New to the manual lense world

[fernanrl]

Hi to all,

I am new to this world of manual lenses in a digital world. I am the owner of a Canon 30D and I am expecting to receive my first Zeiss 4/20 with the M42 electronic adapter (so it helps me to AF).

And now, I have a few questions for you:
1.- Is it worth buying the electronic adapter? Which one do you usually buy?
2.- How many adapters do you have? One per lense? One per mark?
3.- Since I am pretty new to this, which lenses do you advice for me to start with? Currently I have the Canon 28-105 USM and Canon 50 1,8
4.- Any advices on shops in Madrid (my hometown) to get lenses?

Thanks and regards to everyone. I am looking forward to hearing from you,

Fer

[Attila]

Nice to see you here! Welcome in a wonderful new world!
If you read this forum you able to find plenty of samples, advices.

1, AF confirmation adapter is a great thing , very important.
2, If you have money and found more convince take one adapter for each lenses.I am using one adapter for all lenses.
3, If you define your budget and focal length range we able to suggest more accurate.
4, We have some Spanish member already I guess they able to suggest you some shop.

[fernanrl]

Hi,

My budget is short...I think. Around 150€-200€ max per lense.
Regards
Fer

[Attila]

focal lengths ?

[Orio]

hi Fer,

my suggestion is to start with a fast 50mm lens. They are cheap, or at least affordable, and they can give you a good idea of the feel and the quality that you can get from manual lenses.

[poilu]

welcome fernanrl!
have a nice time with us

[fernanrl]

Hi,

When I started in the world of photography I had a Yashica...which I sold to get mi Nikon...and then my Canon 30D.

To be honest with you, I have been advised "not to take this road" since "I am going to loose quality", "analogue lenses are not compatible with modern SLRs", etc...but I want to probe them wrong as I am sure that analogue lenses perform as well (or even better) than moder Canon "L" lenses.

Besides, photography is an art, I want to go back to good old quality (or bad pictures, that depends on me) straight from the camera without the need of so much Photoshop and other alike.

Anyway, my first step has been to put next to my Canon 30D, my 28-105 mm f3.5-4.5 EF II USM and my Canon EF 50/1.8 I a brand new (for me) Zeiss Flektogon 4/20 and an electronic adapter M42-EOS.

As for future analogue lenses, that depends on what you advice me. Money is tight, but I can wait to save a bit more if it is worth it. It depends, as I say, on what you tell me.

Also, for the electronic adapters, I´d rather have one for each lens since I think that will be easier to handle (what do you do and what do you think?) Where do you get yours, please?

As for focal lengths, I´d rather have variety now. I want to get something similar to a 70-200/300 some time in the future... but I don't know if in old analogue or in Canon EF / EF-S. What do you recommend in analogue? (usage: sports, my daughter on stage in the school, animal photography...)

For the rest of focal lengths, as I say, variety to taste this marvelous world.

In case you want to see what sort of pictures I like, you can see my blog. BTW, all of the pictures taken with my old Canon 350D and a Sigma 18-50 2,8 :

http://fernanrl.blogspot.com/

Since this lense I know may be expensive (or cost more than my budget) I dont mind waiting a bit so I save more money...if the lense is worth the waiting, of course...so I am all yours.

Looking forward to hearing from you...and sorry for the long post

Fer

[Pedro Claro]

My advice would be to buy 3/4 cheap/affordable but good lenses in different Focal Lengths (if possible, also of different mounts and different brands) and try them out.

This would give you an ideia of:

1 - what FLs you need/use the most;
2 - what brand gives you a better handling and/or better images (here, read 'better' as a personal taste, not an absolute rank);
3 - if you can live without AF and Automatic Aperture at different FL or situatuons.

I've bought the lenses I have in my signature plus a Tamron Adaptall 28/2.5. Unfortunately, the Kiron 28/2 does not stop down (can only be used wide open) and so its use is severely reduced. Also, I've not yet bought an Adaptall adapter, so the Tamron remains untested. Using the remaining lenses for almost a month, I've come to several interesting conclusions:

1 - I'm not very keen on russian lenses - at least, I'm not overly impressed with the mechanics and general functioning of the Jupiter 9 and, to a lesser extent, of the Industar. OTOH, I really like the little Zuiko 50/1.8 handling. As all (I think) Zuiko lenses have similar (external) design, I'm pretty sure I would like the feeling of other Zuiko lenses that I decide to add to my collection. I'm not talking about 'defects' but singularities: I simply don't like the preset scheme of the Jupiter and the lack of click-stops on both russian lenses.

2 - I'm not finding a 85mm prime very useful on a crop camera to my style of shooting. In spite of having a 24-105L that I use a lot at the longer FLs for portraiture, when shooting with primes I generally prefer a 50mm lens and to be a few steps closer. Shooting with primes is different than shooting with zooms - which is not a bad thing.

3 - There are some kinds of shooting where I would prefer an AF lens (when my 2 years old kid is running around or when I try to shoot sports), but I can live without AF and Automatic Aperture in everything else I do: macro, portraiture, events, street, landscape or cityscape.

After knowing your priorities, it's reasonably simple to get rid of the unwanted gear (often with some profit, if you buy carefully) and invest in more useful or better lenses. In my case, I'll buy sooner or later a faster 50mm lens and I desperately need something a lot wider than 50mm but still fast and with good quality.

One big advantage of old manual lenses is that you can buy several lenses and choose what suits you better among them. Also, you can even keep more than one for each focal length without a big finantial effort (depending of the lenses, of course), so you can have a very fast lens 50mm lens, a small and discreet 50mm lens, a very saturated 50mm lens, an excellent close-up 50mm lens, and so on, so you can use the one that does the job better in different circumstances.

Regarding the adapters, I'd recommend without any doubt the AF-confirm ones and also a seller form Ebay UK which seems to provide a very good service: PHOTOBITS42. I would not buy more than one for each mount, at least in the beginning. When you decide which setup fits better your needs, you can then buy an adapter for each lens you use - if you find changing adapters too annoying or time consuming.

Regarding the recommendations for specific lenses, I'd let the more experienced and sage members answer that.

[peterqd]

Hello Fer, and welcome. I can thoroughly recommend the EOS adapters from Ebay seller happypagehk. This is an M42/EOS adapter and he also has Nikon for sale at the moment. They are good quality and the lenses fit correctly with the index mark at the top. He has some useful information on his site and he's knowledgable and helpful if you have any questions:

Click here to see on Ebay

[F16SUNSHINE]

Welcome Fer!

I will second Peter on happypage. They have a higher quality of product and service compared to other sellers. I'm afraid that they are currently out of stock of C/Y adapters. Last week I requested a quote for 5 adapters coded with particular exif data. I heard from them and they told me no luck, they have a back order. M42, Nikon, OM, and Leica R -EOS are all available. His m42-eos adapter is probably the best you can find. I can suggest that you also could try "big-is" for C/Y. They are another fine seller with high quality AF chipped adapters.
As for lenses for your eos. If you do not plan to collect a large amount of lens but rather a smaller more useful kit. Contax baby!

[Jesito]

Hi Fer, welcome!

We're several spanish members in this forum, some are from Madrid. Local shops use to be a bit pricey, is much funny (and less expensive) to play the eBay game. Lots of excitement for less price.
But I've to warn you against the lens-adquisition-syndrome, once you start, no one will be able to stop you.
Regarding the adapters, follow the advice of Peter and Andy.
There are some alternative/complementary possibilities replacing the focus screen by a split-image one, but this is an hazardous, long and winding way, not always successful.
I trend to have a couple of adapters for each lens mount and play with them.

Have fun!

Jes.

[zewrak]

for your 150 euro. I would get 55/1.8, 135/3.5, 150/4 S-M-C or Super Takumars. :p Three sweet cheap but good lenses. :p I got the 85/1.9 and I must say that the 55 feels more usable on a crop camera.

http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-slr-lens-discussion/31601-takumar-club.html

There you got a large number of Takumar shots. People that tell you that you will get low quality, simply do not know what they are talking about. Either that or they have to justify getting their 5000€ lenses .

[LucisPictor]

Hi! Welcome and enjoy your stay!

1 - AF adapters are nice, if they work!
2 - I have one adapter for each of the lenses I use often.
3 - See other answers. A good idea is to start with a fast 50mm and then buy half and double focal lenghts (so 24mm and 85-135mm). The fourth lens should be a nice 35mm lens. This will grant you a wide angle, a "normal" lens, a portrait lens and a tele. As a fifth lens you should try to find a 17-21mm to get a "real" wide angle. With an 18, 24, 35, 50 and 135mm (or something like that) you can cover most subjects.
4 - Sorry, don't know.

[peterqd]

I only have the one M42/EOS adapter and it stays on the camera all time. I mostly use M42 lenses so it made sense to change the camera mount rather than buying adapters for around a dozen lenses.

[poilu]

[fernanrl]

Hi guys,

Thanks a lot for your advice. I have found a few places where I can go to see the lenses by myself, and also the adaptors.

Most of you talk about fix focal lenght. What about zooms or telezooms? Any recommendation or do I still try to get Takumars for those purposes? Which one do you recomend/have? As new in this field, I dont know if it is worth having an analogue lense such as in 70-200/70-210 or if you´d rather have it in AF and "play" with the rest of focal lenses in "analog".

As I say, I can wait a bit to get something "interesting" if I must.

Regards,

Fer

[LucisPictor]

Most of us talk about prime lenses because as manual lenses we can afford their superior performance.

But there are also some very nice manual zoom lenses.

My personal favs are:

Tele zooms:
- Soligor MC 3.5/70-220 Macro (a fantastic lens but very hard to find)
- Tamron SP 3.8-5.4/60-300 MC 23A
- Tamron SP 3.5/70-210 CF Macro MC 19AH (These two Tamrons are some kind of "legends".)
And Kiron has also produced some nice zoom lenses.

Wide angle/universal zooms:
- Soligor C/D Zoom+Macro 3.8-5.3/35-200 MC
- Sigma Zoom-0 II 3.5-4.5/28-85 MC
- Soligor C/D 3.5-4.5/28-105 MC Zoom+Macro

And for the "real" wide angles:
- Hoya HMC 3.5/25-42 Zoom&Macro

You can also find excellent zoom lenses by Zeiss, Nikon or Leica.
But I do not have any experience with those top brand models.

[fernanrl]

Hi,

I think I am going to forget about buying an AF tele zoom since I dont use it that much. I think that, instead, I will buy slowly (...my budget and I hope ) some nice fixed local lenses, and, if I find by chance or see one of those nice telezooms, I will get one.

BTW, Carsten, I have printed out the list of the lenses you have and the ones you usually use. Not that I pretend to match it, but it will guide me when shopping as well

I will let you know once I get some nice lenses and will posted pictures.

Thanks to everyone and regards,

Fer