How do you effectively deal with hotlinking? A helpful person let me know that images from a previous post involving the use of an 8mm Peleng fisheye on the Panasonic GF1 were being used by seller “opticparadise” to sell that same lens on eBay:
The images on the listing link directly to the images on my site.
I don’t mind sharing and use of my images as long as I’m credited – that’s why I’ve placed all of my images under a creative commons license.
The images aren’t taking up a huge amount of bandwidth and I don’t really care to send a cease and desist (or delist?) type letter, but I figure I’ll contact the seller and let them know they should be crediting me for the images.
I’ve been trying to think of other options though and am curious about what can be done. The first google hit for “how to deal with hotlinking” wasn’t very helpful.
I suppose you can watermark – but I think that distracts from the photos.
I could just suck it up and accept it – if it’s easy to copy and “steal” then people will
I could implement a redirect, but this would mess up legitimate sharing (with attribution) and I don’t really like it when other people do that.
After purchasing my Panasonic GF1, I thought it’d be fun to exploit the small form-factor and smaller sensor and try some of the c-mount lenses that are out there on the micro 4/3rds camera. I purchased an adapter off of ebay that had both c-mount and M42 threads. I tried it with a TV lens that I bought off of ebay, and then an 8mm lens that I already had for my canon.
computar 8mm f/1.6:
I tried the 8mm computar first:
computar 8mm f/1.6 fixed aperture tv lens
It’s a fixed-aperture lens that only cost about $5 or $10 from ebay. I didn’t have high hopes – just wanted something to play with.
Here’s a sample image taken with that lens:
sample image taken with panasonic gf1 and computar 8mm f/1.6 tv lens
The image circle isn’t very large, and it’s not very sharp. oh well. The lens could still be useful for video – the GF1 gives a 2x or 4x digital zoom option, and with 2x digital zoom there’s no vignette. the 2x digital zoom results in an 32mm 35mm-equivalent focal length though, which isn’t much wider than the standard 20mm f/1.7 kit lens.
peleng 8mm f/3.5 fisheye:
peleng 8mm f/3.5 fisheye mounted on a panasonic gf1, side viewpeleng 8mm f/3.5 fisheye, isometric view
The Peleng is a little larger than the computar. I had to buy some cheapo M42 extension tubes to get the flange/sensor distance within a correct range. I used the wikipedia table to guesstimate how much more distance I needed, and the 9mm + 16mm extension tubes did the trick just fine.
It’s a bulky lens, and turning the aperture and focusing rings isn’t so easy on such a small-bodied camera. You have to grip the body really tightly in order to turn the damped focusing ring and the detented aperture ring. Luckily, at 8mm and f/3.5, everything’s basically in focus.
Photos with the fisheye are still fun in a fisheye sort of way:
primo's parilla on the panasonic gf1 with the peleng 8mm f/3.5
and it’s still plenty-wide. The grill belongs to the Primo’s Parilla truck in Emeryville.
I think I took this photo near f/3.5, but I don’t remember. Sharpness is pretty much the same across the entire image, since the sensor is already only capturing part of the image circle. I’ll post 100% crops anyways:
primo's parilla panasonic gf1/peleng 8mm f/3.5 - center crop
There’s some standard sharpening and so on in lightroom.
and I’ll throw in a shot with the peleng on a 5D Mark I for crop-factor comparison:
peleng 8mm f/3.5 on a 5D mkI
conclusion:
The 8mm computar lens isn’t very useful at all, but it was fun to play with. The peleng on the GF1 is a pretty interesting combination with fisheye distortion, a wide field of view and sort of cumbersome handling. The image quality looks fine to me.
