LENS LEARNING MKII

[FUJI]

I'm having a great deal of fun learning just what vintage lenses have to offer on Digital bodies........Here I have fitted a 1.8/55 M42 thread lens onto my Panasonic GF1......................because there are no electronic connections everything needs to be done manually after setting the Shoot With No Lens mode in-camera:

 

Both of these shots were composed in-camera, then cropped to refine the composition, they have received my usual contrast grading then final sharpening to get best results:

 

I can recommend buying vintage lenses vai Ebay, Charity Shops or Boot-Fairs, adaptors are made for most cameras and are easily and cheaply available on Ebay....................I did attempt Street Photography using the same set-up, but that is particularly difficult:

 

Best viewed LARGE...Click on Pics:

 

FUJI

[NannyFerret]

They really have to be seen in the larger size to appreciate them. I have two   M42 lens and have had fun with them but find it a bit difficult to manually focus at the moment. 

[ChrisLumix]

I have an absolutely fabulous (especially for portraits) f1.4/58mm Auto MC Rokkor, which sadly cannot be used with my superzoom Lumix FZ.  What a waste, but you seem to suggest that a cheap(ish) second hand GF without lens but with adaptor, might do the trick?

[Guest DaveW]

Not looked in Image Critique for ages. I hope you don't mind my thoughts Fuji?

 

I still prefer the images from your larger sensored Sony with it's macro lens, as to me these images are on the "soft" side.  That is OK if you are after the hazy diffused effect which works better on the flower than the bee, but may either be due to the vintage lenses (the optical coatings were not so good as present multi coatings at reducing flare) or cropping and enlarging the smaller sensor image much more than you would need with your Sony.

 

To reduce the need for excess cropping and get a larger image on the sensor of the Panasonic, since the camera takes M42 threaded items, you could try and find an old set of M42 extension tubes and extend the lens a bit so you can fill the smaller sensor with the subject, thereby avoiding needing to over enlarge a cropped image.

 

http://dsa.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1311.R1.TR1.TRC0.A0.XM42+extension+tubes&_nkw=m42+extension+tubes&_sacat=0&_from=R40

[Guest DaveW]

To illustrate the resolution you can get with Micro Four Thirds cameras and a quality lens see:-

 

http://blog.mingthein.com/2012/09/22/m43-macro-shootout/

[Leon]

pardon me for being numb, but, are older lenses poorer (is that even a word?) quality or is it the reverse?

Lenses made now I presume are more mass produced, but on the other hand we have more technologically advanced machines now  (al those syllables in one sentence, I need a lie down)

[NannyFerret]

I have two M42 lenses and they are a bit softer. I don't use them very often but got a few fairly decent shots in the garden of a blackbird with the 300mm one.

[ChrisLumix]

pardon me for being numb, but, are older lenses poorer (is that even a word?) quality or is it the reverse?

Lenses made now I presume are more mass produced, but on the other hand we have more technologically advanced machines now  (al those syllables in one sentence, I need a lie down)

 

My own (very unscientific) assessment would be that fixed lenses haven't advanced much as they had already reached a kind of apotheosis in the days of film (did any manufacturer ever better the Zeiss Planar 50mm f1.7 which was held up for years as THE standard?). But zoom lenses have continued to improve from their rather clumsy early manifestations of a few decades ago - they will always be a compromise ("ye cannae break the laws of physics, Captain!") but they're becoming a better and better compromise as years go by.

[Guest DaveW]

As with all things the quality of both old and new lenses vary.  What has changed since the old lens days is computer design and manufacture.  In the old days a lens designer spent days or weeks doing ray traces to design a lens by using an adding machine and pen and paper. Now they can achieve the same result and probably better in an hour or so on computer.

 

Also lens manufacture has changed. In the past there was a lot of skilled human input into grinding lenses, now as with engineering, they use computer controlled machines that can reproduce elements much more predictably and repeatedly than humans could. That also means that the so called "cheap" lens manufacturers, who now use the same computer controlled machinery, given the same lens design computer program to enter and using the same materials can turn out the same lens just as good as say Leica or Zeiss can, all that stops them is cost and permission to use the program.

 

In fact some top of the range lenses now branded Zeiss are made by Cosina who also make budget lenses and I believe Minolta (now owned by Sony) also made most later Leica lenses and even cameras for them:-

 

"In 1972, Minolta drew up a formal cooperation agreement with Leitz. Leitz desperately needed expertise in camera body electronics, and Minolta felt that they could learn from Leitz's undoubted optical expertise. Tangible results of this cooperation were the Leica CL/Minolta CL, an affordable rangefinder camera to supplement the Leica M range. The Leica CL was built by Minolta to Leica specifications. Other results were the Leica R3, which was in fact the Minolta XE-1 with a Leica lens mount, viewfinder, and spot metering system."

 

"The ZM camera is made for Zeiss by Cosina in Japan, as are most of the ZM lenses. The ZM camera is based on the Voigtlander Bessa body. (Cosina also makes Voigtlander branded rangefinder cameras and lenses, and is an OEM manufacturer to quite a few Japanese companies). Zeiss claims that though most of their ZM lens line is made in Japan, they are designed by Zeiss and made to their specifications and under their supervision. This is a similar situation to when Zeiss lenses used on Contax cameras were primarily made by Kyocera in Japan, with only a handful actually made by Zeiss in Germany, those being the most difficult to make, and therefore the most expensive."

 

As with Hornby Trains, Dyson Vacuum Cleaners and Apple I-Phones (all made or assembled in China) the name stamped on the product does not mean it is still made by them, but usually only who designed it and sometimes that is not always true since even Canon and Nikon in past film days bought in Cosina made and designed cameras and simply had their own name put on them in an attempt to break into the budget end of the market.  That also sometimes still happens with kit lenses where the top end camera makers buy in a cheaper lens design from an independent and have their name put on it because they cannot make them as cheap themselves. However even if "broken on the rack" most of the top name manufacturers will claim they make everything themselves, it is only admitted many years later they actually subcontracted such items!

 

As to how complex this outsourcing has become there is a supposedly true story that Kodak in the past subcontracted some parts of one of their cameras for manufacturing. One of their bosses was touring Kodak's own factory and noticed some parts that looked familiar. He asked about them and found as they had some spare capacity they had taken on manufacturing these parts for another firm.  It turned out Kodak in ignorance were producing parts for their own camera for other people who then sold them on to the subcontractor they had outsourced them to in the first place, who then sold them back to them, each making a profit on the items.  So complex has the outsourcing now become in the camera business with subcontractors putting out some manufacture to other subcontractors and so on that the named camera maker often does not know who actually does make all the bits!

 

"Cosina has manufactured camera bodies for many well-known camera brands, including Canon, Contax, Nikon, Revue, Olympus, Vivitar, and Yashica. Cosina also manufactures the modern Voigtländer Bessa line of cameras and optics, along with the newly revived Zeiss Ikon rangefinder camera and lenses."

 

There were some superb lenses made in the past, but also the equivalent of todays kit lenses were often built to a price as is the case today.  Some of the old fixed focal length lenses, being of simpler construction and hence easier to optically design, may outperform many of todays lenses apart from their lens coatings not being as good as modern multicoating. The advent of floating elements into modern designs to facilitate autofocus, because bodily moving the lens as in the past to focus would need much larger focusing motors and hence rapid battery drain, often complicated optical design and meant many modern autofocus lenses were not quite as good optically as the old manual ones. It is sometimes claimed that floating element macro lenses are still not quite as good optically as the older more simple manual focus designs from the same manufacturer where the whole lens was just shifted forward to focus.

 

As Chris says, zoom lenses have improved significantly from the early days due to computer design and manufacturer, but complex designs like those with many moving elements are seldom as good as even an old fixed focal length lens used at the same focal length and aperture.

 

I am all for using old lenses, but surely there has to be some advantage over modern ones to do so, not just simply for the sake of doing so and getting inferior optical quality? If you want to use old lenses these links may be of interest:-

 

http://aggregate.org/dit/OLDLENS/

 

http://www.photodo.com/topic_111.html

[ChrisLumix]

Good points Dave, well made.

 

Your final question has only one answer, I feel - if you own an old lens and it has always given superb results, then any method to continue its use on a digicam would be welcome.

 

It's also interesting to note that Panasonic's Lumix range of cameras has many with badged Leica lenses, but many also now are badged Lumix. I believe that Panasonic have a licence from Leitz to use their lens design (presumably held on computer) to construct lenses for their own cameras. As you point out, these would  be identical to Leica lenses optically, though Panasonic would encase them in their own mechanical devices. Probably the Lumix-badged lenses are also Leica designs, but maybe there are variations in the licensing agreement?

[Guest DaveW]

Also see:-

 

http://www.rogerandfrances.com/subscription/ps%20old%20lenses.html