Film camera lenses.

[Eric The Viking]

I'm presently doing macro work with a Pentax K-series macro lens on the front of my Canon 30D.

Canon's lens mount is wider than the others (all of them, I think). This leaves enough room, just, for an adaptor to go inside the Canon mount. there are drawbacks though:

• The lens becomes fully manual (not even auto stop-down!)
• You lose infinity focus, because of the thickness of the lens adaptor (it's only about one millimetre, but that's enough).
• Because the adaptor is made of thin material (it has to be), mounting and removing it (it goes with the lens) is fiddly and requires care.
• Pentax chemical-era lenses have a lever sticking out at the back to stop the lens down when the shutter is pressed (so you can compose and focus at the widest aperture). Other makes have this too. You cannot use these lenses unmodified with a full-frame-sensor Canon body, as the lever fouls the mirror (and will cause damage when first attempted!). The Pentax-K lenses are fine with an APS-sized sensor though, and you can dismantle the back of the lens fairly easily and remove the offending bits, reversibly and without actual damage. I don't know enough about Minolta to know - you ought to check before trying it!
• There is potential for light leaks (something I ought to check!).

My adaptor came from eBay and was a present to me, so I can't tell you which 'shop' exactly. It wasn't expensive and it has a chip on-board to keep the camera body happy (otherwise it thinks there isn't a lens and won't work at all).

Advice:

• you stand a better chance with Canon than other makes, because of the large-diameter bayonet.
• Check on the web to see if anyone's done it with Minolta lenses.
• If there's a professional camera repairer near you, nip in and ask their advice. I'm lucky n having a good one a few streets away, who doesn't mind the occasional daft question!
• Third-party bellows units, such as the old BPM ones will let you mix mountings, for example, back bayonet Canon, front Minolta. Obviously this is only good for macro stuff, but it works well. The BPM mounting is simple, and a competent machinist, given a bayonet lens for your chosen digital body, ought to be able to make one to fit (or you might buy a cheap lens and cannibalize it).

I find my 50mm fast primes make excellent portrait lenses (effective length = 80mm). One disadvantage of APS sensors is the increase in effective depth of field. With the exception of instant review, I find digital cameras quite limiting compared to chemical (can't afford to go full frame at the moment).

Hope that helps,

E.

 

[Paul Chapman]

My manual Nikkor lenses from my film-based Nikon cameras work on my digital Nikon D3100. Needed a long lens so I've been using my 200mm f/4 Nikkor on the D3100. You don't get any of the camera's auto features, so you have to focus it manually and set the shutter speed and aperture manually, but that's no problem. The aperture stops down automatically when you fire the shutter. The lens works really well.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[dickm]

So if wide landscapes are your thing, then you'll probably have to bite the bullet and buy an expensive dedicated w/a lens. Like this one :shock:

Da** - it was my birthday last week. Should have asked for one in Pentax fitting

 

[dickm]

As I said in a previous post in this thread not all dSLRS have small sensors - the Sony a900 is full frame and the widest lens I have is 17mm and, of course, there is NO crop factor so it's performs as a 17mm lens.

Minolta made APS interchangeable lens cameras - the Vectis. But no adapters have ever been made commercially to fit them to either the Sony dSLR/SLT or Sony NEX ranges.

110 size is tiny 13 × 17 mm - APS is 30.2 × 16.7 mm. A 110 lens would vignette dreadfully on a APS-C sensor - if you could find a way to fit one.

Take your point about full frame dSLRs, but how many of us can afford them ? Ditto about 110 vs APS - wasn't thinking.

Was the Minolta APS fitting standard Minolta, or was it a special? If it was the latter, that was probably yet another nail in the self-made coffin that was APS .

Now, where can I find a cheap 22mm Pentax bayonet lens.....??

 

[RogerP]

Was the Minolta APS fitting standard Minolta, or was it a special?

There are 2 autofocus Minolta lens bayonets:

Minolta A ... fits the SLR and dSLR Minolta cameras and now also the Sony dSLR and SLT cameras

Minolta Vectis V ... fit the Vectis APS-C and Minolta RD-3000 cameras. There was an adapter to take A lenses to Vectis mount but it is extremely rare.

Sony have recently introduced the E mount for the NEX series of cameras. There is a Sony adapter for A lenses to NEX body which makes the A mount lenses fully compatible on the NEX body.

In summary, with the right adapter, A mount lenses can be fitted to the Minolta Vectis body and the Sony NEX body.
So far as I know no adapter was ever made to fit Vectis lenses to any other mount.
E mount lens cannot be fitted to A mount cameras or Vectis cameras.

I'll not delve into the earlier manual focus lenses except to say they can be fitted via an adapter to NEX bodies.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Now, where can I find a cheap 22mm Pentax bayonet lens.....??

I sold a 20mm lens a while back - they go for high prices!

I kept my SMC 24mm, although I doubt it'll ever be used again in anger. I'm very fond of it though.

One issue when using full frame lenses on APS cameras is flare. You need a good lens hood when using a wide - the difference with out of frame bright lights is marked, more so if it's a zoom.

I've got the Sigma 12-24, and I've learned the hard way. One cheat is 'black wrap' AKA "Cinefoil": stick a 3" wide strip round the lens perimeter, and hey presto! A fully-adjustable lens hood. Make sure, though that you check the full frame - if your viewfinder crops it's a PITA - as usual DAMHIK!

E.