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What is the *smallest* legacy MF prime lens?

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Sprockethead

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Not the best, just the smallest. I'm just curious. I have been thinking of buying a single adapter and have been trolling the internet looking at all of the different legacy lenses.

So far I think I am going to take the usual route of either Canon FD or Olympus OM. Great lenses, kind of middle-of-the-road.

But then I started thinking, what is the lightest or shortest prime lens out there. Anyone know?

Thanks for any suggestions.
 
Awesome! That would, of course, be 80mm on the m4/3. Kind of portrait-length, which is nice.
 
Sprockethead said:
Awesome! That would, of course, be 80mm on the m4/3. Kind of portrait-length, which is nice.
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The pentax adapter is thicker than the Leica M adapter. I'm not familiar with either collection of lenses, so I'll leave it at that. It sure looks damn small!

--
'I have no responsibilities here whatsoever'
 
Even smaller and lighter than the pentax 40/2.8 (especially considering the 16mm shorter flange distance) is the Pen F 38/f2.8. I believe it is a little lighter too (70g)



(I hope the embedding works :) )

These arent terribly cheap though (neither is, I believe, the Pentax).
 
I have one myself, but haven't got an adapter for my G1.

2 of them would easily fit inside a 35mm film cannister (and would rattle inside.)

There is also a Pentax 110 18mm for wide. Both at f/2.8.

--
'By my discipline of seeing I put myself where photographs can find themselves.'
-Minor White
 
.Sam. said:
how about Pentax M-40mm F/2.8 pancake. It's a good performer too.

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It is decent for it's size. It's quality doesn't match it's reputation. The 5-bladed diaphram gives it pretty distracting bokeh and the sharpness doesn't match the 50/1.7, 50/1.4, or 35/2 lenses (but all of those are much larger).

I do kind of regret selling my 40/2.8 now though, it would have been pretty nice with a Pentax adapter on m4/3rds. I had both the DA and M versions, but sold both.
 
Not the smallest, but the Minolta MD 45mm f/2.0 is small and nice.

http://www.beanos.com/~tsoutij/wp/stuff/index-of-pancake-lenses/minolta_md_rokkor-x_45mm_f20

The 45mm is 63 x 25mm; this is actually a hair smaller than the Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 (63 x 25.5mm). Of course, the Minolta MC to m4/3 adapter adds an extra 43.5mm.

There's an older, Minolta MC Rokkor PF 50mm 1:2 lens that's 65 x 35.5mm and has a nicer build.

And hey, that page I linked above comes from an index of pancake lenses:

http://www.beanos.com/~tsoutij/wp/stuff/index-of-pancake-lenses
 
Depends on whose legacy. There have been some pretty flat SLR lenses, Pentax, Konica, Minolta, Olympus, but they all need adapters which makes them thicker. Some of the rangefinder lenses are quite small. However, the smallest adaptable lenses are probably the Pentax 110 SLR lenses. The 24mm Pentax is about 1/2" thick and less than an inch wide. The 20mm f1.9 Panasonic lens is a good start for portability, but they could make a lens even flatter.
 
Abbazz said:
Here's the Pentax 18/2.8 on my E-P1 (the 24mm is even smaller):



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--Thanks for posting these awesome pictures which really display just how small these lenses for m4/3 could really be is if simpple manual focus and single focal length only. I think that Pentax should be working on a digital Pentax 110 as fast as they can.

There have been a number of threads about how to make the m4/3 smaller and this would certainly do it since would cover the 4/3 sensor size and be not much larger than the original Pentax 110. The present EPs and GFs are already small enough and work well with most existing small legacy lenses but this for those who want an even smaller pocketable and inexpensive DSRL.

I think Pentax could market both an inexpensive plastic model and a classic all metal one and corresponding two sets of lenses. The lenses may not necessarily have to be excellent quality as the larger 4/3 sensor would give it a big advantage over most existing compact sensors below that size.

What do you think?

P.S. I would love to have just such a camera available for hiking or traveling no bigger than the Oly XA with a 35mm lens but digital. All the cameras I see coming out now and in the near future are much larger primarily because of the requirements of zooming and auto focus. If you give us back s simple OVF that would work fine with these single focal length lenses and the lens speed could be easily increased to f2 on the shorter lenses but keep f2.8 on the longer ones.

safaridon
 
Wow, those are simply a beautiful match for the silver E-P1. Gorgeous.

--

 
Ibeti said:
These arent terribly cheap though (neither is, I believe, the Pentax).
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Industar-69 is a small pancake 28mm/2.8 that came with the Soviet Chaika 2, Chaika 2m and Chaika 3 half frame cameras in the late 60s and early 70s. Chaikas go for US$ 10-50 on evilBay - I paid US$ 17 for mine...

http://www.sovietcams.com/index.php?-938917618

The lens is a Tessar-based design, with a 5 blade diaphragm and protruding only 15mm from the Chaika body. It's of course designed for manual focus, and manual aperture setting. Center sharpness is actually very good, but you have to stop it down to make the edges sharp.

OK - what's the catch? Well, allthough the lens looks exactly like a standard LTM-lens whithout RF ability, it's register (distance from mount plane to film plane) is not standard. Register seems to be appr 28mm instead of the standard 28.8mm - so when mounted on a LTM camera or adapter, it will not focus to infinity. There's a lot of people who have modified the lens, by dismantling it and grinding off a a piece of the mechanism to make it possible to screw the optical part further inwards. I don't like this approach, because a) it messes up the focus scale and b) it makes it difficult to use it properly on the Chaika, where it actually belongs (yup, I still shoot film now and then!).

The problem is really simple, with a simple solution: A standard LTM-MFT-adapter is too thick for the I-69, and the solution is to make the adapter thinner. I took an adapter from jinfinance, took out the inner treaded ring, and simply grinded down the thickness of it (appr 0.7mm) using waterproof abrasive paper.

Mine works excellent now, protruding appr 22mm with the adapter - and a nice addition: The lens cap for the Olympus Trip 35 fits like a charm!

 
I think the Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 is a pretty amazing example of what you ask for.

The Pentax 18mm plus adapter actually sticks out more than the Panasonic 20mm I believe. The Pentax lenses have smaller diameter but I don't think that is as important as depth. The Pentax lenses also don't have aperture control (on the 110 it was done in the camera) and of course don't have the Pana 20mm's fast autofocus.

Your general point is right on. But I think from a user perspective the cheapest way is to find used MF gear and use adapters. We can get used equipment for much less than Panasonic or Olympus could sell a newly designed MF M 4/3 lens for.

--
'By my discipline of seeing I put myself where photographs can find themselves.'
-Minor White
 
You should specify smallest with adapter . Quite a few RF lenses such as Leica, Canon RF, etc. will be smaller with adapter as the adapters are much shorter then SLR lens adapters. The adapter doesn't weigh much in either case.
 
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