Using vintage manual lenses on modern digital cameras - Questions & Answers
Why should a modern photographer use vintage manual lenses on his super modern 'smart' digital camera?
Because they are so cheap!
This is no argument. There are many cheap modern lenses. Why go vintage?
Many vintage lenses are superior glass optically at least as good as the best modern lenses and you can get them at a fraction of the cost needed for an optically comparable modern lens.
They are heavy!
Yes they are mostly made of metal and glass with very little plastic. So what? People use to carry much heavier loads every day (think of supermarket raids).
They have no auto-focus! How can one take focused, sharp pictures without auto-focus?
Well, you have to use the focusing ring and think well where you are going to focus.
This takes too long! I am a street photographer and there is never enough time to do that.
Well, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Andre Kertez, Robert Kapa, Robert Doisenau, Lostas Balafas, Takis Tloupas, Konstantinos Manos and so many other renowned street photographers and photojournalists have attained world fame using these lenses on pure mechanical cameras even without a light meter and on film. Robert Kapa even managed to photograph the Normandy landings with such a lens!
They have this weird aperture ring. I am used to let the camera choose the aperture.
Aperture is an extremely important factor. You cannot let a machine, however smart, take important decisions for you. How can the camera know what depth of field you need to take the picture you have in your head? How can the camera know if you want your pic to have that marvelous round or elliptical bokeh instead of a polygonal one. These are important things you have to define yourself. And that's the reason you should use the aperture ring on your lens. Aperture isn't only for letting more or less light reach the camera's sensor.
They look old.
Yes. No surprise there. After all they are old. But they are beautiful. Like old people. And they are wise like old people. Not smart but wise. Modern lenses are 'smart' but they are not wise. They tell you that they can do everything better so you do not have to think for yourself. This is something that old vintage lenses never promise. You are the one who has to think and tell them what to do. But then they excel! So they force you to get a better photographer. All you need to master is the exposure triangle. And if you have that, you can concentrate on composition which is more important than sharpness.
You keep saying that these vintage lenses are often superior to modern lenses. How so?
Vintage lenses do not offer the more often than not so unnatural contrast of modern lenses. The tones are much smoother. If you need more contrast you can easily adjust it in post-processing.
Well OK, but more often than not they are not sharp!
Wrong. They are as sharp as modern ones. What you perceive as lacking sharpness is actually less contrast or micro-contrast. There is no functioning lens that isn’t sharp. At least at the center of the frame. If a lens is not sharp there then something is wrong with this particular copy.
Anyway, there are also certain shortcomings. The more, the older the lenses are. Lenses made prior to WWII had no coating. Coating was invented by the Germans during the war. Coatings are treatments applied to the outer surfaces of lens elements to reduce reflections. They comprise of one (single coating) or multiple layers (multi-coating) that are a fraction of a wavelength of light thick. After the 1940's camera lenses started to be coated, and by the 1950's most were. In the 1970's multi-coating became popular, which works even better than a single layer coating.
Some vintage lenses show a lot of flare and ghosts when the sun or other brilliant source of light is in the image or very near the frame borders.
And then there is Bokeh. This is the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in out-of-focus parts of an image. Differences in lens aberrations and aperture shape cause very different bokeh effects. So bokeh is actually a deficiency of the lens. But it also can be a great asset. There are the so called ‘bokeh monsters’ like the Helios 40-2 85mm f/1.5, the Meyer-Optik Görlitz Oreston 50 mm f/1.8 and the Meyer Trioplan 100 mm f/2.8. With these lenses you get very intriguing bokeh patterns not to be achieved with any other lens vintage or modern.
All these vintage lenses are full frame lenses. After all they were designed for 135 mm, medium or large format film! They are perfect for modern full frame SLR and mirrorless digital cameras. They can be used on cropped sensor digital cameras as well but then you lose the best of the bokeh effects around the borders of the frame.
If you decide to shoot film you can use the same lenses. No need to buy new ones. And if is there is a suitable adapter you can use the same lenses on different camera mounts. For example, on my Yashica film camera I can use lenses with C/Y mount as well as all my M42 vintage lenses with a cheap mechanical adaptor. I use these same M42 lenses on my Pentax K1ii full frame DSLR with another adapter.
Well ... All this is very enticing. Where can I find information about these old lenses?
That's an easy answer. The Internet! There you can find almost everything!
There are FB Groups dedicated to the use of vintage lenses on modern cameras.
Some of them are:
... and many more.
Then there are the lens databases like the following:
There you can find concise descriptions of almost any lens with technical specifications and diverse quality ratings.
There are also websites with tests, user reviews and Q&A.
And finally there is FLICKR. There you can study photos posted by photographers using the lenses you are interested in and these photos are much better than any test since they are the proof of the lenses’ performance in the field. This is my first stop when I am contemplating to buy a new lens. Then I look further for reviews, problem discussions, availability and current prices.
Where and How to Buy?
eBay is the obvious place to look for vintage lenses. There you can spend many hours searching, participating in bids and reading comments for sellers until you find the best offer for you. Facebook is another large market. There are several groups and individuals trading vintage equipment all over the world. And of course there are specialized shops and e-shops even international fairs for photography gear.
If you don't find what you need ... keep looking. New items surface every day.
Read carefully the customers' comments.
Stick to sellers that you know you can trust.
If you can afford it pay the higher price.
What to check
Study the photos checking for foggy or scratched glass, dented front rings and the condition of the screws. Scratched screws indicate that the lens has been dismantled so it can't be mint.
But aren't there any problems with such old lenses?
Of course there are problems. The most common are:
Stuck aperture blades, hard going focus and/or aperture ring, dust, fungus.
But these lenses are all mechanical and anything that is all mechanical can be cleaned and repaired. There are specialized repair shops for this and if you are brave enough you can do it yourself. There are more than enough DIY videos on YouTube and repair manuals and instructions on the Internet.
How do I put these lenses on my camera? There are so many different mounts, it is confusing.
To do that you need a suitable adapter. There are many such devices for nearly every camera: Sony, Canon, Nikon, Fuji, Pentax among others. Find the one that matches the lens mount to your camera mount.
My M42-mount lens collection
The Soviets
From left to right:
Back row:
TAIR-11A 135mm f/2.8 - Helios 40-2 85mm f/1.5 - MIR 20mm F3.5 MC
Front row:
Helios 44m-7 MC, 58mm f2 - Mir-1 f/2.8, 37mm
The East Germans
From left to right:
Back row:
CZJ Flektogon MC 35mm f2,4 - Meyer-Optik Orestor 100mm f/2.8 - Pentacon 200 mm f/4 - CZJ Pancolar auto 80mm, f1.8 MC
Front row:
Meyer-Optik Görlitz Oreston 50 mm f1.8 - Pentacon 29mm 1:2.8 MC - CZJ Pancolar Auto 50mm f1,8 MC
The West Germans
From left to right:
Back row:
Carl Zeiss Distagon T ZS 25mm, f2.8 - A. Schacht Ulm Edixa Travenar 135mm f/3.5 - A. Schacht Ulm Travenar 90mm f2,8 R
Front row:
Porst Color Reflex Auto 55mm f1,4 - Enna München Ennalyt 24mm f4 - Schneider-Kreuznach Edixa-Curtagon 28mm f4 - Schneider-Kreuznach Curtagon Electric 35mm, f2.8
The Japanese
From left to right:
Back row:
Yashinon Tomioka 60mm f2.8 macro - SMC Takumar 105mm f/2.8
Front row:
Pentax SMC Takumar 24mm f3.5 - SMC Fish Eye Takumar 17mm f4 - Super Takumar 85mm f1,9
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