Favorite legacy lens to use on Micro 43?

I have an OMD and I've been experimenting with legacy lenses and I wanted to ask everyone which legacy lens is your favorite to use on Micro 43?

Yashica ML 50mm f1.7.  Great lens!

-J

I've never really got into legacy lens with M43, primary because of the sensor size, it effectively double your FL, so for the most part you'll end up with tele or extremely tele (since most legacy were on the 35mm film FL).

28 = 56mm

35 = 70mm

50 = 100mm ect...

which I don't use much, i tend to stay around the 30-50ish (35mm FL equivalent). so on an NEX i can still use the 28 and the 35mm.

But if you have to ask about legacy lens, I don't touch the Leica, they're too expensive.

#1 for me has got to be the hexanon lens, they make great primes for cheap. 28, 35, 50, 135 ect... (I skip the 85 and 100 because they're also very expensive).

#2 is the minoltas rokkors, they are also cheap but harder to pick because they built so many variations of their lens.

#3 is the canon FDs, a little more expensive than the above, but they have a lot of different lens to choose from.

#4 is the Olympus OM, good compact lens, just too dam expensive even for legacy manual focus.

#5 is the M42 mount lens, mostly from pentax, these guys work on many different brands via adapters, so they also get hunted a lot. pricey lens compare to #1-3

I skip out on the pentax and nikon, those guys get hunted by pentax/nikon user, the price is off the chart, not even worth the effort/money.

Also skip out on the russian/3rd parties maker. There will always be someone posting their super images on these type of lens, but finding a good one is a 50/50, they don't have good QC, it's just a gamble, you might end up with 10 bad copies if you're not careful, just go with camera maker brands and call it a day (for not much more). I've only got one that's comparable to the camera manufacture brand (a mamiya sekor 55 1.4), but that lens is pretty well known, and so is mamiya sekkor, they produced medium format cameras.

Notice I don't write down a specific lens, because for the most part they're quite equal, a 28 2.8 from #1-4 will probably performed the same, and for the most part it holds true (I have like 6 different 50s from various manufacture, yes they're different but at the end of the day, pretty close to each other).

Are there any good 35mm f1.4 legacy lenses out there?

I have more shots on my nikkor 300 3.5 f mount than any other.   I probably 'like' my nikkor 55 1.4 more (like, it's portable!).   This is today with the 300, because it was christmas, the lens was there, and so was this young juvenile.

Minolta MC Rokkor-X 50mm f1.4.  Was insanely cheap ($10 or $20) and is a nice shallow DOF portrait lens.

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This never would have happened if Tedolf was still alive.

There might be but they would be expensive, not much sense to buy, better to put money towards native lenses. Also image quality can be questionable for legacy lenses shorter than 40mm. Starting from 40mm and longer the lenses became more or less telecentric so they work better on digital sensors.

If I was into legacy lenses my favorite would probably be Canon FD SSC 50mm F1.4, then maybe Pentax Super Takumar 50mm F1.4 or some of its variations, and Minolta MD 50mm F1.4 is also good. I formed my opinion based on photos I saw on the internet. I don't have these Canon FD or Pentax lenses but from what I saw these were some sharper legacy lenses. I have Minolta MD 50mm F1.4 but I stopped using it once I got Olympus 45mm lens. And I had good luck with Russian Helios 44-2 58mm F2.0 which is also decently sharp at F2.0. But there may be sample variations with Russian lenses, I'm not sure.

I also had Minolta MC 58mm F1.4 lens - this was too soft, Sears 55mm F1.4 and Chinon 55mm F1.7 (supposedly built by Tomioka Japanese company, commonly considered a good stuff) - nothing special, just not sharp enough.

Another interesting legacy lens is Canon FD 135mm F2.5. It's decently sharp and it can be bought for less than $80, I think.

I have Konica 50mm/1.8 and 40mm/1.8, and both of them can produce very good image. The 40mm 1.8 is even sharper than my Panny 14mm/2.5

Zeiss 35mm 1.4 - beautiful results wide open.

Leica Apo-Telyt 180mm 3.4 - bitingly sharp.

Leica Macro-Elmarit 60mm 2.8 - Just wow...

Others which give very good results, but I use them less because of their FL or because they are covered pretty well by native MFT lenses or the above:

Zeiss 85mm 2.8

Leica Elmarit 90mm 2.8

Leica Tele-Elmarit 90mm 2.8

Leica Summicron 90mm 2.0

Leica 250mm 4.0

Zeiss 200mm 4.0

Enna 240mm 4.5 - a true pocket tele and quite decent

A whole gaggle of lenses around 50mm, many of which do very well, but I find the Oly 45mm much more practical...

A whole bunch of other lenses as well, but many don't give the results that these do, and using a huge ultrawide to get a 30 or 40mm equivalent doesn't  make sense either.

Here I must completely disagree!

All brands have their stellar lenses and their dogs.

Some brands, like Zeiss or Leica, have fewer dogs than others, but they also have lenses where the price/performance ratio is even worse than usual... 

Each lens needs to be looked at individually. There are huge differences between similar lenses, even from well-known brands (don't get me started...)

The Zeiss Contax G 45mm F2 : it is small and light and incredibly sharp. Next one is the Zeiss Contax G 90mm F2.8., also light for the reach offered and sharp (but a little lesthse than the 45nn).

But the lenses were AF lenses and the adapter you have to use may make the focusing a little tricky. Being sharp Zeiss lenses and good glass, they are not cheap, even used. For some one still having them from film time, they are well worth adapting, but for someone just wanting to play a little around with MF and legacy lenses, just look for a cheap 50mm FD lenses, or something like that.

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rrr_hhh

The Zeiss 35mm 1.4 works very well with m43 (at least a G2 and OM-D - see my other answer), but is expensive, big and heavy.

The Nikon has many fans. I had it once, but didn't like its rendering & got rid of it. No idea how it interfaces with a sensor.

There are certainly others as well, but fast shorter FF lenses often do cause interface problems and buying one just for that use probably isn't worth it (I keep & use mine to shoot B&W film).

From Minolta legacy, there is the Rokkor 35mm HH ƒ/1.8 MD

Jean-Pierre

On m4/3 when I had the G2, Canon FD 500 F/4.5L. Easy really, for birds I found 300 too short and the 800 is tripod only, so the 500 is the perfect hand held lens IMO.

Danny.

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Birds and macro. NEX and m4/3
http://www.birdsinaction.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nzmacro/

A beautifully built, fast, tele-prime giving me the equivalent of 270mm with my Panasonic Lumix G1.  Needless to say, it doesn't work perfectly in all light conditions (better in the warm, evening light of winter).

The manual focussing of the G1 is a "must" and so is a tripod.

But, if one works at it, one gets some good results.

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Dave

Mullet-fishing on the Knysna estuary.

i use legacy lenses almost all the time on my E-M5

here you can see samples i made with my legacy lenses:

http://forum.mflenses.com/wolverinex-testing-my-lenses-series-link-list-t39524.html

there are many lenses that i like, but ones that i like best are:

Tokina AT-X 80-200mm/2.8

Tokina AT-X 90mm/2.5 macro

Vivitar 90mm/2.8 macro made by Komine (not Series 1)

Helios 40-2 85mm/1.5

Jupiter 9 85mm/2

Olympus 90mm/2 macro

Olympus 500mm/8 reflex

etc...

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my gear:
E-M5+45mm/1.8
E-520+12-60+14-42+70-300+Sigma 105 + FL-50R+EC20 + SRF-11
and good number of legacy lenses (list in profile)

If there are, they will be incredibly expensive, and they would probably suffer from "ghosting" at f/1.4, so you'd been to stop the lens down anyway to get a sharp and contrasty image.

You could probably get a Sigma 30mm m43 lens for less (don't forget the adapters cost £20/$30), and it is usable and sharp wide open at f/2.8.

I have some Olympus OM lenses, but they were given to me for free by a relative (his OM-10 kit was just cluttering the place up). I'm on the lookout for a OM 100mm f/2.8, and a Konica Hexanon 50mm f/1.4. But I still have issues with legacy lenses:

- The focal length issues. Most legacy lenses were designed for 135 film, so as a previous poster said, used on m43 the image circle is cropped and the angle of view becomes the same as a 135 system lens with double the focal length.

So the common wide angle 24mm lenses become a "normal" on m43, and seeing as we only have one native normal lens which is build up to a quality and not down to a price, these aren't a bad idea if you can find one cheap. But I've never seen one I'd consider cheap (£120 for an f/2.8 seems to be typical, £400 for the much more rare f/2.0 lenses, at which point you might as well get the PannyLeica 25mm).

The 28mm and 35mm lenses then find themselves in the "neither here nor there" focal lengths that the Sigma 30mm is in. And then you get to the 50mm lenses, which are plentiful because they were typically the lens included with the camera body, and they work quite well as portrait lenses. But again, the Oly 45mm native lens is only £220/$400. If you can get a legacy 50mm for £50 I say go for it, but once they show up above £100 then it gets a bit crazy. Then there is a gap in the focal lengths until 85mm, which become quite nice telephotos. Actually, this is what I'd say legacy lenses are best for, as quite fast medium telephoto lenses.

There are some systems that had much smaller film frames or sensors that 135 film, so they will have more lenses at shorter focal lengths. Like the Olympus Pen F system, it used half a 35mm frame for each picture, with a crop factor of 1.44. But these all seem to be getting gobbled up by NEX owners desperate for any kind of lenses  so the price of theses lens has just got stupid. Then there are C Mount lenses, for CCTV camera. But most of these were designed for way smaller sensors than m43, and its only by mistake that some of these (usually from 50mm upwards) throw a larger image circle than they need to so they don't vignette on m43. They are a total lottery.

- The mount adapter issue. Most film SLRs had a register distance (gap between the film and the mount) of 40 to 46mm. M43 has a register distance on 20mm. So the adapter is a "spacer tube", with the lens hanging a couple of centimetres off the front of your camera. I have an OM 135mm f/3.5, one of the smallest, lightest 135mm film SLR lenses ever, and with adapter it is 100mm long. Its about 300 grams (its true they don't make them like they used to, the barrels on these old lenses tend to be brass), and while I have a native lens that weighs that much, the centre of gravity for the adapted lens is much further forward, so the issue of hand shake is worse. On an EM-5, if you had the optional grip a 135mm would be workable without a tripod, but otherwise I'd say the 100m lenses are at about the limits of hand holding.

The better option would be to get lenses that are for mounts with much smaller register distances, so the lenses aren't hanging out front so much. Again, there is the Pen F system, but as mentioned before PEN F lenses are now more expensive on auction sites than their equivalent m43 native lenses from Amazon.com! If you have some already, or someone you know has some and is willing to give them away, then getting the adapter makes sense, otherwise not really. Then there are m39 and M mount rangefinder lenses. Again, if you go looking for these from German or Japanese makers on auction sites the prices will make your eyes water. Tedolf will tell you his collection of Soviet rangefinder lenses are wonderful, and they can be had for cheap. But some words of caution - the quality control of Soviet lenses was poor, so you are far more likely to get a "bad" example. Also, due to material shortages in the USSR, the barrels of these things were made of aluminium. Makes them light, but easy to scratch and dent. I don't think I've seen a single one on Ebay without a dent in the filter thread. Lastly, rangefinder lenses are only really smaller than SLR lenses at focal lengths of 50mm and less. There is only one commonly found Soviet rangefinder lens over 50mm, and that is the Jupiter 9 at 85mm. With adapter fitted, it is no smaller than 85mm SLR lenses with adapters fitted.

In summary, if you can find an 50mm SLR lens for about 1/4 the price of the Olympus 45mm, go for it. If you can find a 85mm or 100mm for 1/4 of the price of the Olympus 75mm, go for it. If you want long telephoto and are going to always use a tripod, the options are too numerous to mention. Anything else, I really wouldn't bother with.

I tend to bring out my Nikkor 50/ 1.4 towards the end of a gathering, for some calculated shots, just for fun. I'm not fast enough to use it on candids. I usually stop in down to 2.0 to sharpen up a bit. Here is one from last night.

Father and daughter

I;'ve been playing a bit with zeiss 135f2.8 lens. Havne't used it since film days; someone else posted samples which were decent. It makes a nice small tele lens. I wouldn't mind trying a 180 apo lens but those are kind of pricey.

My favorite lenses is not a legacy lenses. My the only legacy lens that I use is a Sigma 90/2.8 MACRO. The other two lenses I keep with me are Yashica 50/2.0 and Yashica 135/2.8.

All other legacy stuff left the shelf and replaced with native lenses during year 2012.

Are you formerly NEX user?

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Looking for equilibrium...