m42 bandwaggon, pic and a question...

jakepatterson · May 7, 2004

Well, I am still waiting for the 50/1.4 that I got on ebay to arrive, the bozo sent it parcel post. But I did pick up a Super Takumar 135 f/3.5 from a local shop and tried it out:

More here:

http://www.pbase.com/jakepatterson/m42_lenses_on_sigma_sd10

I can't say as I'm blown over by the sharpness of this lens or anything, of course it is not the SMC version.

One question: What f-stop should I set the camera to to get the proper metering? Or to put it another way, what is the proper way to handle metering with an m42 lens on the SD10?

am174136 · May 7, 2004

On my SD9 "A" mode 5.6 on the camera gave some nice metering, but not always great. With flash "M" mode is the only answer.

A.M

jakepatterson said:
Well, I am still waiting for the 50/1.4 that I got on ebay to
arrive, the bozo sent it parcel post. But I did pick up a Super
Takumar 135 f/3.5 from a local shop and tried it out:

More here:

http://www.pbase.com/jakepatterson/m42_lenses_on_sigma_sd10

I can't say as I'm blown over by the sharpness of this lens or
anything, of course it is not the SMC version.

One question: What f-stop should I set the camera to to get the
proper metering? Or to put it another way, what is the proper way
to handle metering with an m42 lens on the SD10?

Michael McMurrough · May 7, 2004

Nice start with the M42 lens, Jake. I have found the 135/3.5 to be an outstanding performer, even wide open.

Looking at your two images on pbase, the first one (not the one posted here) looks a bit blurry from camera shake. The second (the one below) is much sharper, but not as sharp as I have seen from this lens. Perhaps it suffers a bit from shake as well? Or maybe it was taken wide-open?

Keep working with it, clamp it on a tripod and stop it down a bit to see what it can really do.

AS for metering with the manual lens, most folks set it to A mode and set the aperture value to f5.6 and let the camera shoose the shutter speed. I prefer to shoot in manual and literally "guess" at the exposure using the sunny 16 rule. It works remarkably well once you get the hang of it.

Regards,

Michael

jakepatterson said:
Well, I am still waiting for the 50/1.4 that I got on ebay to
arrive, the bozo sent it parcel post. But I did pick up a Super
Takumar 135 f/3.5 from a local shop and tried it out:

More here:

http://www.pbase.com/jakepatterson/m42_lenses_on_sigma_sd10

I can't say as I'm blown over by the sharpness of this lens or
anything, of course it is not the SMC version.

One question: What f-stop should I set the camera to to get the
proper metering? Or to put it another way, what is the proper way
to handle metering with an m42 lens on the SD10?

Aaro · May 7, 2004

I think Mike very much said it.

A mode and aperture at 5.6 is a good start. I then adjust the exposure with the exp correction as I do with the sigma lenses so it is the same procedure allways. Look at the preview with info and fill the histogram.

I think the 135 is very good smc or not. Ofcourse SMC is very good against the light source.

jakepatterson said:
Well, I am still waiting for the 50/1.4 that I got on ebay to
arrive, the bozo sent it parcel post. But I did pick up a Super
Takumar 135 f/3.5 from a local shop and tried it out:

More here:

http://www.pbase.com/jakepatterson/m42_lenses_on_sigma_sd10

I can't say as I'm blown over by the sharpness of this lens or
anything, of course it is not the SMC version.

One question: What f-stop should I set the camera to to get the
proper metering? Or to put it another way, what is the proper way
to handle metering with an m42 lens on the SD10?

--
The man from Snowriver, Mies Lumijoelta

jakepatterson · May 8, 2004

Aaro said:
I think Mike very much said it.

A mode and aperture at 5.6 is a good start. I then adjust the
exposure with the exp correction as I do with the sigma lenses so
it is the same procedure allways. Look at the preview with info and
fill the histogram.

I think the 135 is very good smc or not. Ofcourse SMC is very good
against the light source.

adegroot · May 8, 2004

Images look just a bit too dark on my monitor. I use a manual lightmeter with M42 lenses. it's more accurate than the Sigma. However, if you find your images always too dark with a particular lens, you can always set your exp. compensatation to a given plus value, or bracket.

jakepatterson said:
Aaro said:

I think Mike very much said it.

A mode and aperture at 5.6 is a good start. I then adjust the
exposure with the exp correction as I do with the sigma lenses so
it is the same procedure allways. Look at the preview with info and
fill the histogram.

I think the 135 is very good smc or not. Ofcourse SMC is very good
against the light source.

Click to expand...

jakepatterson · May 8, 2004

adegroot said:
Images look just a bit too dark on my monitor. I use a manual
lightmeter with M42 lenses. it's more accurate than the Sigma.
However, if you find your images always too dark with a particular
lens, you can always set your exp. compensatation to a given plus
value, or bracket.

I had the camera set to f/2 for those shots. I just added two more shots, where I had it set to f/5.6. It seems to overexpose at 5.6, SPP (in auto mode) placed exposure at between -0.8 and -1.1 for each of the shots that I took today. I will try f/4 next. I just need to get more batteries first.

http://www.pbase.com/jakepatterson/m42_lenses_on_sigma_sd10

Aaro · May 13, 2004

I have been wondering this exposure shift with manual lenses and finally figured it out.

With manual aperture lens you are measuring with the stopped down lens and it means the camera meter is seeing sharper non blurred light. With auto eperture lens you allways measure wide open.

I think this causes the ecposure shift when changing the aperture more then few stops.

Also it seems that with ie Pentax lenses I have to set -1 even -2 comp. to get good exposure and with ie 2470 I usually set + 0.5 .

Have to use the preview and see the overexposure warning, but with red flowers it is difficult or impossible to see, also use the histogram.

Aaro

jakepatterson said:
adegroot said:

Images look just a bit too dark on my monitor. I use a manual
lightmeter with M42 lenses. it's more accurate than the Sigma.
However, if you find your images always too dark with a particular
lens, you can always set your exp. compensatation to a given plus
value, or bracket.

Click to expand...

I had the camera set to f/2 for those shots. I just added two more
shots, where I had it set to f/5.6. It seems to overexpose at 5.6,
SPP (in auto mode) placed exposure at between -0.8 and -1.1 for
each of the shots that I took today. I will try f/4 next. I just
need to get more batteries first.

http://www.pbase.com/jakepatterson/m42_lenses_on_sigma_sd10

--
The man from Snowriver, Mies Lumijoelta

Kendall Helmstetter Gelner · May 13, 2004

jakepatterson said:
One question: What f-stop should I set the camera to to get the
proper metering? Or to put it another way, what is the proper way
to handle metering with an m42 lens on the SD10?

Would you like to hear a sort of complex way to meter that seems to work OK? Of course you would!

I bought a Pentax 55mm 1.7 lens recently, and have been using it. Here's the theory behind my method...

When you meter using a manual lens in Aperture priority mode, the camera just thinks you are at some default aperture - say 1.0 - since the camera cannot tell from the lens. It then adjusts the exposure thinking the aperture will change to what you have set on the camera when the shutter is pressed.

The idea then is to trick the camera into exposing properly for the aperture you're using, by doing manually the things the camera normally does.

The Technique:

1) Set aperture on lens to wide open - so in my case that was 1.7.

2) Set camera controls to whatever aperture you are eventually going to shoot at (say F8).

3) Set exposure compensation on the camera to +2. Why? Here you are trying to account for the difference between the aperture the camera thinks the lens is at (1.0) and the aperture the lens is really at wide open (1.7). This is a value that may need a little fine-tuning per lens.

3) Press shutter half way down to set exposure - hit the AEL button to lock exposure in. The camera should now be exposing properly for the amount of light it will eventually get when you change the aperture on the lens...

4) Now change lens (while holding AEL so as not to change exposure!!) to actually use the aperture setting that matches the camera - F8 in this case.

5) Take the picture.

I got pretty good results using this tehnique from F1.7 all the way to F22.

That said, I did also find that it seemed to expose pretty well when the camera was left at F4.5. So I'm not sure if my theory has a hole in it or what, as I would have thought that not to work for the full range of the lens. I plan to do a little more testing, but I thought I would share the theory anyway...

Perhaps the camera knows there is no contact with the lens and just exposes for the light that it "sees" when no aperture data is present. But then that would mean you could leave the aperture setting to anything and it should work equally well. As I said, more expierments are in order really.

--
---> Kendall
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/user_home
Spring Shoot - http://www.pbase.com/kgelner/sigmaseason1

moepels · May 13, 2004

Hey guys!!

There are much easier ways - use a simple device called a light meter! I shave shot my SD9 with a wide variety of M42 manual lenses using a normal light meter, with great results.

Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:
jakepatterson said:

One question: What f-stop should I set the camera to to get the
proper metering? Or to put it another way, what is the proper way
to handle metering with an m42 lens on the SD10?

Click to expand...

Would you like to hear a sort of complex way to meter that seems to
work OK? Of course you would!

I bought a Pentax 55mm 1.7 lens recently, and have been using it.
Here's the theory behind my method...

When you meter using a manual lens in Aperture priority mode, the
camera just thinks you are at some default aperture - say 1.0 -
since the camera cannot tell from the lens. It then adjusts the
exposure thinking the aperture will change to what you have set on
the camera when the shutter is pressed.

The idea then is to trick the camera into exposing properly for the
aperture you're using, by doing manually the things the camera
normally does.

The Technique:

1) Set aperture on lens to wide open - so in my case that was 1.7.

2) Set camera controls to whatever aperture you are eventually
going to shoot at (say F8).

3) Set exposure compensation on the camera to +2. Why? Here you
are trying to account for the difference between the aperture the
camera thinks the lens is at (1.0) and the aperture the lens is
really at wide open (1.7). This is a value that may need a little
fine-tuning per lens.

3) Press shutter half way down to set exposure - hit the AEL button
to lock exposure in. The camera should now be exposing properly
for the amount of light it will eventually get when you change the
aperture on the lens...

4) Now change lens (while holding AEL so as not to change
exposure!!) to actually use the aperture setting that matches the
camera - F8 in this case.

5) Take the picture.

I got pretty good results using this tehnique from F1.7 all the way
to F22.

That said, I did also find that it seemed to expose pretty well
when the camera was left at F4.5. So I'm not sure if my theory
has a hole in it or what, as I would have thought that not to work
for the full range of the lens. I plan to do a little more
testing, but I thought I would share the theory anyway...

Perhaps the camera knows there is no contact with the lens and just
exposes for the light that it "sees" when no aperture data is
present. But then that would mean you could leave the aperture
setting to anything and it should work equally well. As I said,
more expierments are in order really.

--
---> Kendall
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/user_home
Spring Shoot - http://www.pbase.com/kgelner/sigmaseason1

--
http://www.pbase.com/moepels/root

DaSonyGuy · May 13, 2004

Kendall, your method seems overly elaborate for what is essentialy a very simple process.

If I set the camera to SP or AP it always seems to select too slow a shutter speed or too large an aperture for the situation so I find its always best to always use my SD10 on Manual mode so I have more control over the settings.

I have tried keeping the camera set to f5.6 as a default aperture setting but I have found that it seems to make little difference to the actual resulting images.

Another problem with using this method is that it does not record the actual lens aperture that was used in the EXIF data

So IMO if your using a manual lens its probably best to set the camera to Manual, choose the shutter speed yourself, and set the camera to the aperture you will be stopping the lens down to when you actually take the shot.

This way the camera should not only meter correctly but it will record the true aperture used you get to learn what shutter/aperture settings work best.

Kendall Helmstetter Gelner · May 13, 2004

Anton van Huyssteen said:
Hey guys!!

There are much easier ways - use a simple device called a light
meter! I shave shot my SD9 with a wide variety of M42 manual lenses
using a normal light meter, with great results.

I'll agree that a light meter is a much simpler answer to this problem - however, not all of us have light meters or want to spring for a good one! I have trouble springing for such a device when the camera spot meter works perfectly well, and am happy to not have another device about my person.

I have to say that although my technique sounds cumbersome, it's actually much faster than you would think - I'll bet I can use that technique in the time it would take to meter something and transfer over the settings to the camera.

it would be interesting to take a light metter and compare the results I get - I have a really old light meter sitting around, If I can get it to work I'll have to try some comparisons against my technique and the camera with an automatic lens.

--
---> Kendall
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/user_home
Spring Shoot - http://www.pbase.com/kgelner/sigmaseason1

am174136 · May 13, 2004

I shot in "M" mode mostly with flash and it turns out great. I usually check histogrram with preview with test picture to fine tune (I don't have a light meter). I adust camera setting to fill up the histogram to right. Setting "A" mode and 5.6 on the camera gave some nice shots but I still think the "M" mode is the best for M42 Lenses. "A" mode is totally useless with flash for me.

A.M

DaSigmaGuy said:
Kendall, your method seems overly elaborate for what is essentialy
a very simple process.
If I set the camera to SP or AP it always seems to select too slow
a shutter speed or too large an aperture for the situation so I
find its always best to always use my SD10 on Manual mode so I have
more control over the settings.
I have tried keeping the camera set to f5.6 as a default aperture
setting but I have found that it seems to make little difference to
the actual resulting images.
Another problem with using this method is that it does not record
the actual lens aperture that was used in the EXIF data
So IMO if your using a manual lens its probably best to set the
camera to Manual, choose the shutter speed yourself, and set the
camera to the aperture you will be stopping the lens down to when
you actually take the shot.
This way the camera should not only meter correctly but it will
record the true aperture used you get to learn what
shutter/aperture settings work best.

Kendall Helmstetter Gelner · May 14, 2004

DaSigmaGuy said:
Kendall, your method seems overly elaborate for what is essentialy
a very simple process.
If I set the camera to SP or AP it always seems to select too slow
a shutter speed or too large an aperture for the situation so I
find its always best to always use my SD10 on Manual mode so I have
more control over the settings.
I have tried keeping the camera set to f5.6 as a default aperture
setting but I have found that it seems to make little difference to
the actual resulting images.

I just tried a few experiments here, with interesting results...

All were done in AP.

First I set the camera aperture value to 5.6. Then I observed the camera-selected shutter speed as I altered the aperture on the lens - it did effect the exposure time, so the camera was adjusting for incoming light (as you'd expect).

Then I tried a number of shot pairs. For each pair I tried the camera at 5.6 no matter the aperture setting on the lens, for the other picture of the pair I used my method as outlined before to lock in the camera-selected shutter speed before I selected the same aperture setting on the lens.

This test results were interesting. It seemed that for anything below an aperture of 8 on the lens, the camera selected shutter speed at a fixed aperture of 5.6 and the shutter speed selected via my method were nearly identical.

But once beyond an aperture of 8, there was quite a large difference! At aperture values of 16 and 22, when the camera was set at 5.6 it decided the shutter speed should be around 2/10 of a second (I'm doing this in a somewhat dim basement at night). Using my method I had shutter speeds of around three seconds - which by observation of the resulting pictures was a much more correct exposure, and had a heathy looking histogram. So my technique does yield pretty good exposures across the whole range of the manual lens using AP mode on the camera.

DaSonyGuy said:
Another problem with using this method is that it does not record
the actual lens aperture that was used in the EXIF data

Ahh, but that is the beauty of using my method - not only do you seem to get correct exposures at all aperture settings on the lens, but because the aperture value the camera is set to agrees with what the lens is set for, you do get accurate data recorded to EXIF as well!

DaSonyGuy said:
So IMO if your using a manual lens its probably best to set the
camera to Manual, choose the shutter speed yourself, and set the
camera to the aperture you will be stopping the lens down to when
you actually take the shot.
This way the camera should not only meter correctly but it will
record the true aperture used you get to learn what
shutter/aperture settings work best.

I have to admit that to be able to correctly judge exposure is more powerful, but I am not sure yet that I am a very good judge of light levels to the extent that I can just dial in an exposure on manual and get it correct without a few trials - when using fully automatic lenses I still prefer to shoot on AP and let the camera guess better than I can what the exposure should be, so I can devote more mental energy to think about using spot metering or not and what aperture I want to use. My technique lets me carry over that approach to manual lenses as well, which makes me happy...

One other side benefit of my method is that you are always focusing with the aperture wide open, so you get the brightest possible view for focusing - only when it is time to take the picture do you narrow down the aperture.

I think you could use a variation of this technique for correct determination of exposure in manual mode as well by relying on the under/overexposure display on the meter, which might be a bit faster and not make use of the AEL lock. I'll have to experiment more.

Perhaps I will come around to your way of thinking, but I'm afraid at the moment I am too tied to relying on the technology of the meter! I know my way sounds cumbersome, but in practice I actually find it pretty fluid as it's really a simple process to follow. I think I need to produce a video or step-by-step guide...

--
---> Kendall
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/user_home
Spring Shoot - http://www.pbase.com/kgelner/sigmaseason1

Kendall Helmstetter Gelner · May 14, 2004

am said:
I shot in "M" mode mostly with flash and it turns out great. I
usually check histogrram with preview with test picture to fine
tune (I don't have a light meter). I adust camera setting to fill
up the histogram to right. Setting "A" mode and 5.6 on the camera
gave some nice shots but I still think the "M" mode is the best for
M42 Lenses. "A" mode is totally useless with flash for me.

AP mode doesn't account for the flash output even with automatic lenses... it can be handy in sme rare cases.

I just tried some more tests with a manual lens and a flash. Very interesting results...

I set the flash to TTL mode, and the camera to M with an aperture of 5.6 and a SS of 180.

I took a series of pictures where I changed the aperture setting on the camera from 5.6 to 22. All of them exposed identically - the flash output was the same.

I then took a series of pictures where I left the aperture setting on the camera at 5.6, but adjusted the aperture on the lens from 22 to 8. This time, the images shot using the lens's F/22 were much dimmer than the images shot at the lens's F/8!

I'm not quite sure what this means about a way to get the best exposure possible using camera metering with manual lenses and the flash, but I will think it over...

--
---> Kendall
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/user_home
Spring Shoot - http://www.pbase.com/kgelner/sigmaseason1

Wojciech Burkot · May 14, 2004

Kendall,

I believe your observations are in line what others (Troy) have seen. Too far away from 5.6 setting on the lens when the camera is set to A 5.6 and you get under/overexposure depending on the direction of the deviation. I have been using something similar to your method (compensation for the difference between a lens max opening and 1.0 which the camera defaults to), but found the trick with A 5.6 and spot metering more convienient.

Cheers,
W.

Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:
DaSigmaGuy said:

Kendall, your method seems overly elaborate for what is essentialy
a very simple process.
If I set the camera to SP or AP it always seems to select too slow
a shutter speed or too large an aperture for the situation so I
find its always best to always use my SD10 on Manual mode so I have
more control over the settings.
I have tried keeping the camera set to f5.6 as a default aperture
setting but I have found that it seems to make little difference to
the actual resulting images.

Click to expand...

I just tried a few experiments here, with interesting results...

All were done in AP.

First I set the camera aperture value to 5.6. Then I observed the
camera-selected shutter speed as I altered the aperture on the lens

it did effect the exposure time, so the camera was adjusting for

incoming light (as you'd expect).

Then I tried a number of shot pairs. For each pair I tried the
camera at 5.6 no matter the aperture setting on the lens, for the
other picture of the pair I used my method as outlined before to
lock in the camera-selected shutter speed before I selected the
same aperture setting on the lens.

This test results were interesting. It seemed that for anything
below an aperture of 8 on the lens, the camera selected shutter
speed at a fixed aperture of 5.6 and the shutter speed selected via
my method were nearly identical.

But once beyond an aperture of 8, there was quite a large
difference! At aperture values of 16 and 22, when the camera was
set at 5.6 it decided the shutter speed should be around 2/10 of a
second (I'm doing this in a somewhat dim basement at night). Using
my method I had shutter speeds of around three seconds - which by
observation of the resulting pictures was a much more correct
exposure, and had a heathy looking histogram. So my technique does
yield pretty good exposures across the whole range of the manual
lens using AP mode on the camera.

Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:

Another problem with using this method is that it does not record
the actual lens aperture that was used in the EXIF data

Click to expand...

Ahh, but that is the beauty of using my method - not only do you
seem to get correct exposures at all aperture settings on the lens,
but because the aperture value the camera is set to agrees with
what the lens is set for, you do get accurate data recorded to EXIF
as well!

Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:

So IMO if your using a manual lens its probably best to set the
camera to Manual, choose the shutter speed yourself, and set the
camera to the aperture you will be stopping the lens down to when
you actually take the shot.
This way the camera should not only meter correctly but it will
record the true aperture used you get to learn what
shutter/aperture settings work best.

Click to expand...

I have to admit that to be able to correctly judge exposure is more
powerful, but I am not sure yet that I am a very good judge of
light levels to the extent that I can just dial in an exposure on
manual and get it correct without a few trials - when using fully
automatic lenses I still prefer to shoot on AP and let the camera
guess better than I can what the exposure should be, so I can
devote more mental energy to think about using spot metering or not
and what aperture I want to use. My technique lets me carry over
that approach to manual lenses as well, which makes me happy...

One other side benefit of my method is that you are always focusing
with the aperture wide open, so you get the brightest possible view
for focusing - only when it is time to take the picture do you
narrow down the aperture.

I think you could use a variation of this technique for correct
determination of exposure in manual mode as well by relying on the
under/overexposure display on the meter, which might be a bit
faster and not make use of the AEL lock. I'll have to experiment
more.

Perhaps I will come around to your way of thinking, but I'm afraid
at the moment I am too tied to relying on the technology of the
meter! I know my way sounds cumbersome, but in practice I actually
find it pretty fluid as it's really a simple process to follow. I
think I need to produce a video or step-by-step guide...

--
---> Kendall
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/user_home
Spring Shoot - http://www.pbase.com/kgelner/sigmaseason1

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m42 bandwaggon, pic and a question...

jakepatterson

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