Retro lenses and Micro Four Thirds

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plymman

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I'm almost certainly going to pull the trigger on a lumix G2 to replace my bulky SLR kit. I know a lot of people are using old school primes, but I have no idea what fiits. Are any old lenses able to fit without adapters? If not what should I be looking out for?
 
Most common lenses are M42 which is the thread size on the lens. The adapter is freely available from ebay for £13 upwards. Theres also Nikkor/Nikon, Olympus OM, Konica, Leica M39 etc

Basically just find a lens you fancy and check ebay for the adapter. there is a separate section on ebay for adapters and the availability is growing.

Heres my GF1 with Konica adapter fitted:



Olympus OK adapter and lens on GF1:



M42 adapter with Super Takumar lens:



Canon FD lens and adapter:



C Mount lens adapter with CCTV lens:

 
That's some kit you have! Could you recommend a small and cheap external flash too?
 
Nope!!! :lol:

Never use it so can't recommend anything I'm afraid. Maybe someone else can...........
 
Do you shoot indoors/low light at all? I'd read that the G series aren't great in low light and that the flash is weak so I assumed most people would have an external flash. How do you avoid using flash with a camera like this?
 
If I need to shoot in low light indoors then I either put the camera on a solid surface or tripod and use a longer shutter speed. I use Aperture priority 95% of the time and keep the ISO no higher than 400. It helps using lenses with large apertures like f1.8 or f1.4.
 
I generally prefer to use fast lenses/high ISO instead of flash, but I bought a Metz 36 flash off here for £40 which works fairly well - especially with the off camera cord I got for it.

Konica Hexanon lenses are possibly my favourite MF lenses, though the Canon FD 50mm 1.4 is really nice too. Not tried any Olympus lenses yet though.
 
This is same question i was going to pose, Want a decent but not too expensive fast lens, now it depends on what a retor lens setup might cost comapred to say getting the 20mm.

Is there a good place to pick up retro lens or do you jsut have to keep searching the usual places
 
I think it's a case of 2nd hand shops and auction sites but prices seem to be rising rapidly now m4t is becoming widely popular. I still think I might have to spring for the 20mm, it sems universally loved. I just hope it's somewhere near my nikon 35mm 1.8's level of sharpness.
 
Nadeem said:
Is there a good place to pick up retro lens or do you jsut have to keep searching the usual places
Click to expand...

Ebay, Charity shops and car boot sales seem to be your best bet.

Prices for OM lenses have certainly been going up a bit lately it took me alot longer to get the OM primes I wanted for my OM10 at a sensible price than I was expecting. They seem to be really popular at the minute as they are not only well made and optically very good but also very compact in size so complement the m4t system.
 
I had a lovely 40mm Voigtlander for my GF1. Manual focus of course. I also tried a Leica 50mm which was also superb.

However, I reverted back to the 20mm which is just so good, and the 14-45 which is also very impressive. I'm keen on Panasonic bringing out a few more quality primes.
 
If you were going to stick to one or two brands which are not too expensive which would they be don't want to end up having 50 adpators :)

Andy you seem to have one of each any prefrences.
 
Nadeem said:
If you were going to stick to one or two brands which are not too expensive which would they be don't want to end up having 50 adpators :)

Andy you seem to have one of each any prefrences.
Click to expand...

Erm..........I must admit I love the Takumar lenses just a bit more than the Olympus OM. If you can get the S-M-C versions of the Takumar lenses then that would be very cool as they are the best for image quality. Old lenses give a 'feel' to images so it is down to personal taste. My Olympus and Takumar lenses are very sharp and I love them to bits. I do think you would get more choice from M42 fitting as you can add a whole load of other manufacturers to the mix. But Olympus are certainly up there with the better ones and they are still very good value for money.
 
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