Cameras

[woodpig]

Slightly odd - I'd have thought Contax for SLR and Leica for Rangefinder, Hassleblad for medium format, if you want "Classic German"

BugBear

Hassleblad are Swedish. :roll:

 

[bugbear]

Slightly odd - I'd have thought Contax for SLR and Leica for Rangefinder, Hassleblad for medium format, if you want "Classic German"

BugBear

Hassleblad are Swedish. :roll:

I stand cörrected.

BugBear

 

[marcros]

What gets me about digital photography is the fact that you can take thousands of photographs for free, store them on a card the size of a fingernail, and see the results instantly. It is such a difference from the old pre-digital days. I had a Rollei TLR taking 12 pictures on 1 film. I used to carefully compose each shot, take a light meter reading etc, and rarely took 2 of the same subject because each frame was fairly expensive. These days I just hold down the shutter release and shoot 6 straight off, not even bothering to compose the shots. I might delete any rubbish, but then again, might not. It is a bit like typing on a typewriter versus a word processor. You don't need to take care with a WP, just correct any mistakes flagged up by the spellchecker.

Later on I bought a Pentax 35mm and a 36 exposure film could easily stay in the camera for months. Holiday snaps? By the time the film was finished and processed I would have forgotten what the pictures were.

K

True. With all the gains and the all the obvious advantages over film you always lose a bit. . . . the anticipation, perhaps the disappointment, the surprise. It was a bit like being a kid at Christmas. That's gone, it's just so easy to go take another few shots and get the instant gratification.
A few weeks ago I met a rather nice young lady (would like to meet more!). I doubt she was much older than 20. She had just gone out and bought a s/h Leica SLR film camera! I was shocked. I thought that would be the preserve of doddering old fools such as myself.

There is something about the Leicas that is drawing me. I am looking at an film m2 rangefinder at the moment, and struggling to resist.

 

[Racers]

Regarding using film camera lenses on DSLRs, are there any issues here? If I bought a Pentax DSLR body, could I just fit my existing old bayonet fitting lenses on? What compromises would there be (such as autofocus etc)? Surely it is not as simple as that.
K

Decent old Pentax lenses aren't as plentiful second hand as they used to be as you can fit them on the latest Pentax DSLR's. Even screw fit lenses can be fitted with an adaptor. Obviously you only have manual focus but you do get auto exposure with the later ones.

I know the pro Nikon's cameras do work with lenses back to 1974!

Pete

 

[woodpig]

The beauty of the Pentax is that you get shake reduction even with screw fit lenses made in the 1950's!

 

[bugbear]

The beauty of the Pentax is that you get shake reduction even with screw fit lenses made in the 1950's!

The beauty of (vintage, cheap, natch) Gitzo, Manfrotto and Benbo is that you get shake reduction with all camera and all lenses.

BugBear

 

[RogerS]

You don't have to take far, far more than with film. You'll get better photos if you take less and consider each properly before pressing the button as you did with film rather than machine gunning in the hope you'll get a good one.

Ne'er a truer word. A friend of mine is a professional photographer and after he went digital his photos went all to pot. Snap happy.
He fixed the problem by getting his assistant to count the shots just as he'd have done with a 35mm roll. He therefore spent much more time thinking about each shot. Problem solved.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Regarding using film camera lenses on DSLRs, are there any issues here? If I bought a Pentax DSLR body, could I just fit my existing old bayonet fitting lenses on? What compromises would there be (such as autofocus etc)? Surely it is not as simple as that.

K

Well I use my old, film Pentax lenses on my Canon 6D...

 

[Eric The Viking]

There are advantages to staying with Pentax, but sadly for me it took them far too long to make a decent full-frame DSLR body. I went Canon ten years ago.

Pentax (Asahi) were the company which pioneered multi-coated lenses, and the SMC and some of the K-series lenses were superb value. I've kept a few, especially an 85mm f/2 and a 50mm f/1.4, both of which are optically outstanding. The trouble is now that the quality is well known and s/h prices are through the roof.

They will fit on some Canon bodies with an adaptor (fully manual), and that does work pretty well if you're used to it. There are issues with the mirror swing on Canon full-frame DSLRs though. I can use some of my Pentax lenses with slight dismantling, or using a short extension tube to get round the problem - not always OK, but usually OK for portraiture. The old threaded lenses are easier than K-mount as it's usually very easy (and reversible) to remove the stop-down pin. The K-lenses have a lever, and sometimes a guard, so they are a bit more complex. Sometimes a hacksaw is involved so it's not for the faint hearted!

Canon cameras have a much wider bayonet ring than anyone else, which makes it practical to make adaptors for most other lens systems, with minimal loss of infinity focus.

I have a number of Zeiss lenses for Exa/Exacta which my dad gave me They'd probably fit too, I think but I haven't seen an adaptor yet. Beautifully made cameras, but the bayonet mount was their undoing - far too small.

 

[woodpig]

The Pentax K1 is half the price of similar spec cameras and ten places clear of anything made by Canon by dxomarks current ranking. It's packed full of features not possible with fixed sensors in Canon and Nikon bodies.

Sony is the company to watch though, especially as they make the sensors in many of Nikons cameras. :wink:

https://www.dxomark.com/cameras#hideAdv ... pe=rankDxo

Personally though I wish I had one of the new Olympus DSLR's as I've always liked Macro and they have in-camera focus stacking. I hope other makers catch up with this feature. :wink:

 

[Eric The Viking]

The Pentax K1 is half the price of similar spec cameras and ten places clear of anything made by Canon by dxomarks current ranking. It's packed full of features not possible with fixed sensors in Canon and Nikon bodies.

With the exception of the physical bayonet mount, I don't much like Canon's feature set. I _do_ like the usability of its pro models though - they seemed to put much more effort into the ergonomics of my 30D than the "ist D" I had (the first Pentax digital body). The "ist D" was rather a let-down, given how good the LX was (I still have mine, although it hasn't had a roll through it for over a decade now) . The only redeeming feature was having an aperture ring on auto- lenses: I still really miss that. And obviously, moving the sensor instead of complex lens optics is way more sensible for many reasons. Infuriatingly, my Canon 6D vibrates its sensor to shake off dust - if it can do that why the **&$?? didn't they move across to doing anti-shake that way and ignore the battery-consuming optics? There's a lot of two-way comms between lens and camera body.

I do have fun with Magic Lantern though. There are infuriating limitations with the hardware on the 6D - the card i/f chip has very limited bandwidth, so you can't do full-frame raw video, but the feature set is a huge improvement on what Canon give you out-of-the-box.I just wish they'd be more forthcoming about their firmware - probably 70% of the development effort goes into reverse-engineering.

Honestly, Canon come across as rather complacent, even smug about their semi-pro range. They are nice, but the competition is fierce, and the lenses in particular are, IMHO, stupidly expensive for what they offer. There's a lot of third party ones out there that are far better value.

And, as discussed, putting the image stabilizing mechanics in the lens makes for a very heavy camera bag (you need more batteries too). If I was going digital from scratch today, I probably would have stuck with Pentax - the K1 is impressive, even if it probably has far too many controls, for me anyway. When I worked in pro- audio, the professional kit was the stuff with fewer knobs and switches (generally speaking), but better performance.

E.

 

[graduate_owner]

Ok, so the Pentax bayonet will fit exactly and properly on a DSLR Pentax body, but what then? Manual focussing I would be happy with, also manual zoom ( I would prefer manual zoom actually) But what is this hacksaw business? Is that to remove the FAD lever? What if I leave the lever in place? And what hapoenx then with stopping down? Anything else to know?

I would not want to buy a Pentax, then find the constraints are too much hassle.

Many thanks for all the replies guys.

K

 

[DiscoStu]

I love Nikon DSLR's and my Nikon F90 film camera. However sometimes my camera phone is the best camera - just because I have it to hand. I also have numerous compacts but my Panasonic LUMIX is brilliant partly that's because it's waterproof partly because it's small so it can go with me when I'm being active etc.

I also have a go pro - well I own it but actually my daughter seems to have claimed it and that gets some great shots and video with it. Sometimes the best camera is just the one that happens to be there.

The camera is one thing but the lens you put in front of it is far more important. My favourite lens cost nearly double what the camera body did. However it won't be replaced as often.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Eric The Viking]

Ok, so the Pentax bayonet will fit exactly and properly on a DSLR Pentax body, but what then? Manual focussing I would be happy with, also manual zoom ( I would prefer manual zoom actually) But what is this hacksaw business? Is that to remove the FAD lever? What if I leave the lever in place? And what hapoenx then with stopping down? Anything else to know?

AFAIK, Pentax fits Pentax just fine (manual control mind).

The hacksaw thing is for fitting PK lenses onto CANON full-frame bodies, with a PK-Canon adaptor. And even then it's probably only corner-case lenses. It's because the mirror can hit the bits that stick out at the back of the lens (but it depends - it may not). With Canon APS-sensor bodies it's not necessary at all, anyway, as the mirror is a lot smaller and doesn't go near the back of the lens (for standard lenses and longer f.l.). I've used Pentax lenses on my 30D for years (fully manual) with no mods and no issues.

If you want wide-angles you're better off usually going with modern ones in any case, as they tend to have aspherical glass (optically better).

 

[woodpig]

I'd like a nice compact with a decent size sensor like one of the Fuji's but I can't really justify the cost for the amount of pictures I take. Mobile phones though have taken a huge chunk out of the compact camera market.

 

[graduate_owner]

Hi Erik, and apologies for keeping on about this, but what exactly does manal control mean? Would the lenses stop down automatically on releasing the shutter or would it be manual diaphragm?

K

 

[Beau]

I'd like a nice compact with a decent size sensor like one of the Fuji's but I can't really justify the cost for the amount of pictures I take. Mobile phones though have taken a huge chunk out of the compact camera market.

Just get it and blow the cost. Got myself a Sony RSX100 and it's great. As said above somewhere you take the best picture with the camera you have with you. The big sensor compacts fit in your pocket but take pictures nearly as good as full DSLRs probably better in my hands as probably more to mess up on a DSLR.

 

[MarkDennehy]

Some of the older second-hand DSLRs are going for reasonable money right now anyway (like I said above, a Nikkon D70 body costs £55 on ebay from any number of sellers right now). The joys of technological progress

 

[Racers]

The best Nikon bargain is the D300, its a Pro body with more bells and whistles than you can shake a stick at, for about £300 it was £1000 new.
It will meter and focus with all Nikon lenses back to 1974, I did my photo a day with one.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/93829702@ ... 0065967042

Pete

 

[MarkDennehy]

When the bargain is six times the price of the cheaper option...