Vintage Lenses

My first post in this thread, I have just bought a Cosina MC 28mm f2.8 wide angle lens with M42 fit (plus an adapter to use with my Fujifilm X-Pro2). I forgot to add, the lens cost me £20

It's raining hard here today so i'm not going to go out and take a lot of test shots, but here is the first image I made with the lens earlier, and it is SOOC.

I must say, i'm really pleased with it, the aperture was f8, 1/400, ISO 2500. It is sharp in the corners and not too much of any vignette, as far as I can see. Very pleased. I'll post some more images when I get the chance to go out with it.

I know it's not the sexiest of subjects

 
Last edited:
FlyPhot said:
My first post in this thread, I have just bought a Cosina MC 28mm f2.8 wide angle lens with M42 fit (plus an adapter to use with my Fujifilm X-Pro2).

It's raining hard here today so i'm not going to go out and take a lot of test shots, but here is the first image I made with the lens earlier, and it is SOOC.

I must say, i'm really pleased with it, the aperture was f8, 1/400, ISO 2500. It is sharp in the corners and not too much of any vignette, as far as I can see. Very pleased. I'll post some more images when I get the chance to go out with it.

I know it's not the sexiest of subjects
Click to expand...

Brilliant to see! The point of this thread was to show that some of the best lenses ever made can be picked up now at reasonable prices if you're not afraid of manual focus. Good stuff!
 
THIRTYFIVEMILL said:
Brilliant to see! The point of this thread was to show that some of the best lenses ever made can be picked up now at reasonable prices if you're not afraid of manual focus. Good stuff!
Click to expand...

Forgot to add, the lens only cost £20 (posted!).


Here are some more images, SOOC. I love the colours and contrast in these. I am very, very happy with this little belter of a lens ...


f2.8, 1/280, ISO400



f11, 1/25, ISO640



f8, 1/28, ISO200



f8, 1/300, ISO200
 
Olympus EP1 + 1933 Leitz Elmar 50mm f3.5

ISO 500

TP_Leitz_Rose.jpg
 
Last edited:
Here's a 5 shot pano I made this morning with the Cosina 28mm. I won't be using it for landscapes but this isn't too shabby for 6am on a gloomy morning (pano stitched in Affinity Photo)

 
Nikon Z6 + Nikkor 400mm f/5.6 ED IF manual focus lens. This is not the fastest or easiest lens to shoot with as it's extremely long yet quite light and VERY prone to lens vibration. Wildlife don't often sit still for long so focusing manual, setting every other setting manually and stopping the ruddy lens shaking is quite a challenge but it is possible. For this shot I used a vintage Gitzo table top tripod with a small RRS ballhead. Putting weight with my hand on the end of the lens I was able to stop the lens shake enough to take some reasonably sharp shots. This shot is completely uncropped. I've just added a little sharpening and removed a couple of leaves that were distracting. Otherwise it's pretty much as is.


RUFFLED! (BLACKBIRD COOLING DOWN) by Vintage Photography, on Flickr

400 copy.jpg
 
Last edited:
Petapixel has a little piece on getting started with vintage lenses. I can't see anything there that'll teach me/you much but he says he loves the Mie 10A 28mm f3.5, fair enough I thought and then I checked the prices on evil bay and saw that they're pretty high.

petapixel.com

Get Started Using Vintage Lenses with These Five Tips

Get started using vintage lenses
petapixel.com petapixel.com

That's the second time the price of a lens in an article has surprised me although I can't remember what the lens was last time.

If anyone is familiar with that Mir maybe you can say why it's more attractive than a Takumar, Nikon, Minolta or anything else costing a fraction of the price.
 
woof woof said:
maybe you can say why it's more attractive than a Takumar, Nikon, Minolta or anything else costing a fraction of the price.
Click to expand...
Because some self publicist says so and some idiots have on the bandwagon jumped?

Within reason, any decent lens can give you good results, in the right circumstances. Nikon used to make a little digital camera called the "S10", the last of the twist grip Coolpixes. Now that it's long discontinued I could claim that it mounts a "vintage" lens. I found that it could do a lot of things that people claimed you needed really expensive kit for...

Austrian Wasp NIK_1573.JPG
Shipyard worker on the Achensee Austria S10 NIK_0829.jpg
Man with beard flat cap and spectacles Innsbruck Austria S10 NIK_0889.JPG
ACT Airbus 300 Cargo Jet over Swindon S10 NIK_1464.JPG
 
Last edited:
BillN_33 said:
Panasonic G1 + Voigtlander Ultron 35mm f1.7
Click to expand...

G1? That brings back happy memories :D That camera is one of my favourites as it just fitted my hand so well with the controls being IMO excellent. I replaced it with a G7 and I just hated using that camera as the grip was so uncomfortable for me.
 
woof woof said:
G1? That brings back happy memories :D That camera is one of my favourites as it just fitted my hand so well with the controls being IMO excellent. I replaced it with a G7 and I just hated using that camera as the grip was so uncomfortable for me.
Click to expand...

Here you go

with a lens that's almost impossible to focus wide open!!!

TP_G1.jpg
 
Last edited:
AndrewFlannigan said:
Because some self publicist says so and some idiots have on the bandwagon jumped?

Within reason, any decent lens can give you good results, in the right circumstances. Nikon used to make a little digital camera called the "S10", the last of the twist grip Coolpixes. Now that it's long discontinued I could claim that it mounts a "vintage" lens. I found that it could do a lot of things that people claimed you needed really expensive kit for...
Click to expand...

It may be as simple as that. I remember The Online Photographers story about the Olympus 40mm.

The only real and significant issue my old lenses really have is that the bokeh at their widest apertures can be wild. That's pretty the only issue that's likely to show up in my pictures although things like astigmatism (or whatever the correct name is) will be issues for those taking pictures of night skies etc.
 
BillN_33 said:
Here you go

with a lens that's almost impossible to focus wide open!!!

TP_G1.jpg
Click to expand...

I can't see what it is, what is it?

I suppose the trickiest lens to focus wide open I have is the Rokkor 50mm f1.2.
 
I've just bought a M42 adapter with helicoid. When it came I tried it with my Takumar 50mm f1.4 and the lens lined up perfectly but once mounted on the camera the top of the lens was at the bottom, easily fixed by taking the mount off and putting it back on again rotated a bit and it lines up perfect now and focuses very close. The idea is that this will negate the need to use a close up filter.
 
THIRTYFIVEMILL said:
A few today with the Nikkor 180mm ED AIS. This lens will be sold after I pass away.


SANDOWN PIER @ 7AM by Vintage Photography, on Flickr


SHIPS EARLY MORNING by Vintage Photography, on Flickr


SANDOWN SHIPS by Vintage Photography, on Flickr
Click to expand...

Nice, raging here though, I had been on look out for one since I sold the AF version, but in the meantime got the 200 F4 Nikon and a Laowa macro lens, now a nice copy of the 180mm AIS ED has shown up on my local sale site .... but I'm broke [for gear stuffs at least] - I am watching it though ... I'd have to sell the 200mm, and add some but could be manageable.
 
Cagey75 said:
Nice, raging here though, I had been on look out for one since I sold the AF version, but in the meantime got the 200 F4 Nikon and a Laowa macro lens, now a nice copy of the 180mm AIS ED has shown up on my local sale site .... but I'm broke [for gear stuffs at least] - I am watching it though ... I'd have to sell the 200mm, and add some but could be manageable.
Click to expand...

Stick it on a card for a couple of weeks whilst you sell the 200. It's now my favourite lens by a country mile. Just stunning.
 
woof woof said:
I've just bought a M42 adapter with helicoid. When it came I tried it with my Takumar 50mm f1.4 and the lens lined up perfectly but once mounted on the camera the top of the lens was at the bottom, easily fixed by taking the mount off and putting it back on again rotated a bit and it lines up perfect now and focuses very close. The idea is that this will negate the need to use a close up filter.
Click to expand...
I find adapters with built in helicoids very useful, it's not just the close focus ability that they help with - I often use them with enlarger lenses etc. Altogether I think I have around a dozen in different mounts/lengths, I must admit I can't remember how my lenses line up on them there are almost certainly a few that wouldn't do well but not all are designed to give infinity focus with standard lenses.
 
More helicoid adapter fun with a Takumar 50mm f1.4.

nT34Zz4.jpg


3CvHpPI.jpg


tzaWFDp.jpg


gBk4z1e.jpg


Normally when using manual lenses I use aperture priority until the shutter speed drops too low and then switch to manual mode, both with auto ISO letting the ISO float up and down as it sees fit. Today whilst using this adapter I noticed that the ISO wasn't floating and was staying at 100 with the picture getting darker as I closed down the aperture. I switched to manual ISO and set it to 400 and then set the exposure by varying the shutter speed. Later I tried to reproduce this indoors and couldn't so I'm not sure what was going on. I assume it was down to one of two things, either as the light was quite bright and harsh the metering was getting a little confused and/or there was some metering difficulty as the lens was moved away from the sensor, or a combination of both of these things. But I haven't been able to reproduce this and it's not something I've seen before with this camera (Sony A7) so I'll just have to watch out for any metering anomalies next time I'm out with this combination.

Unless someone else has seen this?
 
Last edited:
woof woof said:
More helicoid adapter fun with a Takumar 50mm f1.4.

nT34Zz4.jpg


3CvHpPI.jpg


tzaWFDp.jpg


gBk4z1e.jpg


Normally when using manual lenses I use aperture priority until the shutter speed drops too low and then switch to manual mode, both with auto ISO letting the ISO float up and down as it sees fit. Today whilst using this adapter I noticed that the ISO wasn't floating and was staying at 100 with the picture getting darker as I closed down the aperture. I switched to manual ISO and set it to 400 and then set the exposure by varying the shutter speed. Later I tried to reproduce this indoors and couldn't so I'm not sure what was going on. I assume it was down to one of two things, either the as the light was quite bright and harsh the metering was getting a little confused and/or there was some metering difficulty as the lens was moved away from the sensor, or a combination of both of these things. But I haven't been able to reproduce this and it's not something I've seen before with this camera (Sony A7) so I'll just have to watch out for any metering anomalies next time I'm out with this combination.

Unless someone else has seen this?
Click to expand...
That rings a distinct bell from when I had my A7 mark 1. All I can recall was that it may have happened just a few times and, like you, couldn’t reproduce it “on demand” Just one of those things I guess.

( My Z6 went absolutely luney for a few hours trying to use M and auto iso ( as I usually set it for MF lenses ) then fine since then. ) - who knows ?
 
I use adapted lenses a lot and this is the first time I've come across any metering issues so I just assumed it was something on the day... which would make it the light at the time, the adapter or the adapter when used at certain lengths or a combination of all factors. I'll just have to keep an eye on it as fixing the ISO and adjusting the exposure with the shutter speed is the fix if it happens.

PS.
I've just been outside again and the metering and ISO are performing as expected so this is one to put in the Hmmm file.

One last one, this time a 40% crop.

B1JPxee.jpg


I'm very pleased that this adapter allows this lens to focus very closely without the need to screw on a close focus adapter. This lens (Takumar 50mm f1.4) has a much longer minimum focus distance than all my other 50mm lenses so this helicoid equipped adapter really does give it more versatility.
 
Last edited:
Has anyone used the Olympus lenses that were made for the Pen-F film camera?

I have a few on the way and it'll mean buying another adapter which I'll avoid if the general consensus is don't perform particularly well on digital. I've got the EM1 MkII.

These are what I got coming:

Olympus Zuiko Auto-Zoom 50-90mm F/3.5
Olympus E.Zuiko Auto-T 100mm F/3.5
Olympus E.Zuiko Auto-T 150mm F/4
Olympus Zuiko Zoom 100-200mm F/5

The smaller zoom would be an interesting focal length on the M4/3 as would the 150mm.
 
It doesn't look like anyone has come across this Morris, how are you getting on?

After watching this video enthusing about the Canon 28mm f2.8 SC...

www.talkphotography.co.uk

The Amazing Sony A1/A7/A9/APS-C & Anything else welcome Mega Thread!

I looked at a Fujinon MK 18-55mm T2.9. Like a tree trunk. :D That Zeiss 16-70 is a nice size, sort of between my 16 and 56mm. Very affordable too at £429 at e-infinity. Pity it's only f4 though. And it's not on Christopher Frost's recommended list. He thinks the picture quality is very weak and...
www.talkphotography.co.uk www.talkphotography.co.uk

I thought I might treat myself to one. I have a few FD lenses including the probably optically identical 28mm f2.8 FD but no breach lock ones and they are nicely made so I thought I might get one.

Anyway. I remembered I had a Miranda 24mm f2.8 "Macro" in breach lock so I went for a 50mm f1.8 SC instead of the 28mm as I thought it together with the 24mm Miranda would make a nice pairing. I do have 50mm f1.4 and f1.8 FD's but I just fancied the SC for the (IMO) nicer build.

50mm f1.8 SC. Mrs WW cooking a full English breakfast but with vegi bacon and sausage.

5XxTjW3.jpg


Like all the film era primes I have this latest buy does seem to be a nice and perfectly useable lens. Of course, the corners aren't up to modern standards at f1.8 but they look better stopped down.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top