comparisons Vs Canon T/S & Canon Zooms.
There are also current threads in that forum on the Arax T/S, which isn't quite a flexible but is cheaper.
Please leave a comment here once in awhile to keep the post alive for a few days. The review is so long that I didn't want to post the entire thing on this forum as well.

Mike K

[schmoelzel]

That is an excellent review of this lens! Thanks Mike.......I had this lens last year and was hoping to use it for product shots but just never got around to using it properly.

[mbze430]

yeah I was thinking of getting one for my Contax 645 setup.

[MDJAK]

That was one of the most professional reviews I've read. Excellent work.

Just one comment. I read on www.luminous-landscape.com that Canon can couple the tilt and shift mechanisms also so they work together. Are you aware of that? It's supposedly just a small modification needed.

mark

[Mike K]

Originally Posted by MDJAK

That was one of the most professional reviews I've read. Excellent work.

Just one comment. I read on www.luminous-landscape.com that Canon can couple the tilt and shift mechanisms also so they work together. Are you aware of that? It's supposedly just a small modification needed.
mark

The Canon TSE comes with the tilt and shift axes perpendicular to each other. For example you can tilt downward too keep the foreground/background in focus and also shift laterally to stitch together a wider view. But what if you wanted to also shift upwards to keep a building from leaning backwards while tilting down for foreground? You take out the 4 screws and rotate the tilt mechanism 90 degrees. (the only modification angle possible). Its not a modification I would want to do in the field. Here is the tutorial, its at the end of this article by Jack Flesher
http://www.outbackphoto.com/workflow/wf_42/essay.html
Mike K

[MDJAK]

Mike, thank you. That was a very informative article. I've been wanting one of these lenses for a long time but they are quite expensive. It also seems as though the angle c finder and focus screen that you speak about are necessary, thus upping the initial investment. I am quite impressed though with what can be accomplished with them.

mark

[Mike K]

Originally Posted by MDJAK

Mike, thank you. That was a very informative article. I've been wanting one of these lenses for a long time but they are quite expensive. It also seems as though the angle c finder and focus screen that you speak about are necessary, thus upping the initial investment. I am quite impressed though with what can be accomplished with them.

mark

Wide angle manual focus lenses in general are going to require some focusing aids. Go try it with whatever 24mm equivalent lens you have.
On top of that Tilt and shift lenses are even more difficult, as its is hard to make fine tilt and shift adjustments looking through the viewfinder. Of course this type of fiddling is one of the main reasons folks use large format because they can jigger the lens plane and film plane all over the place, but they have a 4x5 piece of ground glass and a loupe to figure out what is going on. Even then its a very slow process. If you are interested in T/S lenses here is a website with quite a few links
http://hame.ca/tiltshift.htm
Mike K

[rdenney]

Originally Posted by Mike K

I just posted a lengthy review with a description and pics of this interesting tilt/shift lens, the Hartblei 35 f2.8 Super Rotator:

Nice writeup. The Hartblei super-rotator mount is the same as what they make for the 45mm and 65mm medium-format lenses.

The optical elements are selected from those made for the Mir-20 35mm/2.8 Arsat lens, made by Zavod Arsenal in the Ukraine. Arax uses the same optical elements. Arsat markets a shift-only lens with the same glass. You wondered on the FM forum if they were the same and I'm answering here since I'm not an FM registrant. Hartblei usually recoats the glass with fancier coatings, and they claim to match the optical elements. That may be so, though my Hartblei 45mm PCS lens is really no better than my 45mm Mir-26 that uses the same basic glass. The coatings are better, but the lenses perform similarly.

Rick "who thinks most of the Arsenal lenses become excellent by f/8" Denney

[Mike K]

Originally Posted by rdenney

Nice writeup. The Hartblei super-rotator mount is the same as what they make for the 45mm and 65mm medium-format lenses.

The optical elements are selected from those made for the Mir-20 35mm/2.8 Arsat lens, made by Zavod Arsenal in the Ukraine. Arax uses the same optical elements. Arsat markets a shift-only lens with the same glass. You wondered on the FM forum if they were the same and I'm answering here since I'm not an FM registrant. Hartblei usually recoats the glass with fancier coatings, and they claim to match the optical elements. That may be so, though my Hartblei 45mm PCS lens is really no better than my 45mm Mir-26 that uses the same basic glass. The coatings are better, but the lenses perform similarly.

Rick "who thinks most of the Arsenal lenses become excellent by f/8" Denney

Rick, in this case perhaps the lenses become excellent by f/16!

The Super Rotator mechansim on this 35mm f2.8 is mechanically different than that of th MF Hartblei in the Hartblei manual and also the MF Super Rotator reviewed by M. Reichmann
http://www.kievcamera.com/Hartblei_en.pdf
http://luminous-landscape.com/review...rtblei45.shtml
I presume the glass is different in these MF units? The Tilt mechanism in these lenses is totally different, but the rotation of the tilt & shift mechanism and the shift mechanism could be identical. Thanks very much for the background information on the Arax/Arsat. The coating differential is good to know as many are curious about these lenses. I'll pass that along.
Mike K

[rdenney]

Originally Posted by Mike K

I presume the glass is different in these MF units? The Tilt mechanism in these lenses is totally different, but the rotation of the tilt & shift mechanism and the shift mechanism could be identical.

The Super Rotator concept may be executed with some differences in the smaller lens, but it's still the same idea. Note that Hartblei produces lenses that have tilt and shift without the ability to rotate each to different axes, and also just plain shift lenses.

The Hartblei 45mm tilt/shift lens uses the same optical elements as the Arsat 45mm/3.5 (formerly the Mir-26), and the 65 uses the same elements as the Mir 38. Neither were designed for movements, and neither really have the coverage to provide movements without some compromises.

Here's my article on the 45mm Hartblei PCS lens:

http://www.rickdenney.com/hartblei.htm

The Arsat 55mm/4.5 shift lens, on the other hand, was designed for movements and is reportedly quite excellent even at 12mm of shift. I don't have one. That lens is not available with a tilting mount.

Of course, all of these, when adapted to small format, will have an abundance of coverage. The 80mm tilt-shift lens is just a standard Arsat 80mm normal lens with Hartblei coatings mounted in a Hartblei barrel.

Just so you know, the name Hartblei is not exactly precise. Hartblei is reportedly owned by Sergey Naumenko whose operate is in Kiev, but you'll find that the Hartblei web page is operated (with or without cooperation from Naumenko, depending on who you ask) by Alexander Pissarenko who resides in Prague. I have speculated, in the absence of any facts, that the technicians who do work for Hartblei are former (or possibly even current) Zavod Arsenal technicians who do piece work for Hartblei, Arax, and others. Pissarenko at one time operated Kalimex SRO in Prague, and ran into, shall we say, perceived customer service issues. The establishment of the Hartblei name was partly to distance the operation from the difficulties caused by the Kalimex association.

Mikhail Fourman, who operates Kiev Camera, has always wanted Hartblei to concentrate on lenses, including lenses with mounts for mainstream medium-format cameras, as being a better use of their resources than some of the camera upgrades they have been doing. But Hartblei upgrades Arsenal's Kiev 88CM for Kiev Camera, just as Arax upgrades cameras for their own sale. Araxfoto is owned by Gevorg Vartanyan in Kiev.

By the way, Reichmann's Luminous Landscape lost a lot of its former high credibility with me over his test of Arsat-based lenses. Some of the tests (I recall it being of the outstanding Arsat 30mm fisheye) showed obvious focusing errors, yet Reichmann insisted those did not change the results when challenged by members of the Kiev Report, many of whom have done their own testing even more rigorously than did Reichmann. I find it more difficult to trust any of his results since that time.

Rick "recommending the Kiev Report forum for those interested in ex-Soviet cameras and optics" Denney

[Mike K]

Originally Posted by rdenney

The optical elements are selected from those made for the Mir-20 35mm/2.8 Arsat lens, made by Zavod Arsenal in the Ukraine. Arax uses the same optical elements. Arsat markets a shift-only lens with the same glass. You wondered on the FM forum if they were the same and I'm answering here since I'm not an FM registrant. Hartblei usually recoats the glass with fancier coatings, and they claim to match the optical elements. That may be so, though my Hartblei 45mm PCS lens is really no better than my 45mm Mir-26 that uses the same basic glass. The coatings are better, but the lenses perform similarly.

Rick,
thanks for the detailed background on these Russian lenses. According to your tests they are capable of excellent performance in the center but drop off more rapidly towards the edges?
So to be precise, the Hartblei 35 SR may be the same optical elements as the Arax, but you are not sure? They likely come form the same factory and at least are coated differently?
Thanks, Mike K

[Mike K]

Originally Posted by Mike K

I just posted a lengthy review with a description and pics of this interesting tilt/shift lens, the Hartblei 35 f2.8 Super Rotator:

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/367685

One of the most interesting features of this lens is its flexibility, the tilt and shift axes can be fully rotated with respect to the camera and each other.

Also I show performance comparisons Vs Canon T/S & Canon Zooms.
There are also current threads in that forum on the Arax T/S, which isn't quite a flexible but is cheaper.
Please leave a comment here once in awhile to keep the post alive for a few days. The review is so long that I didn't want to post the entire thing on this forum as well.

Mike K

Based upon a couple of requests and my own interest I did one last test:
Canon 24L TS-E with 1.4X Canon TC (34mm total) Vs Hartblei 35 SR. The rain stopped this morning and this afternoon it started to clear up. Set up on the deck again, same scene focusing on the bare tree.
The Canon went first, f8 became f11 with the TC 1/640 sec ISO 200. I kind of randomly picked the 5mm right shifted shots to compare. The Hartblei was at f16 based upon my previous testing, 1/320 ISO 200 and also the 5mm right shifted image. 100% crops from the center of the image after shifting.
http://www.fototime.com/24345FD5A1BB390/orig.jpg
the sharpness is very close, sometimes I prefer the Canon/Canon, while sometimes the Hartblei seems to hold a slight edge. Whoa, but look at the color! The Hartblei is very red, the sky looks like sunset while the Canon is an icy blue. I think reality is a bit closer to the Canon, but not that blue. I just checked the Thumbs (these were shot in RAW and boosted during conversion) and they still have the reb/blue trend, but not anywhere near as strong. Thus much of the color difference is the 2/3 EV difference in exposure upon conversion. The Hartblei got a lot redder while the Canon got slightly bluer. However if you go back over all of the comparative shots the red/Hartblei tendency is always there. umm, interesting.
Mike K

[rdenney]

Originally Posted by Mike K

So to be precise, the Hartblei 35 SR may be the same optical elements as the Arax, but you are not sure? They likely come form the same factory and at least are coated differently?

I can't find any online description of the Hartblei, but I'm quite sure they come from the Arsat 35/2.8 shift lens. That lens was designed for shift movements. Arax explicitly remounts the lens on a Canon-style tilt-shift mechanism, but they also sell the original Arsenal version. Arax does not appear to recoat the lenses, but the Arsenal MC coatings are quite good.

Hartblei may or may not recoat the lenses. They definitely recoat the 45 and 65mm lenses for medium format, which are not based on shift lenses.

Both also offer the standard 80/2.8 Arsat normal lens for medium format in a tilt-shift mount for small format cameras.

Rick "noting that neither Arax nor Hartblei have lens grinding facilities" Denney