How and why to use Old manual lenses. Answer to question.. Are they good or not???
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- čas přidán 9. 05. 2018
- Hello CZcamsrs.
The question that always is argued on CZcams is how do you use old vintage manual lenses or even newer ones on a DSLR or mirrorless/
You might ask yourself why you would want to use vintage lenses or else manual lenses on your DSLR or mirrorless camera. There are some reasons why you might want to use them.
First, you might own them already - like I do. Most of my old Pentax lenses belonged to my film gear
Another reason you might want to get into vintage lenses is your budget - old lenses can be very cheap and you can get a lot of them on ebay and especially at garage sales for 10 to 20 Dollars. Even if you buy a new manual lens it will be cheaper than the auto-focus ones. Except the Zeiss lenses which are really expensive.
The third reason: They’re great build quality and it is fun to shoot with if you like to manually focus, especially when you’re shooting a lot of video. These lenses are designed for manual focus and have a much longer focus ring that lets you focus more precisely than with most modern lenses.
So, you have a couple of manual lenses and now you need to adapt them. Because of the shorter distance between the sensor and the lens mount on mirrorless cameras you can adapt pretty much every lens to them. In the case of old vintage lenses you actually only need a piece of metal to hold the lens and camera together because they’re completely manual and there are no electronics inside the lenses.
No matter which mirrorless camera you use and which kind of lens you want to adapt, you can pretty much find an adapter for any combination on Amazon or Ebay. There are a lot of cheap ones out there that cost around 20 Dollars and they do work.
Recommended settings
Now, if you shoot with an old lens you have to set most things manually but there are some software features inside most mirrorless cameras that can help you. Since you have to focus manually I recommend turning on a function called focus peaking that is built into pretty much all mirrorless cameras. With focus peaking turned on you’ll see red outlines on your display or electronic viewfinder that show the areas of the frame that are in focus.
Focus peaking is pretty good but not always very precise. If you’re using a wide open aperture I would recommend to zoom in digitally as well to really nail the focus. After a while you’ll get used to that, especially if you program a custom key for that feature alone. With a bit of practice you’ll be able to focus very fast with this method.
All these vintage lenses like my Pentax mount once or Canon FD or old Nikon glass have a manual aperture ring on the lens itself. So you always have to choose your aperture manually, there is no way to shoot in full auto mode. But, if you don’t want to set the exposure completely manually you can choose the Aperture Priority mode, dial in the aperture manually on the lens and let the camera choose the shutter speed and ISO.
What you can also do is go into full manual mode, set the aperture on the lens and dial in the shutter speed manually and then go to auto ISO. This is useful if your camera does not have in body image stabilization and you’re shooting with longer lenses and really need a fast shutter speed.
Anyway let`s see that video about the advantages and disadvantages of old lenses.
So if you like this video please like and subscribe , if you want to add something to this video , please feel free to leave a comment down below . Other than that I wish you a great week and I`ll see you in the next one .
You can see my work here.
blueskyphotography.zonerama.com / www.flickr.com/photos/1406555...
Good video. Generally I love old, manual lenses but sometimes I also use modern constructions. I really like and value the time spent on working with these old lenses .
I really like using them, especially when I am not in a hurry.
Thanks for this video on manual lenses. I always look forward for your videos. Actually I took an interest in manual lenses just a few month ago. And they are cheap compered to the modern lenses. Please teach us more on this subject.
I just received my Helios 44m-4 58mm 2.8 which I bought a few weeks ago on e-bay. For me it is a new experience in photography. You shoot everything in manual both lens and camera. I think this is the best way to teach yourself photographic techniques. I am trying it out with my Nikon D7100. I have ordered a INDUSTAR-61 for my Sony A6000 and waiting for its arrival .
Ariam Aseerwatham good man. 😂😂😂 You will see that it's really fun. I love it.
I've got an approx 45yr old S-M-C Takumar 85mm f/1.8 that is much sharper than 5 or 6 of my modern non-L Canon lenses. It actually blows away many modern lenses in my opinion. This old 85mm Takumar lens is an exception to what your saying in your video as I have over 25 vintage lenses and have tested them extensively; about all of them except the 85mm are not as sharp as my good Canon L-Series Lenses.
Jim Durfee it is good to know this. What is the model of the lens exactly? Just because maybe there is a newer version or something? Thanks anyway for sharing this with us.
Given I still shoot film fairly regularly, using manual focus lenses isn't something that worries me. With focus peaking in modern mirrorless cameras you've even less to worry about. Anybody shooting mirrorless should give mounting vintage lenses a try. The lenses are cheap and plentiful and so long as the grease hasn't dried up and there are no nasty fungus or haze on the elements you will get great images. Of course they won't be the last word in sharpness but they have unique characters of their own. To be honest without pixel peeping I don't think most people would even notice the lack of overall sharpness in these old lenses anyway. 😊
dunnymonster yes that's true. It's good to give a try and learn, experience.
Thanks for the great video. Getting to buy manual Zeiss Makro-Planar lens. Although is not so old....
Zack Choy the 100mm macro Planar is an excellent lens. Although you have to be patient with focusing, but when you nail it, it is beautiful.
Good Video. I personally like to take photos with manual lenses. Started photoraphy in the digital age i used only AF lenses. But after a couple of years i began to shoot film and this is what make me thinking different, look for the best composition and come down and slow. Now today i shoot both of them..digital with MF lenses and Film with AF lenses and otherwise. Yes there are a plenty of good old lenses out there ( Canon FD L lenses) wich are good enough today. But the most cheap lenses from yesterday arent as good as the new lenses. And the most important innovation from today is a good working image stabilizer on new lenses! They are so effective espacially on long telephoto lenses. And manual lenses on Dslr today is a pain, no matter if it is old or new :-( My conclusion for me is that i like to use old MF lenses but not everytime. And what is about your language? It is good enough to understand all of your expressions..so dont worry! I wish i can talk like you without failure ;-)
Mathias Anders thanks mate for the support and for sharing your thoughts. I really appreciate it.
Hi Attila,
I would recommend this blog hispan.hu/ Hispan has some interesting ideas and tools.
It's worth a read, also there is a facebook community as well.
At the minute i have no experience with manual lens but will have later on, thanks for the video, as informative an useful as usual.
Szép hétvégét,
Üdv: Béla
MrCorwq thanks mate, I will check it out. Kellemes hétvégét neked.
Good info but honestly we Need to see more examples of lens make and models of what you recommend and less talking head.