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Share your photos with legacy lenses

Jonathan-Mac

Jonathan-Mac

Member
I have long enjoyed using old, manual film-era lenses on digital cameras and one of the main reasons for changing to FF mirrorless was to be able to use my collection of old lenses with their originally-intended field of view and focus them easily. I know there must be many like-minded people out there shooting manual on their L-mount cameras.

Let's define "legacy lenses" as those developed for film and which are manual focus only. I know there's an adapter thread but it seems to be for those using adapters which allow full functionality of automatic lenses (such as EF) on their L-mount cameras.

I'll start things off with a few favourites shot on my S5.

Pentax SMC 28mm f/2

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Pentax SMC M 50mm f/1.4

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Pentax Takumar 105mm f/2.8

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Pentax SMC 135mm f/2.5

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Vivitar (Tokina) 17mm f/3.5

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Tamron Adaptall-2 01B 24mm f/2.5

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Jonathan-Mac said:
I have long enjoyed using old, manual film-era lenses on digital cameras and one of the main reasons for changing to FF mirrorless was to be able to use my collection of old lenses with their originally-intended field of view and focus them easily. I know there must be many like-minded people out there shooting manual on their L-mount cameras.

Let's define "legacy lenses" as those developed for film and which are manual focus only. I know there's an adapter thread but it seems to be for those using adapters which allow full functionality of automatic lenses (such as EF) on their L-mount cameras.
Click to expand...

Hi Jonathan.

I really like your images, thanks for posting. As someone who only uses native Lumix lenses, can you explain how these MF lenses are mounted? Do you need a different type of adapter for each brand? And when they are on the camera, do you have to manually set anything in the menus or do you just click away?
 
Hi Peter. Each type of lens requires a specific adaptor, with the mount of the lens at one end (Pentax K, Nikon F etc) to attach the lens and an L-mount at the other, to attach to the camera. K&F Conecpt is my preferred brand - they're good quality and reasonably priced. The adpaters are essentially empty tubes to fill up the space that, on their native mounts, would have been occupied by the mirror box of an SLR, to get the lens the right distance from the sensor.

Once mounted, when you switch on the camera (at least on the S5) it will request you input the focal length, which is to allow the shake reduction to work properly. Unfortunately the focal length isn't recorded in the EXIF of the photos to help you identify the lens that was used.

To shoot, set the aperture on the lens and use the EVF/screen to focus. You will benefit from setting up the manual focus tools in the camera (focus peaking and magnification for example) to help in precise focus, that will depend on the camera. The easiest way to shoot is to use Av mode, with the camera setting the shutter speed and ISO based on the aperture you've set and the available light. You could shoot fully manual exposure if you too, of course. The only limitation is that the camera cannot set the aperture because there's no mechanical connection to do that.

I can currently adapt Pentax K, M42, Nikon F, Minolta SR and Konica AR mount lenses to my S5.
 
Jonathan-Mac said:
Hi Peter. Each type of lens requires a specific adaptor, with the mount of the lens at one end (Pentax K, Nikon F etc) to attach the lens and an L-mount at the other, to attach to the camera. K&F Conecpt is my preferred brand - they're good quality and reasonably priced. The adpaters are essentially empty tubes to fill up the space that, on their native mounts, would have been occupied by the mirror box of an SLR, to get the lens the right distance from the sensor.

Once mounted, when you switch on the camera (at least on the S5) it will request you input the focal length, which is to allow the shake reduction to work properly. Unfortunately the focal length isn't recorded in the EXIF of the photos to help you identify the lens that was used.

To shoot, set the aperture on the lens and use the EVF/screen to focus. You will benefit from setting up the manual focus tools in the camera (focus peaking and magnification for example) to help in precise focus, that will depend on the camera. The easiest way to shoot is to use Av mode, with the camera setting the shutter speed and ISO based on the aperture you've set and the available light. You could shoot fully manual exposure if you too, of course. The only limitation is that the camera cannot set the aperture because there's no mechanical connection to do that.

I can currently adapt Pentax K, M42, Nikon F, Minolta SR and Konica AR mount lenses to my S5.
Click to expand...

Thanks Jonathan! That's helpful to know. And are these manual lenses difficult to find these days, and expensive?
 
I have Minolta XG-M and SRT101 film cameras. I got a fotasy SR to L mount adapter so I could test the old film SLR lenses were working before spending money on film and development. Below are some test shots with the Minolta MD W.Rokkor 28mm f3.5, I edited the files to try an give them an old film look.

523569E2-8FA8-4E7B-A6CE-DC9BF7057572.jpeg
FF58106B-4B40-4C7D-93B6-82790B3B1FD1.jpeg
9685F89F-8C65-4B01-8B5A-2F2123310FFE.jpeg
 
Peter_W said:
Thanks Jonathan! That's helpful to know. And are these manual lenses difficult to find these days, and expensive?
Click to expand...
Manual lenses are certainly not difficult to find, after all, they were the only lenses around for decades. As for price, that can vary wildly as a function of rarity more than anything else. The humble Pentax M 50mm f/1.7 is a superb lens and yet can be easily found for €40 in very good condition. Other lenses may cost ten or twenty times that despite their age, simply because they're rare. It is quite a rabbit-hole though and I have accumulated dozens of such lenses but I enjoy using them and seeing where they differ.
 
L1000900.jpeg
a fibreglass madonna who has moved house with us twice hiding behind bushes at the back of the garden
lens is a 135mm tele elmar using a 'knock off' m to l adaptor
 
L1000906.jpega green hellebore
a problem with old lenses is inability to focus relatively closely
40mm summicron from CL using a 'close up' m to l adaptor from 7 artisans
 
Jonathan-Mac said:
Once mounted, when you switch on the camera (at least on the S5) it will request you input the focal length, which is to allow the shake reduction to work properly. Unfortunately the focal length isn't recorded in the EXIF of the photos to help you identify the lens that was used.
Click to expand...
I think this has been changed in S5II. You can store several lenses with their name and focal length. When switching on, you can choose the used lens from the stored ones and the model (name) of the lens among its focal length is stored in the EXIF data when you shoot. So all the data except the used aperture value is available.
 
Yesterday I took a recently acquired Pentax Takumar 200mm f/4 lens to the zoo on my S5

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