The Vintage + Classic Adapted Glass Thread

Thanks man, I see you bought a Nikon 200 F4 AI in classified, how's that going?

Got to try it in anger yet Keith but very pleased with it; just like all the Ai-S glass the construction of it is exemplary and my test resolution shots look good :)

Got a nice range of Ai-S primes now for the 35mm film & FF Digital; 24mm 2.8, 50mm f1.8, 105mm f2.5 & the 200mm f4. Happy bunny - no autofocus left in my stable; just don't need the AF for what I do/like - Street :)

For the MF 6 x 6 film I've got (love) the 80mm f2.8 Planar and want the 150mm f4 Sonar.
 
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They also have a 35mm f2.5 color skopar. I had one years ago, the MC version, and I sooooo regret selling it and I've wanted to replace it ever since but really I don't need one as I have the e mount 35mm f1.4, a Minolta f1.8 and FD, Rokkor and Zuiko f2.8's. I still want a color skopar though.

What is the 35/1.4 like in E mount? All Exif I presume & what are the corners like? Smeary?

I'm still going for the E mount CV40/1.2 I think.....

Just checked out LCE, to see what they have - they're not cheap are they?

Not cheap as such no. I've bought a few things though & good service & well described.
 
What is the 35/1.4 like in E mount? All Exif I presume & what are the corners like? Smeary?

I'm still going for the E mount CV40/1.2 I think.....

The very corners are never sharp, always smeared. At f8/11 if you pixel peep the corners at 100-200% you see the weakness in the corner pixels, something like 200 pixels in the corners whereas the 35mm f2.8 is perfect. In a whole picture though maybe you'll never see it. Other than that the only thing to worry about is the bokeh at the widest apertures. I'd say that at f1.4 it can be a bit wild with a busy background but maybe what I'd expect from a classic/vintage wide aperture 35mm and it settles down by f2. I really like the lens :D

Yes you get electronic communication with exif and if you set the camera up to it'll give you the magnified view when you turn the focus ring.

There's a nice review here...

https://admiringlight.com/blog/review-voigtlander-35mm-f1-4-nokton-classic-e-mount/
 
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The very corners are never sharp, always smeared. At f8/11 if you pixel peep the corners at 100-200% you see the weakness in the corner pixels, something like 200 pixels in the corners whereas the 35mm f2.8 is perfect. In a whole picture though maybe you'll never see it. Other than that the only thing to worry about is the bokeh at the widest apertures. I'd say that at f1.4 it can be a bit wild with a busy background but maybe what I'd expect from a classic/vintage wide aperture 35mm and it settles down by f2. I really like the lens :D

Yes you get electronic communication with exif and if you set the camera up to it'll give you the magnified view when you turn the focus ring.

There's a nice review here...

https://admiringlight.com/blog/review-voigtlander-35mm-f1-4-nokton-classic-e-mount/

Thank you :) It's the smearing that bugs me at times on the M mount 40/1.4 - Sounds like that 35mm is similar too in that regard.
 
I posted a general thread about this but given the legacy glass experts are active here I thought I would report:

I've acquired a nice collection of old Olympus Zuiko OM manual focus lenses (the same ones I used back in the early 1980s when I first started taking photos). I'm using them on a Sony a7. Now most are fine but the 24mm f2.8 has some noticeable distortion and strong vignetting. I am used to getting Lr to add profile corrections for Samyang lenses on my Fuji bodies via the menus but there aren't any for my old Olympus lenses. Does anybody know if there are downloadable profiles available, or if there is somebody more expert than me that can share their settings for my lens/body combo?
 
I have a Zuiko 24mm f2.8 but I haven't noticed anything too bad with it. I'll take another look. I use it with a Novoflex adapter.
 
Guys have any of you had experience with any decent old MF 300mm F4 glass? Been doing a little research into this FL and it seems really hard to find a good one for less than £200 - which is fair enough if it's a good one! And by that I mean sharp wide open, not riddled with CA
 
Thank you :) It's the smearing that bugs me at times on the M mount 40/1.4 - Sounds like that 35mm is similar too in that regard.

TBH in a whole picture you'll never see the corner smearing. It's not a lens for landscape people who want corner to corner sharpness at 100% though. The 40mm f1.2 is IMO a much more modern looking lens and is sharp into the corners.
 
Guys have any of you had experience with any decent old MF 300mm F4 glass? Been doing a little research into this FL and it seems really hard to find a good one for less than £200 - which is fair enough if it's a good one! And by that I mean sharp wide open, not riddled with CA
Used a Tair 3 300mm f4.5 very sharp lens compared to my sigma 400 5.6 and great fun if you get the sniper version! Not an F4 but will F4.5 make a difference?
 
Used a Tair 3 300mm f4.5 very sharp lens compared to my sigma 400 5.6 and great fun if you get the sniper version! Not an F4 but will F4.5 make a difference?

4.5 is completely fine, so long as it's a sharp 4.5, I find with many F4 200mm they need stopping down to at least 5.6, often 6.7 or even F8 for decent sharpness and contrast - the less PP required on these old gals the better.

I might have just sold my Canon FD 50mm, so that will go towards another nice old lens - as I'm going to shift macro to the 45-150, seems to work even better on there with the Raynox than on the Canon, IQ-wise at least, I will miss the proper MF control

I almost bought a Nikon 200 F4, but went for the Vivitar instead. The Vivitar is fine, it's just not sharp wide open and I find my copy a bit 'dull' in contrast below F8. So the Nikon is still a consideration, would really love that 180mm 2.8 but it's a bit pricier than I'd want for a lens I will only use for the birds

I will have a look at this Tair though, I think I've looked it up before, I remember seeing videos on a lens that had a sniper rifle type attachment - bit mad looking! :D [edit] - Yup, that's the one, it is mad looking. But way too heavy, I want something hand-holdable. The Tair is very highly rated around MF review sites, pity it's so huge and heavy!
 
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Guys have any of you had experience with any decent old MF 300mm F4 glass? Been doing a little research into this FL and it seems really hard to find a good one for less than £200 - which is fair enough if it's a good one! And by that I mean sharp wide open, not riddled with CA
I tested 5 different 300/4's alongside my Canon 300/4 IS although they're medium format lenses and perhaps not relevent to your needs......results here (the general scene and 100% centre crops from 50Mp)

Bob
 
I tested 5 different 300/4's alongside my Canon 300/4 IS although they're medium format lenses and perhaps not relevent to your needs......results here (the general scene and 100% centre crops from 50Mp)

Bob

Nice, sadly those Pentax lenses are well over any budget I'd use on MF lenses even if they could fit. The 645 looks a beauty, it's brighter and looks sharper than the Canon to my eye. Of course it is more expensive too.

[edit] Just looked into it, you can indeed get P645 to M43 adapters. I'm not sure how well that would work, but there's no reason the lenses wouldn't still be very sharp on there.
 
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Think you are going to find that you either get big and heavy but sharp and cheap, light weight and sharp but expensive or light weight, cheap and soft! My Vivitar 200mm served me well on a Nikon FM (30 years ago) but was very soft on my GX80.
 
Think you are going to find that you either get big and heavy but sharp and cheap, light weight and sharp but expensive or light weight, cheap and soft! My Vivitar 200mm served me well on a Nikon FM (30 years ago) but was very soft on my GX80.

That does seem to be the case. Oh well, I'll keep looking, part of the fun is the hunt after all. The Viv is fine stopped down but with this crappy Irish light F8 isn't really a goer. I'll probably give up in the end and get a native tele again.
 
That does seem to be the case. Oh well, I'll keep looking, part of the fun is the hunt after all. The Viv is fine stopped down but with this crappy Irish light F8 isn't really a goer. I'll probably give up in the end and get a native tele again.
How did we ever manage when 400 ISO film was about the fastest you would go to in normal circumstances! :)
 
How did we ever manage when 400 ISO film was about the fastest you would go to in normal circumstances! :)

You didn't try shooting birds in the garden through the window on dark November evenings? :D Certainly not at F8. I know all the spiel, but here I want clean as I can get, I don't mind graininess or a little less contrast and sharpness for any other type of shot, this is very specific because I want fine feather detail on the birds - and these birds are tiny, so more reach is better too. Also I'm not comparing to anything modern here, I'm comparing to MF lenses I've owned in the past. I know what can be achieved. It's just finding those gems, the non-expensive yet very capable ones, they are out there
 
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[edit] Just looked into it, you can indeed get P645 to M43 adapters. I'm not sure how well that would work, but there's no reason the lenses wouldn't still be very sharp on there.

The downside to using lenses with a much longer register distance is that the adapter's tolerances need to be much finer (making them more expensive) to keep the lens axis at or close to the centre of the sensor.
 
How did we ever manage when 400 ISO film was about the fastest you would go to in normal circumstances! :)
Our pictures were often technically crap.

I remember using ISO 1,600 film at gigs which was the fastest I could get and all I could capture was motion blur and noise. Thank gosh no one really cared because the size of the prints hid a multitude of sins.
 
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Guys have any of you had experience with any decent old MF 300mm F4 glass? Been doing a little research into this FL and it seems really hard to find a good one for less than £200 - which is fair enough if it's a good one! And by that I mean sharp wide open, not riddled with CA
The gent that told me about the vivitar also told me about a 300 I.ll go back through my messages and let you know
 
Here's one for you, taken with an old Canon FD 28-70 f/4 zoom.



And guess what? It was attached to a Canon A1 film camera at the time! So keep your paws off our legacy glass and stop inflating the prices so us Film and Conventional section folk can carry on finding bargain priced lenses and enjoying using them on the film cameras for which they were originally intended! :p ;)
 
Her first snowman. Minolta Rokkor 45mm f2.

6y6gcuO.jpg
 
Here's one for you, taken with an old Canon FD 28-70 f/4 zoom.



And guess what? It was attached to a Canon A1 film camera at the time! So keep your paws off our legacy glass and stop inflating the prices so us Film and Conventional section folk can carry on finding bargain priced lenses and enjoying using them on the film cameras for which they were originally intended! :p ;)

TV sets were originally intended to be huge tube boxes too, bet you own a WA flat screen ;)

That is a beauty of a shot though, cannot fault it.

Don't beat up on us, I was a film child who used to have to wait weeks for my prints to come back from development! And at that time these lenses we now get for cheap, were exotics, all of them!
 
TV sets were originally intended to be huge tube boxes too, bet you own a WA flat screen ;)

That is a beauty of a shot though, cannot fault it.

Don't beat up on us, I was a film child who used to have to wait weeks for my prints to come back from development! And at that time these lenses we now get for cheap, were exotics, all of them!

I do have a flatscreen TV, but I only got it in 2014 as the Panasonic 100 htz CRT one I had before it refused to die and was too good to throw out! A bit like those legacy lenses really.

As for waiting for your film/prints to come back from the lab, that's one of the best bits, it can be like Christmas morning every few weeks! That feeling of anticipation as to what you're going to get. So come on in, the developer's lovely! Joking aside, quite a lot of people are either going back to film cameras or trying film photography for the first time, in addition to shooting digital. I find film slows me down, makes me think about what I'm doing and that has improved my photography over the last couple of years, as well as adding another dimension and interest to my hobby.

So next time you've spotted a legacy lens bargain, why not grab the original film camera to go with it while they're still fairly cheap and join in the retro fun. :)

As for legacy lenses, there were some pretty good and cheap 3rd party lenses out there too in the 1980s (if you can find a good, fungus-free one these days). I did a bit of gig photography in the early 90s using a 80-200 f/4.5 Mitakon zoom lens on a Canon A1 and Kodak Ektar 1000 ISO film. I used -1 stop of exposure compensation to retain the atmosphere of the stage lighting (to stop the camera trying to make it look like daylight) which gave me a higher shutter speed, giving blur-free shots on the occasions when the stage lighting was bright enough. It was a case of grabbing a shot when I could! This technique seemed to work OK though, plus taking the film to a pro-lab for printing, so they didn't try to make the prints look like daylight! Here's a 1991 example scanned from a print, so you can decide if a Mitakon 80-200 zoom should go on the legacy glass hit-list.

 
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I probably use legacy glass more than modern lenses. I also use them with tubes a lot; in fact I use old lenses with tubes more than my FE 90mm f2.8 macro.
My favourites lenses are:

Zeiss Distagon T* 28mm f2.0- I have an older Contax mount version, though this lens is still being made, and is available in Sony FE mount. Incredibly sharp and nice smooth bokeh. My favourite lens.

Sleeping cherub by Jon, on Flickr


Pentax K 28mm f3.5- this is my favourite landscape lens, it's sharp, very little distortion and has a bit of Pentax magic.

The Bishops, St Davids by Jon, on Flickr


Vivitar 28mm f2.0 (Kiron made version)- my go to night-time lens, as it doesn't suffer from coma and is small and light.

London by Jon, on Flickr


Pentax smc-A 35mm f2.8- I don't shoot at 35mm much, but this is my go to lens. I also have a Minolta MC W Rokkor 35mm f2.8 in mint condition, which, although a very good lens, imo doesn't equal the Pentax.

Merry Christmas by Jon, on Flickr


Minolta Auto Rokkor PF 55mm f1.8- My favourite lens around 50mm. I also have the sought-after f1.7 version of this lens, which sells for much more. I can't tell the difference between them. In addition I have the f1.4 version, which imo is not as good.

Rememberance by Jon, on Flickr

Other favourites:
Helios 44-2, which is surely THE bargain legacy lens. I also have a 44-M, which I don't think is quite as sharp.
Pentax smc-A 50mm f1.4,- very sharp across the frame from f2.0, perfectly usable wide open
Meyer-Optik Gorlitz 100mm f2.8- very small for a 100mm lens, and although not my sharpest lens (still pretty sharp though), bokeh is great and IQ is consistent across all apertures.
Takumar 200mm f3.5- Incredible performer for such a simple lens (4 elements in 4 groups). It's a preset lens, although easy to use. 18 aperture blades give it absolutely gorgeous bokeh.

Honourable mention- Sigma Super-Wide II 24mm f2.8. Although absolutely brilliant on a crop sensor, the corners let it down on FF.
 
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Getting a bit obsessed with these old lenses ain’t you Keith,you’ve been hanging out with Alan too much :LOL:

Been using old vintage lenses for a long time, before I even joined here I think. What was it the toilet twins said in the Sony thread? "Council house primes" :LOL: The stupidest post I'd seen on here in years, bless their cotton socks. Also this is the only old lens I have now, just sold the Canon FD


I do have a flatscreen TV, but I only got it in 2014 as the Panasonic 100 htz CRT one I had before it refused to die and was too good to throw out! A bit like those legacy lenses really.

As for waiting for your film/prints to come back from the lab, that's one of the best bits, it can be like Christmas morning every few weeks! That feeling of anticipation as to what you're going to get. So come on in, the developer's lovely! Joking aside, quite a lot of people are either going back to film cameras or trying film photography for the first time, in addition to shooting digital. I find film slows me down, makes me think about what I'm doing and that has improved my photography over the last couple of years, as well as adding another dimension and interest to my hobby.

So next time you've spotted a legacy lens bargain, why not grab the original film camera to go with it while they're still fairly cheap and join in the retro fun. :)

As for legacy lenses, there were some pretty good and cheap 3rd party lenses out there too in the 1980s (if you can find a good, fungus-free one these days). I did a bit of gig photography in the early 90s using a 80-200 f/4.5 Mitakon zoom lens on a Canon A1 and Kodak Ektar 1000 ISO film. I used -1 stop of exposure compensation to retain the atmosphere of the stage lighting (to stop the camera trying to make it look like daylight) which gave me a higher shutter speed, giving blur-free shots on the occasions when the stage lighting was bright enough. It was a case of grabbing a shot when I could! This technique seemed to work OK though, plus taking the film to a pro-lab for printing, so they didn't try to make the prints look like daylight! Here's a 1991 example scanned from a print, so you can decide if a Mitakon 80-200 zoom should go on the legacy glass hit-list.



I have actually considered grabbing a body along with a lens, I'd need to do a bit more research on that front though, see where I can get film developed etc
 
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I've never heard of some of the lenses in this thread.

When I bought my old lenses I just bought cheap mass market ones and I now have lenses from Minolta, Olympus, Canon and Nikon and a few third party ones in those mounts but apart from a couple I did read up on before I bought which I did read were pretty much at the top of the heap I've no idea if the lenses I have are the best I could have bought for the money.

So, if anyone has the time how about a little game? How about making a little list of the best lenses that can be bought for reasonable money at each focal length and for the purpose of this and the peace of my bank balance :D maybe a reasonable price for each would be under £100.

24mm f2.8 or f2.
28mm f2.8 or f2.
35mm f1.8, f2 or f2.8.
50mm f1.8 or f1.4.
85mm f1.8 or f2.
135mm f2 or f2.8.

For some focal length I double up and have two lenses, for example I like having a 50mm f1.4 but also a f1.8 too as they're usually smaller and lighter and sometimes I want a small lens :D I also sometimes double up and have a characterful lens and a more neutral one too :D

If anyone is interested in doing a little list I'd be interested in the choices and the reasons why you'd choose them :D
 
Add in the big boys too, 200mm 2.8/4 and 300mm 4/5.6, also macro maybe? as I see them as separate no matter the FL
 
I have actually considered grabbing a body along with a lens, I'd need to do a bit more research on that front though, see where I can get film developed etc

Pay a visit to the Film and Conventional section of this forum, there's loads of good advice on there about choosing and buying a film camera, where to send your films for developing, where to buy film at reasonable prices, etc. and there are some very knowledgeable and friendly people in the F&C section too, so feel free to ask if you need any suggestions or advice. (y)
 
Pay a visit to the Film and Conventional section of this forum, there's loads of good advice on there about choosing and buying a film camera, where to send your films for developing, where to buy film at reasonable prices, etc. and there are some very knowledgeable and friendly people in the F&C section too, so feel free to ask if you need any suggestions or advice. (y)


Will do, have peeped in there a few times out of curiosity
 
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