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Best camera for adapted manual lenses?

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tonybelding

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I've been pondering a new camera for using my "vintage glass" (which is, apparently, the hip name for "old lenses" these days) of the Pentax and M42 varieties. I might even consider a dedicated camera just for this purpose, if I could find the right one. So, here are a few I've contemplated thus far. . .

Pentax K-1: Seemed at first like the obvious choice, but it's very costly, big, heavy, and over-specified for my needs. Also, it doesn't seem like it will be possible to swap in a different focusing screen. So, I've more-or-less crossed this off.

Pentax K-S1: Small, lightweight and cheap, and I could swap in a split-prism focuser. It would provide full aperture control with Pentax-A series (and later) lenses. Adapting M42 lenses to it is trivial. However. . . There's no getting around the APS-C crop factor. Also, this is not the direction I'd planned to go with my primary system camera. This would more likely be dedicated to the "vintage glass" and leave me still shopping for another to use with modern lenses.

Sony Alpha A7: Used ones are getting reasonable in price now. Full frame, full FoV, yay! I've heard very mixed opinions on focusing with adapted manual lenses on this body. Some say focus peaking makes everything wonderful, and others say it's inaccurate and the lack of any aperture control hobbles it. Others mutter in dire tones of vignetting and color shift. . .

Fujifilm X-T1: Used ones are getting affordable. I adore the design, controls and form-factor of this camera! I've heard much about the great EVF and the multiple focusing aids. However, it's still APS-C and has no aperture control with adapted lenses. Intriguingly, I noticed there are "lens turbo" or "speed booster" adapters for it to use M42 lenses -- but not Pentax-K lenses. Hmm. . . So with a Takumar lens (for example) I could get two different FoVs depending which adapter I use?

And that's where I sit. What do you guys think?
 
If you ever want to try a "vintage" rangefinder lens, you need a camera with a flange-to-sensor distance under a certain length. dSLRs do not meet the criterion. Sony cameras are said to have more glass piled over the sensor chip than just about all other brands, introducing problems for adapted lenses.

I've been happy with Fuji X cameras. The crop factor excludes achievement of the ultra wide FoV that FF can do. That may or may not cramp your style.
 
that's what I use so that's what I'll pick. You'll probably get more help from the adapted lens forum.
 
For me, the biggest problem is accurate and fast manual focus. These seem to be mutually exclusive strengths. i wonder how the Fuji XPRO-2 would work.
 
tonybelding said:
I've been pondering a new camera for using my "vintage glass" (which is, apparently, the hip name for "old lenses" these days) of the Pentax and M42 varieties. I might even consider a dedicated camera just for this purpose, if I could find the right one. So, here are a few I've contemplated thus far. . .

Pentax K-1: Seemed at first like the obvious choice, but it's very costly, big, heavy, and over-specified for my needs. Also, it doesn't seem like it will be possible to swap in a different focusing screen. So, I've more-or-less crossed this off.

Pentax K-S1: Small, lightweight and cheap, and I could swap in a split-prism focuser. It would provide full aperture control with Pentax-A series (and later) lenses. Adapting M42 lenses to it is trivial. However. . . There's no getting around the APS-C crop factor. Also, this is not the direction I'd planned to go with my primary system camera. This would more likely be dedicated to the "vintage glass" and leave me still shopping for another to use with modern lenses.

Sony Alpha A7: Used ones are getting reasonable in price now. Full frame, full FoV, yay! I've heard very mixed opinions on focusing with adapted manual lenses on this body. Some say focus peaking makes everything wonderful, and others say it's inaccurate and the lack of any aperture control hobbles it. Others mutter in dire tones of vignetting and color shift. . .
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Generally, manual lenses for use on E mount cameras should have an aperture control ring. All your M42 lenses will have this. So will older K mount. I don't know about recent K mount lenses.

The usual thing is to work in A mode and adjust the aperture control ring on the lens until you get a suitable shutter speed.

IBIS is desirable but not essential. Focus peaking works extremely well. The "Low" setting is the most accurate.
tonybelding said:
Fujifilm X-T1: Used ones are getting affordable. I adore the design, controls and form-factor of this camera! I've heard much about the great EVF and the multiple focusing aids. However, it's still APS-C and has no aperture control with adapted lenses.
Click to expand...
Again, you control the aperture in the normal way, with the ring on the lens.
tonybelding said:
Intriguingly, I noticed there are "lens turbo" or "speed booster" adapters for it to use M42 lenses -- but not Pentax-K lenses. Hmm. . . So with a Takumar lens (for example) I could get two different FoVs depending which adapter I use?

And that's where I sit. What do you guys think?
Click to expand...
 
tonybelding said:
I've been pondering a new camera for using my "vintage glass" (which is, apparently, the hip name for "old lenses" these days) of the Pentax and M42 varieties. I might even consider a dedicated camera just for this purpose, if I could find the right one. So, here are a few I've contemplated thus far. . .

Pentax K-1: Seemed at first like the obvious choice, but it's very costly, big, heavy, and over-specified for my needs. Also, it doesn't seem like it will be possible to swap in a different focusing screen. So, I've more-or-less crossed this off.

Pentax K-S1: Small, lightweight and cheap, and I could swap in a split-prism focuser. It would provide full aperture control with Pentax-A series (and later) lenses. Adapting M42 lenses to it is trivial. However. . . There's no getting around the APS-C crop factor. Also, this is not the direction I'd planned to go with my primary system camera. This would more likely be dedicated to the "vintage glass" and leave me still shopping for another to use with modern lenses.

Sony Alpha A7: Used ones are getting reasonable in price now. Full frame, full FoV, yay! I've heard very mixed opinions on focusing with adapted manual lenses on this body. Some say focus peaking makes everything wonderful, and others say it's inaccurate and the lack of any aperture control hobbles it. Others mutter in dire tones of vignetting and color shift. . .

Fujifilm X-T1: Used ones are getting affordable. I adore the design, controls and form-factor of this camera! I've heard much about the great EVF and the multiple focusing aids. However, it's still APS-C and has no aperture control with adapted lenses. Intriguingly, I noticed there are "lens turbo" or "speed booster" adapters for it to use M42 lenses -- but not Pentax-K lenses. Hmm. . . So with a Takumar lens (for example) I could get two different FoVs depending which adapter I use?

And that's where I sit. What do you guys think?
Click to expand...
Has to be something from the A7 series due to the full-frame sensor - there are plenty of choices from the basic A7 to the super sophisticated A7rII - these will give great results with all but the widest non-telecentric rangefinder lenses. Adapters are cheap, so you can have one for M42, another for K-mount, Minolta SR etc...

You can fit speed booster lenses to APS-C mirrorless bodies and get similar results (you might not get back to the exact FL equivalent, but they go close, maybe reducing the crop to 1.1 or less), but are limited to a particular legacy mount for each. I don't know whether there are big quality differences between different speed booster types, so that might be a bit a a leap into the dark.
 
whoah, whoah. . . hold the phone! There's an adapted lens forum?? :-O

OK, I've got to check that out. Thanks!
 
Richard Frederick said:
For me, the biggest problem is accurate and fast manual focus. These seem to be mutually exclusive strengths.
Click to expand...
I know. My gold standard for manual focusing is my Ricoh XR7 with its enormous, bright pentaprism finder and split-prism and micro-prism focusing screen. There's nothing like that in today's scene, and I have to put some blame on the camera makers. Manual focus is a low priority for them, and they don't put much effort into it.

Case in point. . . My Olympus OM-D E-M5 doesn't even have focus peaking. It does have magnification, which works well, but to use it is slow and awkward. Press a fiddly little Fn button twice to magnify, then press a different fiddly little button to go back to normal. My ideal control for this would be a bigger, trigger-like switch that I could squeeze, focus, and release. But for Olympus it was much more important to have the world's fastest autofocus (in its category, until next month).
 
I know I wasn't clear on this, and it seems to cause some confusion. What really concerns me is the lack of wide-open-focusing. A SLR or DSLR will normally focus (and compose, and meter) with the aperture wide open and then stop it down to take the shot. If we lose that mechanism, then I'm either having to focus with the lens stopped down (less accurate because of the DoF), or I have to be constantly fiddling with the aperture ring every time I focus.

That was the appeal to me of putting old Pentax-K lenses on a new Pentax DSLR. With the A-series (and later) lenses, I get full aperture control from the body. With older K and M lenses I have to use stop-down metering (which is just one button press), but I can still focus wide open.

Based on my research, it seems like there are some ways to make it easier with adapted lenses on a mirrorless camera. There are old M42 lenses with "preset" aperture which were designed so you could set your aperture, and then quickly spin the ring between the preset stop and wide-open. It seems like the Super Takumars may allow something similar with their M/A switch. And the Fotodiox Pentax-K adapter has its own aperture ring, which I think could be used in combination with the ring on the lens. All of these involve manually flipping the aperture open and shut, but they make it more convenient to do without losing your setting. (And it's not needed all the time, anyhow.)
 
tonybelding said:
I know I wasn't clear on this, and it seems to cause some confusion. What really concerns me is the lack of wide-open-focusing. A SLR or DSLR will normally focus (and compose, and meter) with the aperture wide open and then stop it down to take the shot. If we lose that mechanism, then I'm either having to focus with the lens stopped down (less accurate because of the DoF),
Click to expand...
Not less accurate - more accurate because of the DoF (which will show up on focus peaking) - plus you eliminate any focus shift on stopping down (never a big problem admittedly). On an optical viewfinder you will be left trying to assess sharpness on a viewfinder which is designed for brightness rather than manual focus (a product of the switch to AF where they try to compensate for loss of light to the AF sensor) - you are also trying to assess sharpness on a secondary screen, which could be out of alignment with the actual film plane - this is something we always had to put up with on film, but it is no longer necessary with digital.
 
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Bob Janes said:
Not less accurate - more accurate because of the DoF (which will show up on focus peaking) - plus you eliminate any focus shift on stopping down
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I still don't follow the logic here. Focusing stopped-down, a very large amount of the scene will light up with peaking. That's not precise. The idea of focusing wide open is, first focus on your subject with shallow depth of field, then stop down and expand the field from that point.
 
tonybelding said:
Bob Janes said:
Not less accurate - more accurate because of the DoF (which will show up on focus peaking) - plus you eliminate any focus shift on stopping down
Click to expand...
I still don't follow the logic here. Focusing stopped-down, a very large amount of the scene will light up with peaking.
Click to expand...
That's because a very large amount of the scene will be in focus.
tonybelding said:
That's not precise. The idea of focusing wide open is, first focus on your subject with shallow depth of field, then stop down and expand the field from that point.
Click to expand...
The original reason for focusing wide open was that when stopped down, the viewfinder was too dark to assess focus (plus focusing aids gave up below f5.6) - the advantages of being able to see what was in focus because it was bright enough offset any problems of focus shift and any constraints that imposed upon lens design.

From a practical point of view, I've not experienced problems in focusing legacy lenses on either my a99 or NEX-7 - if the focus peaking lights up showing high levels of contrast, the results for that area of the picture are in focus. Peaking works as a focusing aid at any aperture.

I know some people don't get on with electronic viewfinders, but that is the only reason (and I accept that it is a valid reason) I can think of for persisting with an optical viewfinder when using legacy lenses. Not only is focus peaking better than trying to focus on modern AF screens, it actually works better than the old split-image and microprism focusing aids from the 70s and covers the entire frame.
 
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As usual best is hard to determine and a lot depends oneither what lenses you have or what you want to do with adapted lenses.

I have been very happy with my Nex 7. I owned som Nikon mount glass and an old but much loved Exacta mount lens and they all were adaptable with focal reducers to my Nex 7. Some of the lenses were very good and my old Exacta mount Angenieux was a disappointment.

I bought some fast glass, a 180 f/2.8 a 135 f/2 and an 85 f/2 because I want shots of grandchildren in crowds with them"popping out of the fuzz. They are also great for flowers.

The Nex 7 with focal reducer lets me get what I want. It has focus peaking and slectable high magnification areas that enable me to get very critical focus. It also have very good high ISO so I can use fast shutter speed s reducing the need for stabilization

OTOH I still can not adapt (with focal reduction) my old Leica, German Voightlander, and Zeiss Contax glass and If I had that stuff a full frame camera would be a better option. In my case these are very sharp 50 mm f/2 and f/1.5 lenses and for me it is just not worth adapting these lenses until full frame cameras replace my Nex 7 after I wear it out.

My adapted lens stuff is for fun. At family events there are lot of people shooting lots of photos so I try for the unusual or more quiet stuff.

Adopted lens are entertainment and my Nex 7 has been superb. If you are doing this for a living you would not be adaapting lenses to best is really matter the most fun for reasonable money
 
There sure is - it started a few months ago and took off like wildfire, but it's slowed down a bit recently. But it's definitely not just about old/classic/legacy lenses from the film era - which is my personal interest - recent threads seem to have more to do with adapting modern AF lenses to various modern cameras. You might want to do some research on such things as "speed booster adapters" - and to be fair, not just for modern lenses. If/when you do go there, I recommend going back to the early days, rather than looking at themost recent stuff.

I bought a 2nd hand A7 fairly recently - at a fraction of the price it was at launch - and it's doing its job really well. Nikon? Pentax (M42 or K mount)? Olympus OM? Minolta MD? Praktica Bayonet (some rather nice CZJ lenses in that mount)? Konica Hexanon.... I really should try some of the Canon FD stuff.... Each mount needs its own adapter, and they are mostly cheap and very good. The only problems I've had are with M42 adapters - which may be important for you and your Takumars. Happy for a PM if you want to discuss that.

Personally, I don't like, or find very useful, focus peaking the way it's done in the A7 - It may well be different in the newer A7 series cameras. But it isn't that awful, either. And it's fairly easy to turn it off and on. I didn't much like the A7 EVF experience, but again, the A7 is almost historic, the newer cameras will certainly have moved that technology on.
 
Great answer.

I didn't "get on with" the EVF on my A7 to start with, but I'm learning to live with it (if not yet love it) and the biggest plus is that it makes the old "focus wide open and then stop down to taking aperture" scenario completely obsolete. Put a Takumar into "M", stop it down, and the EVF image will be just as bright as it needs to be. Yes the focus peaking can get a bit busy - so just turn it off? Things still snap into focus if that's the way OP likes it. That's my current preference.
 
There seem to be wildly divergent opinions on the focus peaking. Some swear it's wonderful, brilliant, much better even than the old prism focusing screens. Others find it pretty much useless.

One tip I've learned about focus peaking is that it seems to work much, much better in conjunction with focus magnification -- which is just the opposite of what I'd intuitively expected. I thought they would clash.
 
The reasons I wrote that Dr., is because all old K bayonet mount film lens can be used on any Pentax DSLR, including the new FF K-1. Adapters from screw mount are available for you lens. Manual auto focus in focus system and auto exposure system work with old film lens.
 
22codfish said:
The reasons I wrote that Dr., is because all old K bayonet mount film lens can be used on any Pentax DSLR, including the new FF K-1. Adapters from screw mount are available for you lens. Manual auto focus in focus system and auto exposure system work with old film lens.
Click to expand...
Yes, the Pentax K-1 was the first thing I thought of, but it's too expensive, big and heavy, and over-specified for my purpose.

I am looking hard at a K-S1 or K-S2, though. I would be stuck with APS-C crop factor, but they do offer stabilization for older lenses, which Sony and Fuji don't. I am really thinking K-S2 now, with the rotating LCD screen. . .
 
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