What lens mount is this?

[johjeff]

Hi,

Can anyone tell me what mount this is? It is on a CZJ Tessar 1:2.8 50mm lens.



Thank you.

[tao]

Exakta

[luisalegria]

Exakta

[johjeff]

Thanks, folks.

Any idea what adapter, or if there is an adapter, it needs for a Nikon F Mount?

[drjs]

I am not sure a glassless adapter is possible for this conversion. The register distance for Exakta is 44.70 mm and Nikon is 46.5mm.

[johjeff]

I found this on eBay. Does that sound like the correct adapter? Or at least "close enough"?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=360184201858

Thanks.

[luisalegria]

Thats the wrong adapter. Its for Exakta 66, which is a medium format system. Your lens is for the 35mm Exaktas (variously known as Kine Exakta, Exakta Varex/VX, etc.)

I don't think there are such Exakta adapters fro Nikon.

[johjeff]

Clearly I have a lot to learn.

Do you know what camera bodies do have the ability to use this 35mm Exakta mount? Maybe I can pick up a cheap one somewhere down the line.

Thanks.

Jeff

[drjs]

[johjeff]

Would the Panasonic or Olympus micro 4/3 be a good bet for using a large number of older manual lens mounts?

Thank you.

[luisalegria]

Yes, they would be excellent choices. There are some very fine cameras in this category.

The main compromise with these is that the sensor is smaller, so the effective focal length is even longer than with the APS-C sensors.
2X instead of 1.5X

So your 50mm would be 100mm effectively in angle covered vs 75mm on a Nex. This is most troublesome with wide angles as they are no longer wide.

The actual focal length would stay the same of course, for all optical properties.

[iangreenhalgh1]

A secondhand NEX-3 would be my choice, so cheap now.

Shot this today with my nearly 3 year old NEX-3 and an Exakta mount Pancolar 1.8/50. No PP, just RAW-JPEG then resize for web.

[Aanything]

[iangreenhalgh1]

80-100ukp is possible here for the original NEX-3. At that price, nothing beats it imho.

[johjeff]

Nice pics!

I would like to try a NEX-3N. The Oly's are still cheaper online though. I am kind of getting into this MF lens thing, but don't know if it will be a flash in the pan, or something that keeps my interest for a while, so I want to get in the door cheap.

Which reminds me, if you guys know any really good or unique lenses that can often be had for under $50 US please let me know. The only 2 MF lens I currently own are a Tamron Adaptall 2 75-210 and a Carl Zeiss Jena Nr.3379720 Tessar 1:2.8 50mm, which I just acquired on ebay and aren't in my grubby hands yet.

Thus I was trying to find a way to mount a Exakta lens on my Nikon F body. Found 1 or 2 possible methods in the forum, but am still trying to get the parts and figure out the details.

Thank you.

[fuzzywuzzy]

[luisalegria]

There are hundreds of very cheap lenses that are worth having, the problem is how to stop buying them !

The big exception to any recommendations for MF lenses is in the case of wide angles. Frankly the modern stuff is great. The usual major brand AF kit 18-55 zoom lens (or the Pentax and Nikon ones at least) are better by a good degree than any old wide angle lenses you will find for reasonable money.

If you want to stay with Nikon there are plenty of excellent lenses. I'm A Pentax guy, not a Nikon guy, but I have had a bunch of Nikons over the years and still have some.

I'm going to post some of Ken Rockwells reviews; Rockwell is sometimes controversial, but he knows Nikon and in this stuff he is very helpful. I have or have had all the lenses I mention.

One that you should definitely look into is the Nikon E-series 50/1.8
This was the "cheap" kit lens made for the FM bodies. Its actually a superior lens, AI so readily usable, easily found and, well, cheap, don't pay more than $40. Often you can find them attached to a Nikon EM or the like -
http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/50f18E.htm
Check out his other reviews.

If you want low cost and adaptability to Nikon you could do a lot worse than Tamron. They are nearly all at least decent and some are superior. Best part is that the T-mount and Adaptall types have interchangeable mountings, and that Nikon mounts for these are readily available and cheap.

The Tamron 80-210 Model 103A Adaptall-2 is cheap, adaptable, has excellent performance for a lens of its type; maybe the best zoom of its range of the 1980's. Its readily available for $20 or less. If you want a zoom in that range there is no contest.

The best guide to all things Tamron, see here -

http://www.adaptall-2.org/
There are reviews on mflenses for nearly everything in that site. Lots of Tamron collectors.

[IAZA]

I had this Tessar in Exakta mount. I sold to my friend, he converted to Nikon mount and move back lens group to achive infinity

[iangreenhalgh1]

I only have two Nikkors, but I will never part with either of them. 3.5/55 Macro and 2.8/24 Nikkor-N Auto. Both are wonderful imho. I paid just under 30ukp for each as the barrels have plenty of wear, but the optics are still performing excellently.

[johjeff]

Thank you for the information, folks.

IAZA - how did he do that?

Hey, does anyone have a clear image comparing the Exakta 35mm to the Exacta 66?

Are the topcon ones the Exacta 66 or 35mm?

I appreciate all the feedback.

Jeff

[luisalegria]

Topcon/Topcor RE lenses are SOMEWHAT like Exakta 35mm mounts but not quite as they have extra linkages in the back and they mount almost backward in relation to Exakta mountings. Most seem to mount OK on Exakta adapters but YMMV on anything in this area. Details will make the difference if you are going to homebrew your own Exakta-Nikon adaptation.

Topcor RE lenses tend to be quite costly as they have a fine reputation and are in high demand.

The Topcor UV lenses are low priced, but a very different animal as they were made for a line of leaf-shutter cameras that retained the aperture tings on the camera body, so there are no modern commercial adapters for these that I know of. There was an original Topcon-made UV-RE adapter but that thing would be very rare.

The modern (1980's-90's) Exakta 66 used the Pentacon lens mounting system. You can look these up. They are totally unlike the Exakta 35mm mounts. Exakta 66 was not a very common system anyway. The 35mm Exaktas are far more common, by a couple of orders of magnitude.

If you want medium format lenses for your Nikon, these are almost all adaptable and there are adapters for many types, Pentacon probably the cheapest and easiest to deal with. Medium format SLR's tended to have very long back focus so this is an easy adapter to make. Medium format lenses tend to be of good quality but you wont find a lot of great bargains and they are no better than the average 35mm lens, because the huge film area they are made for is much less demanding of resolution. There are also no true wide angles, as a typical medium format wide angle lens would at best be a "normal" on APS-C.

There are a few Exakta 66 cameras from the 1930's-50's but they are quite rare and extra lenses for them even more so. Collectors items that you will find very rarely.

[IAZA]

He moved rear lens optic group to back, then opened the optic group and put something as spacer (he used LAN cable)
Finally reassamble

[tao]