Any advice for a newcomer

tonygamble · Joined: 25 Oct 2012 Posts: 2

I'm a Panasonic GH2 user and, through another forum, met someone who advised me on my first manual focus lens.

It is a Meyer-Optik 2.8 50mm.

I wanted something with 'a more intesting bokeh' than I was getting with my automatic M43 lenses. It was a good recommendation.

I'd now like to move on. My next steps would be to get (a) wider aperture and (b) closer focussing lenses.

The same contact advised me to join this forum for advice and then to look on eBay for potential lenses.

The advice I need, and I'm not getting it with a generalised www Google, is how can one tell if a lens is going to have that 'more interesting bokeh'.

OK, you can perfectly correctly say this is a similar question as 'how long is a piece of string?' Or how do you define 'interesting'?

But you folk must have started somewhere. You can't have gone along to flee markets and bought every lens you saw until you found a good one!

My first buy was a good one. But I can't expect my contact to go on doing research for me. Can anyone offer any pointers so I know what to buy next?

Thanks for any help that can come my way.

Tony

Aanything · Expire: 2014-05-30

If you surf the galleries in this forum you will get very nice examples of many aspects of lenses (not only bokeh), and you can make your own idea according to what you mean by "interesting".

There are many factors that can make people suggest you a lens or another, such as Focal Length, max aperture wanted, mount. And yes, again, your idea of "interesting bokeh", but there is one lens that i feel to suggest: it's the Helios-44 2/58 (in any version).
It's damn cheap, can be extremely sharp, looks great on digital and has a very distinctive bokeh.

sonyrokkor · Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2012 9:28 am Post subject:

Hi Tony.

You have a Domiplan, a triplet (three elements lens).

I¡m sorry to tell the following: You can use your lens from F/8 to F/11, not greater apertures than them, except you look for not very sharp images.

At F/5,6 perhaps you find a center in decent sharpness, but not the borders, I guess. And in small sensor, don't know if the sharpness can be in the borders of it.

About lenses with good or interesting bokeh, you can begin from the helios, is a cheap and good lens. With a bokeh carasteristic and not conventional nor average one. Old meyers have a nice bokeh too, old zeiss, "Auto Vivitar"s medium teles, orestor 135, etc.

Good luck. The way just begin

Excalibur · Expire: 2014-04-21

Hello

Well I'm a film user and results can differ for a digital camera...but there is a thread about some cheap 28mms and I've just checked on the bay and the Tamron 28mm can go as cheap as £11..well I have the Tamron 28mm f2.8 ver and for £11 or about £18 with adapter you can get some good shots and how can you go wrong for general shooting for that price.

e.g.
Tamron 28mm f2.8 on film

hifisapi · Joined: 25 Sep 2012 Posts: 941 Location: USA

that looks pretty good for a film scan.

Excalibur · Expire: 2014-04-21

Nisseliten · Joined: 26 May 2012 Posts: 332 Location: Sweden

Aanything · Expire: 2014-05-30

fuzzywuzzy · Expire: 2013-11-30

Nisseliten · Joined: 26 May 2012 Posts: 332 Location: Sweden

kuuan · Expire: 2014-12-26

wide aperture..I'd recommend pretty much any vintage f1.4/50mm!
Canon nFD seems to be the darling of many NEX users and might be fairly cheap, I personally love my S-M-C Takumar f1.4/50
not sure if they qualify for having an "interesting" enough bokeh, but they are great lenses opening up the world of narrow dof.
Smaller, not quite as fast and most likely a bit cheaper I recommend Pentax M f1.7/50mm and OM f1.8/50mm.
A small lens with a wider focal lengths and rather wide aperture having very unique and interesting bokeh is Pen-F f1.8/38. Small similar to rangefinder lenses but at 35cm much closer minimum distance. ( hu..I am selling one, see lens sales section Wink

)
If cheap is very important Fujian f1.7/35mm C mount lens, via ebay sold new I believe for less than 50 usd, could be you best bet. Because at wide apertures only center will be kind of sharp and distortion and aberration will be wild some consider it more of a toy lens but it certainly has interesting bokeh, close focus distance is 30 cm.

tonygamble · Joined: 25 Oct 2012 Posts: 2

Thanks folk,

Some good ideas coming.

Sad to hear my Meyer-Optik may be a bit of a dog. I have only tried it, in poor weather, to a tablet computer so cannot comment. But it will be no good if it won't perform wide, or nearly wide, open.

Please keep the thoughts coming.

I love shopping.....

Tony

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

Your Domiplan is one of the worst MF lens and surely worst from Meyer Optik, some copy is better I had good one , but general opinion she is pretty crap.

http://www.mflenses.com/gallery/

mackeral · Joined: 21 Oct 2012 Posts: 64 Location: United States

Just got into this myself and am waiting on a Helios but in the meantime, My Super Takumar 50mm 1.4 is a gem. I can't recommend that little beauty enough.

hifisapi · Joined: 25 Sep 2012 Posts: 941 Location: USA

I would recommend a M42 mount lens, the pentax super takumar ( or super mullti coated takumar ) 55mm F1.8 or F2.0.
They are cheap but very high quality both opticallly and mechanically. Under $50 on ebay for the super tak.

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

http://www.mflenses.com/gallery/v/german/meyer/domiplan_50mm/

This was my copy I think I sold it already, don't know for sure. Don't know for sure which one was wide open.