Steinheil München ILOCA 50mm f/1.9

Steinheil München ILOCA 50mm f/1.9

This lens was made during the 1950s in Germany for ILOCA who later became Agfa. Their claim to fame was the first electric motor-wind camera. It was sold in the US as the Graflex - Graphic 35 Electric. This Steinheil lens will work on micro 4/3 cameras as well as Sony's NEX range of still cameras and HD camcorders, like the NEX-VG10 and similar.

This is a fast 50mm lens that shoots very sharp digital photos. I installed the lens on my NEX-7 with a DKL to NEX lens adapter and stepped into my backyard.

First electric motor-drive camera

The pics you see below were shot with the aperture wide open to f/1.9. Raw from the camera into iPhoto then exported as JPG without enhancement or modification. I don't see much chromatic aberration, do you? I was blown away by the sharpness and absence of chromatic aberration.

http://mansurovs.com/what-is-chromatic-aberration

I also like the bokeh that this lens produces. Closest focusing distance is a little less than 3 feet. On APS-C sensor cameras using a multiplier of 1.5x this Steinheil - München is equivalent to a 75mm lens.This fast f/1.9 lens should work well as a video or photographic lens, as long as you don't mind focusing manually - BTW, you won't see any auto focus lenses on this blog...

Someone is selling one like it for over $500 (370577606970)

Click on the photos to see them larger.

Even better, click on the link below to see the last photo in it's original size and zoom into the top portion of the hanging cushion - now that looks sharp to me:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/6222552/steinheil/steinheil50mm3.jpg

OK, one better. The third photo has something I didn't even know was there when I looked through the viewfinder - zoom into the upper-right area and you'll notice a bunch of spider webs that are in focus - amazing!

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/6222552/steinheil/steinheil50mm1.jpg