The best adapted manual lenses thats not full frame.

I recall Kirk Tuck shot Pen F lenses on m4/3 bodies and some give nice look.

Pentax Auto 110 system comes to mind as another.

C-mount Cine lenses open an entirely different world, one I know nothing about but surely myriad choices. Have also seen folks adapt projection lenses.

Happy sleuthing!

Rick

Johnnew Archibald - SMGJohn said:

I am looking for some manual lenses for my m4/3 systems thats as close to the m4/3 crop factor as possible.

In my quest I essentially landed on two potential mount systems, the C-mount which means I have to crop 0.5x - 0.7x in post to cover the image circle essentially giving me an 1-inch sensor. But those Zeiss Jena C-mount lenses are hard to pass up.

And the 35mm half frame such as Olympus Pen-F which would be something like a 1.8x crop factor instead would be the closest of them all?

My question is if there any other alternative out there? To my limited knowledge only Olympus made specific lenses for 35mm half frame.
The Soviets and East Germans have a lot of weird lens mounts perhaps they have any specific half frame lenses?
It would been pretty great to have a Helios half frame lens with the petzval character on the wide end without having to use a speedbooster.

Anyone know of any other vintage film mount system that comes close to m4/3 crop, or if there are any C-mount lenses that cover as much of a m4/3 sensor as possible?

Click to expand...

This thread may give you some ideas. The C-mount lenses that cover 16mm film would be very close

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/57355101

m43 is approximately the same size as 110 film so perhaps the Pentax 110 lenses ? though I don't know personally I am sure some of the forum adapter fans will chip in. Tom the mod is a good resource for adapters and the like

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentax_Auto_110

Lens list from the above page



It is staggering nowadays when you think of the quality you can get with m43 from a sensor the same size. Few 110 users would have dreamt of such image quality



--
Jim Stirling:
“It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of truth.” Locke
Feel free to tinker with any photos I post

Oh yeah the 110 film its basically almost spot on, how did i miss that.

Does not seem to be all that many interchangeable lens systems for 110 though except the Pentax, guess they been in the game of tiny SLRs for a while.

James Stirling said:

Johnnew Archibald - SMGJohn said:

I am looking for some manual lenses for my m4/3 systems thats as close to the m4/3 crop factor as possible.

In my quest I essentially landed on two potential mount systems, the C-mount which means I have to crop 0.5x - 0.7x in post to cover the image circle essentially giving me an 1-inch sensor. But those Zeiss Jena C-mount lenses are hard to pass up.

And the 35mm half frame such as Olympus Pen-F which would be something like a 1.8x crop factor instead would be the closest of them all?

My question is if there any other alternative out there? To my limited knowledge only Olympus made specific lenses for 35mm half frame.
The Soviets and East Germans have a lot of weird lens mounts perhaps they have any specific half frame lenses?
It would been pretty great to have a Helios half frame lens with the petzval character on the wide end without having to use a speedbooster.

Anyone know of any other vintage film mount system that comes close to m4/3 crop, or if there are any C-mount lenses that cover as much of a m4/3 sensor as possible?

Click to expand...

This thread may give you some ideas. The C-mount lenses that cover 16mm film would be very close

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/57355101

m43 is approximately the same size as 110 film so perhaps the Pentax 110 lenses ? though I don't know personally I am sure some of the forum adapter fans will chip in. Tom the mod is a good resource for adapters and the like

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentax_Auto_110

Lens list from the above page



It is staggering nowadays when you think of the quality you can get with m43 from a sensor the same size. Few 110 users would have dreamt of such image quality

Click to expand...

The Pentax 110 lenses are tiny, made of plastic, but don't do too bad a job. Useful mainly if you are crazy about the tiniest size of lens possible. The best lens in the PK110 series is the (rare) 70/2.8 which is not nearly as tiny and is built like a regular metal bodied lens without an aperture adjustment.

There are PK110-M4/3 adapters about but only RJ seem to make one with a built in iris that is controlled manually. These are periodically out of stock and can usually only be found on the RJ website. If you contact the firm you might encourage them to make another batch if they are indeed out of stock.

Note that there are dumb focal reduction adapters for most of the film era mounts to M4/3.

It you are getting such a legacy lens made for aps-c image circle then the adapter will place that image circle (slightly more) fully covering the 4/3 sensor.

There are also many modern Chinese made MF lenses made for the aps-c image circle that have been remounted for sale in M4/3 mount format. These work in crop format. There are even some in native 4/3 image circle size.

I had a band new Pentax 110 body when they were first sold. Its imaging quality was quite forgettable. It had a two blade shutter/aperture control inside the camera body. The M4/3 sensor does much better with these lenses.

--
Tom Caldwell

Tom Caldwell said:

James Stirling said:

Johnnew Archibald - SMGJohn said:

I am looking for some manual lenses for my m4/3 systems thats as close to the m4/3 crop factor as possible.

In my quest I essentially landed on two potential mount systems, the C-mount which means I have to crop 0.5x - 0.7x in post to cover the image circle essentially giving me an 1-inch sensor. But those Zeiss Jena C-mount lenses are hard to pass up.

And the 35mm half frame such as Olympus Pen-F which would be something like a 1.8x crop factor instead would be the closest of them all?

My question is if there any other alternative out there? To my limited knowledge only Olympus made specific lenses for 35mm half frame.
The Soviets and East Germans have a lot of weird lens mounts perhaps they have any specific half frame lenses?
It would been pretty great to have a Helios half frame lens with the petzval character on the wide end without having to use a speedbooster.

Anyone know of any other vintage film mount system that comes close to m4/3 crop, or if there are any C-mount lenses that cover as much of a m4/3 sensor as possible?

Click to expand...

This thread may give you some ideas. The C-mount lenses that cover 16mm film would be very close

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/57355101

m43 is approximately the same size as 110 film so perhaps the Pentax 110 lenses ? though I don't know personally I am sure some of the forum adapter fans will chip in. Tom the mod is a good resource for adapters and the like

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentax_Auto_110

Lens list from the above page



It is staggering nowadays when you think of the quality you can get with m43 from a sensor the same size. Few 110 users would have dreamt of such image quality

Click to expand...

The Pentax 110 lenses are tiny, made of plastic, but don't do too bad a job. Useful mainly if you are crazy about the tiniest size of lens possible. The best lens in the PK110 series is the (rare) 70/2.8 which is not nearly as tiny and is built like a regular metal bodied lens without an aperture adjustment.

There are PK110-M4/3 adapters about but only RJ seem to make one with a built in iris that is controlled manually. These are periodically out of stock and can usually only be found on the RJ website. If you contact the firm you might encourage them to make another batch if they are indeed out of stock.

Note that there are dumb focal reduction adapters for most of the film era mounts to M4/3.

It you are getting such a legacy lens made for aps-c image circle then the adapter will place that image circle (slightly more) fully covering the 4/3 sensor.

There are also many modern Chinese made MF lenses made for the aps-c image circle that have been remounted for sale in M4/3 mount format. These work in crop format. There are even some in native 4/3 image circle size.

I had a band new Pentax 110 body when they were first sold. Its imaging quality was quite forgettable. It had a two blade shutter/aperture control inside the camera body. The M4/3 sensor does much better with these lenses.

Click to expand...

I went to visit New York City back in 1978 with my dad, and he bought the whole kit, Body, winder, flash and 3 lenses. It was just lovely. IQ was indeed questionable, but for pocketability, it was a champ.

I was too busy with my brand new Nikon FE, so didn’t pay much attention to it. But I hope I would have kept it around. Sadly after so many movings, including out of the country, it was lost, or maybe even stolen.

--
Martin
"One of the biggest mistakes a photographer can make is to look at the real world and cling to the vain hope that next time his film will somehow bear a closer resemblance to it" - Galen Rowell

I've got two of the RJ adapters. I find the pentax lenses have a pleasant look and they are fun to tinker with.

One of my RJ adapters mount shifts around which is annoying but it still works. I should maybe try to epoxy it or something.