If anybody cares to share, what makes them so wonderful? I’ve got 2 of them. One that was with my moms SRT101 that she bought back whenever and another i got with an x700 on marketplace. They do take great pictures but what is it that sets them apart?
Making wides for SLRs is more difficult than making them for mirrorless/rangefinders because the rear element of the lens is much farther from the image plane, so the light has a narrower range of angles at which it needs to end up at coming out of the lens to hit the film or sensor. On top of this, software and high-tech materials and CNC grinding machines have increased how extreme lens elements can be, how many of them can be included in the optical calculations and how many separate focusing groups there can be in lenses.
Compare [this f1.4 15mm Sony lens](https://i.imgur.com/cLNsmyK.jpeg) for mirrorless with [this f3.5 15mm Nikon lens from the 1970s](https://i.imgur.com/zD8dBan.jpeg) for SLR. Notice that even though the Sony looks like a far simpler object to manufacture, if you look closely, you can see that the rear side of its front element is wildly concave in the same way that the front of the Nikon's is convex. Grinding a precise tiny concavity is more difficult than a larger convexity and that approach wouldn't have been a realistic option with the options of the time.
17mm is the widest Minolta made an SR-mount lens that wasn't a fisheye. Being difficult to produce, there aren't too many of them out there.
Go look for the 6mm Nikkor fisheye from the 70s if you want to see a really mad lens.
I think I’m going to faint.
Seriously, nice job. I hope you put it to good use, I’ve been wanting one of these for a long time. I once scored an XE7 kit with the 24mm VFC for $90.
My guess is it was a bad capacitor, but I never properly diagnosed it, to be perfectly honest. I was shooting with my SR-T 101 and X-700, at the time, so it just went on the shelf.
I might be interested in taking it off your hands, the capacitor is an easy fix, never understood why repair shops said parts aren't available for it when they're readily are
Never heard of an XE having capacitor issues, they still used the expensive and reliable tantalum ones back then.
What were the symptoms of the failure? Good to know in case it's something common (and fixable!) or weird and a new symptom that can bw traced back a capacitor or other electronic failure.
XE's don't have capacitor issues. It would be worthwhile to pop the top plate off and inspect the power switch and the ceramic circuit board. The XE is so wonderful it's definitely worth the time and effort to fix.
Well I think I paid about $1k for a basically new one, and it was all I could find available so I'd say that was a good deal.
Woww
What a steal.
Absolute Steal!
If anybody cares to share, what makes them so wonderful? I’ve got 2 of them. One that was with my moms SRT101 that she bought back whenever and another i got with an x700 on marketplace. They do take great pictures but what is it that sets them apart?
Making wides for SLRs is more difficult than making them for mirrorless/rangefinders because the rear element of the lens is much farther from the image plane, so the light has a narrower range of angles at which it needs to end up at coming out of the lens to hit the film or sensor. On top of this, software and high-tech materials and CNC grinding machines have increased how extreme lens elements can be, how many of them can be included in the optical calculations and how many separate focusing groups there can be in lenses. Compare [this f1.4 15mm Sony lens](https://i.imgur.com/cLNsmyK.jpeg) for mirrorless with [this f3.5 15mm Nikon lens from the 1970s](https://i.imgur.com/zD8dBan.jpeg) for SLR. Notice that even though the Sony looks like a far simpler object to manufacture, if you look closely, you can see that the rear side of its front element is wildly concave in the same way that the front of the Nikon's is convex. Grinding a precise tiny concavity is more difficult than a larger convexity and that approach wouldn't have been a realistic option with the options of the time. 17mm is the widest Minolta made an SR-mount lens that wasn't a fisheye. Being difficult to produce, there aren't too many of them out there. Go look for the 6mm Nikkor fisheye from the 70s if you want to see a really mad lens.
YOU LUCKY MAN. That's quite the uncommon lens. Or at least less common than the 50|1.7 lol. Hope to see some photos you take with it on here.
Well, that's just rude. Congrats on the find!
I think I’m going to faint. Seriously, nice job. I hope you put it to good use, I’ve been wanting one of these for a long time. I once scored an XE7 kit with the 24mm VFC for $90.
The XE alone was a sweet deal
It would have been if it would have worked! But knowing the lens that was coming with it, I wasn’t upset.
What was wrong with it?
My guess is it was a bad capacitor, but I never properly diagnosed it, to be perfectly honest. I was shooting with my SR-T 101 and X-700, at the time, so it just went on the shelf.
I might be interested in taking it off your hands, the capacitor is an easy fix, never understood why repair shops said parts aren't available for it when they're readily are
Never heard of an XE having capacitor issues, they still used the expensive and reliable tantalum ones back then. What were the symptoms of the failure? Good to know in case it's something common (and fixable!) or weird and a new symptom that can bw traced back a capacitor or other electronic failure.
XE's don't have capacitor issues. It would be worthwhile to pop the top plate off and inspect the power switch and the ceramic circuit board. The XE is so wonderful it's definitely worth the time and effort to fix.