New to MF lenses, some beginner questions

alexlens · Joined: 11 Apr 2014 Posts: 3

Hi everyone,

A few weeks ago I started discovering the wonderful art of photography. I am fortunate to be able to use my father's Canon 400D along with its 18-55mm kit lens for practice. I'm also reading Bruce Barnbaum's "The Art of Photography" which has helped me a great deal so far. A nice bonus is that I'm now also going outside a lot more often (I am from the digital age, you see...).

I'm really excited about photography now and would love to experiment much more, but I feel like I am discovering the limits of my kit lens. Unfortunately my financial situation as student does not allow me to purchase any new lenses (costing over 100 euros), so that's how I ended up at your forum and learned of MF lenses.

Now this is all a bit confusing for me, as I don't really understand what kind of lenses I should look for or which are compatible with my camera's body. So I have a few questions:

- I understand I need an adapter to mount any non-EF-S mount lenses on my 400D. But what exactly does an adapter do? Is it just connecting the difference in diameters of the mount/body? Or is it actually doing something optical too?

- Do adapters differ in quality? Are their any cheap alternatives I should avoid?

- Does every kind of lens have an adapter for my Canon? Or are there limits to adaption? (So is it possible to just buy an adapter for every lens type to EF-S mount and be safe?)

- What is this problem with 'infinity focus' or 'mirrors hitting things' that I keep seeing? Is it a problem for my Canon?

- Does it matter that my Canon is a crop-frame (versus full-frame), specifically applied to MF lenses? (I understand crop-frame narrows the field of view, but anything else?)

- Finally, I am currently bidding on a Helios 44-2 58mm because I heard it's a pretty good lens for its price. This will be my 2nd lens, along with my kit lens. Do you recommend me getting a zoom too? Or should I go for a wide one first? Any brands or specific lenses you can recommend me?

I apologize for all the questions! There is much I don't yet know... Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks!

marcusBMG · Joined: 07 Dec 2012 Posts: 1318 Location: Conwy N Wales

I posted this reply to a similar qq (What vintage lenses to get...) on Pentax forums. Note my comments re Canon ...

vintage Pentax OEM (Asahi, takumar etc) MF generally all good. Distinction between K mount and M42 in the technicalities of how they work on camera. PK easier (no adapter, all work the same*), P-KA easiest! but M42 lenses normally offer the option of using Av mode with the aperture range, stop down metering.
*but PK T-mount are more like M42

- vintage primes generally to be preferred to zooms. Specifically, the older the zooms the less likely they are to be any good.

- generally speaking the OEM lenses are great ie Nikon, Canon, Minolta ... The ones most specifically of interest are those that were in M42 mount eg Yashinon (Yashica), Fujinon. otherwise OEM options means mount swapping/adapting/changing which is a whole different ball game. But there are many out there who will swear by Rokkors/Hexanons... not to mention the premium topend marques: Carl Zeiss, Leica... There are commercial options: a Spanish company has specialised in adaptions. But overall, if you want to go down this road, you're much better off with (whisper)... a Canon dslr (due to the registration distances - Canon has the shortest which leaves the most space for adapters for all the other lenses).

- the multifarious generic brands typically dating from the 70's - 80's boom period of Japanese lens production are typically not as desirable and these days I doubt I would bother with any except where I have specific information/insight as to quality. Some of the more common names are Photax, Hanimex, Paragon, Optomax, Prinz-galaxy, Sirius, Soligor (Soligor are one of the best actually, Tokina made a lot of Soligors), Vivitar, Makinon, Miranda.... but there are absolutely loads of different names.

- I got to know the names of the main manufacturers: Tamron, Tokina, Cosina, Kiron (Kino Optical), Sigma (these all produce/produced lenses under their own name/brand), Komine, Hoya, and started picking up on how to id their premium "pro" lenses, and the good lenses under other marques (Vivitar is a classic example) that they had made. mflenses forum is the best source of that sort of info.

- for bargain hunting, being able to visually id the main mounts, and to distinguish between M42 and PK, and PK and P-KA, are essential skills!

- Russian/former Soviet bloc lenses tend to be good (very good!). Lots of classic primes often based on classic Zeiss designs. Tair, Helios, Jupiter, Mir, Meyer Optik, Pentacon..... et al.

- Other companies got in on the slr boom with their own PK mount cameras (Chinon, Cosina, Ricoh) and generally their lenses are pretty good, particularly Cosina

- Tamron have a particular cachet with their (now discontinued) Adaptall range. Swappable mount means they can be mounted on any camera (pretty much). Lots of quality in the adaptall range.

Then the other perspective is what sort of lenses to go for. I bought and sold a variety of mostly zoom lenses before focussing, correctly IMO, towards prime lenses that offered clear/specific advantages over the kit lens. First (and best) example: a decently fast "nifty fifty" (update - I c you have one ). One of the classic f1.4/1.7/1.8 50mm or 55mm pentax lenses will give you ~ 3- to 4 stops advantage over the kit lens at 50/55mm, better IQ and the creative possibilities that the range of depth of field offers.

Other suggestions:
- a classic 135mm eg a sonnar, lots of quality options in this focal length.
- a quality macro lens. Some are better suited to general use than others, all are sharp.
- 35mm, 28mm, 24mm classic primes offer respectively 51mm, 42mm, 36mm equivalent FoV on Pentax dslr. 24mm is probably the most desireable. Personally I quite often find I am using my Sigma Miniwide and Superwide almost interchangeably, they have a very similar character.

I once came across a blog by a guy in the States who used vintage lenses extensively on Canon, it would be just the thing for you if you can find it (google away)....

UPDATE found this

http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-manual-lenses/

konicamera · Expire: 2014-06-14

[quote="alexlens"]
[...]
- What is this problem with 'infinity focus' or 'mirrors hitting things' that I keep seeing? Is it a problem for my Canon?
[...]
Welcome to the forum.

I thought I’d address the question above, because understanding it is crucial if one wants to navigate the fascinating realm of MF lenses on a digital medium. Smile

The "infinity focus" problem is a by-product of the "film to flange distance" (or "register") issue. This expression relates to the exact distance between the flange at the front of a camera against which a lens comes to rest, and the film surface. In our day, it could also be called "sensor to flange" issue.

What this distance refers to is the distance at which an image produced by a given lens, when set to infinity, is perfectly in focus. This matters because unless a lens is positioned the correct film to flange distance, it will not reach infinity focus. The focusing ring will reach the infinity mark, but the image will not be in focus. So the most important job of an adapter is to hold a lens at the required distance from the film/sensor to allow infinity focus. The thickness of different adapters vary accordingly.

For 35mm manual focus SLR systems, film to flange distances vary from 40.5mm (Konica K/AR mount), to 46.5mm (Nikon F mount). The Canon EOS film to flange distance is 44mm. What this means is that you can’t use a Konica mount lens on you Canon EOS body, because that lens will never be close enough to the sensor to achieve infinity focus. Unfortunately, a Canon EOS body limits you in the types of mounts you can adapt to it.

You could mount a Nikon lens on your Canon EOS body using an adapter whose thickness is 2.5mm (44mm + 2.5mm = 46.5mm). For example: http://tinyurl.com/oyhdusb The catch is that good Nikon lenses aren’t cheap, because in addition to their very high quality, they are mountable as is on most Nikon DLSRs, which doesn't do anything to bring their price down.

Your best (and cheapest) bet would be M42 lenses. M42, also known as Pentax screw mount (f-to-f dist. of 45.5mm). The 1.5mm-thick adapter allowing you to do this is probably the cheapest and simplest adapter between any two systems: http://tinyurl.com/pcvdbdj There is an enormous quantity of very high quality German, Japanese and Russian lenses in M42 mount.

If you are seriously interested in using MF lenses, I would suggest you consider buying a mirrorless camera. Throwing the mirror cage out of the camera body has given those cameras a body so thin that, with the right adapter, they can use virtually any SLR or RF lens.

Lightshow · Joined: 04 Nov 2011 Posts: 3666 Location: Calgary

alexlens · Joined: 11 Apr 2014 Posts: 3

Thank you all for the excellent info!

I will investigate compatibility and perhaps stick to M42 mounts for the time being.

You guys mentioned considering a mirrorless camera. I have seen many people use a Sony NEX on these forums. I personally have never used a Sony before, but I guess it's pretty convenient being able to mount much more lenses that way?

Will any mirrorless camera do or is Sony NEX by far the most easiest to find adapters for?