17 - Tokina 135mm f2.8 from 1970
€6 from a thrift shop!!
With my canon apsc (x1.6) this 135mm f2.8 turns into a 216mm f4.5 - keeping a f2.8 light transmission.
The shots below are WITHOUT an FD to EF-M (EOS M) adapter; I’m just holding the lens in front of the sensor, but it allows for these super creamy shots, which I’m really enjoying.
Though, I’m hoping this will be functionally completely reduced once my adapter arrives, as I’m planning to use this lens for astrophotography. Until now, I’ve only had a 30mm (48mm on apsc) and I want to shoot further objects!
2026 05 01
FD to EF-M adapter
The adapter arrived! Some first shots below.
Lots of character, unimpressive resolution (great for a 50-year old lens though), lower intensity highlights give gorgeous bouquet (left image), but higher intensity points of light (like the green leaves in the background in the center image) give a very busy background blur.
First astrofoto test
Still experimenting. These are just 20 shot stacks, no calibration files.
2026 05 02
Some challenging shots with harsh sunlight.
LOTS of chromatic aberrations, particularly in a magenta hue, sharpness is ok in the center.
Backgrounds are really nice when there’s not too much highlighting, where chromatic aberration makes a nasty appearance, like the out of focus highlights on foliage behind the duck.
Canon’s editor is quite dated so I attempted to compare two outputs. Left is Canon’s DPP4 and right is darktable. It’s impossible to copy settings so they’re exactly the same, but focus on how much chromatic aberrations are reduced in the darktable version.
2026 05 03
The weather has been crap for Astro, so I went out for some cool shots:
2026 05 22
Finally an astro shot.
There’s PLENTY of comatic aberrations, but otherwise a really great image for a €8 lens. Here I only got a 2:30min exposure (214 shots, no calibration frames), so am looking forward to extended exposures. Here’s the image on Astrometry.net.
More soon…
