$5 Telephoto I Found On KEH

I have an old Minolta SRT101 that my grandfather gave to me and a couple of lenses (Vivitar 28-90 2.8-3.5 & Rokkor 58mm 1.4) that go with that + a 2x teleconverter.

I’ve never actually used the camera but since I bought my Lumix G7 in 2016 I’ve had a MFT to MD mount adapter so I would usually use the Vivitar along with the rest of my kit. Anyways, what I never thought about until recently is, why don’t I buy old lenses for that mount?

Apparently you can get these old MD mount lenses for super cheap. I was looking for an 80-200 and I finally found one on KEH. It was listed as a “Miscellaneous Brand” 80-200 f4 for MD mount in excellent condition for only $5!! I never bought a lens so fast. Shipping was $9 but who cares. $14 total and it’s the best lens purchase of my life.

When it got here I took the 80-200 and slapped that baby on the 2x teleconverter and then the adapter to my Lumix G9. So now it’s a 400mm on a 2x crop sensor. So an insane 800mm equiv. Never had I used a lens this long but boy is it some good fun. Would not use this professionally, but it’s just so fun to use. It’s like a telescope. I’m waiting for a full moon to show up so I can give it a go on that.

Here’s some of my favorite shots I’ve gotten so far in the first week that I’ve had it. I shot these all from my house.

Yeah, best $14 I’ve ever spent.

For $14, it's cheap thrills!

For my E-P1, I bought a used Canon 50mm f/1.8 and it looked like this. Barely in focus, was unusable until stopped down to f/2.8, looked pretty solid at f/5.6. It was hard to use, but fun for a day.

That being said, these images remind me why I didn't buy more old lenses. They're just not that great compared to modern stuff.

Terrible Photographer wrote:

For $14, it's cheap thrills!

For my E-P1, I bought a used Canon 50mm f/1.8 and it looked like this. Barely in focus, was unusable until stopped down to f/2.8, looked pretty solid at f/5.6. It was hard to use, but fun for a day.

That being said, these images remind me why I didn't buy more old lenses. They're just not that great compared to modern stuff.

Yes, unless I’m specifically going for a vintage look I wouldn’t use any old lens for any real photo shoot. Modern day lenses are just so much more capable and way sharper. AF is also extremely important when taking pictures of my nieces and nephews. They move to quickly to manual focus every shot. I almost miss them with AF! Ha!

Adapting old lenses is fun. Some of the primes can do much better a click stop down. Don't expect much from old tele zooms. Peaking can help with faster focus and the wonderful ibis of MFT stabilizes any old lens.

They look fine. Ne of the great strengths of M43 is the ease of using adapted lenses in Aperture Priority.

As Simon97 says, fun is the key word here. As long as you don't get lured into paying big money for 'legendary' vintage lenses, you can put some different, interesting optics on your camera for next to nothing.

I like the old Soviet lenses, and have three, all a little quirky (Industar-69, Helios-44 and Jupiter-11). Demand is beginning to grow for these and prices are not quite the steal that they used to be about 10 years ago.

Simon97 wrote:

Adapting old lenses is fun. Some of the primes can do much better a click stop down. Don't expect much from old tele zooms. Peaking can help with faster focus and the wonderful ibis of MFT stabilizes any old lens.

Yeah with manual focus I’ve been totally relying on the focus peaking through the EVF on my G9. It’s really helpful.

Brian Chichester wrote:

As Simon97 says, fun is the key word here. As long as you don't get lured into paying big money for 'legendary' vintage lenses, you can put some different, interesting optics on your camera for next to nothing.

I totally agree!

The ability to use vintage lens on m43 is one feature that I never discuss. Sure, it's .possible. But so is taking a picture through a prism or without a lens?

As for adapting lenses, that's another story. But it's not exclusive to m43 that I'm aware of.

But if the photographer is happy on the money spent that's all that matters.

windmillgolfer wrote:

They look fine. Ne of the great strengths of M43 is the ease of using adapted lenses in Aperture Priority.

There are countless millions of old film camera lenses in closets and attics all over the world.

There’s only one format that allows those old lenses,,,all of them,,, to be adapted cheaply to a modern digital interchangeable lens camera, and that’s Micro Four Thirds.

You could adapt that old glass to other formats, but why?

It’s all about having fun with old lenses that otherwise would sit in boxes, and MFT got there the firstest with the cheapest adapters

There will be a demand for MFT camera bodies so long as there are old lenses in boxes.

Very well spent $14! I like playing with cheap adapted lenses as well. I especially love the last two sunset pictures, very nice!

BruceRH wrote:

Very well spent $14! I like playing with cheap adapted lenses as well. I especially love the last two sunset pictures, very nice!

Thank you! I think those 2 are my favorite.

altjonny wrote:

I have an old Minolta SRT101 that my grandfather gave to me and a couple of lenses (Vivitar 28-90 2.8-3.5 & Rokkor 58mm 1.4) that go with that + a 2x teleconverter.

I’ve never actually used the camera but since I bought my Lumix G7 in 2016 I’ve had a MFT to MD mount adapter so I would usually use the Vivitar along with the rest of my kit. Anyways, what I never thought about until recently is, why don’t I buy old lenses for that mount?

Apparently you can get these old MD mount lenses for super cheap. I was looking for an 80-200 and I finally found one on KEH. It was listed as a “Miscellaneous Brand” 80-200 f4 for MD mount in excellent condition for only $5!! I never bought a lens so fast. Shipping was $9 but who cares. $14 total and it’s the best lens purchase of my life.

When it got here I took the 80-200 and slapped that baby on the 2x teleconverter and then the adapter to my Lumix G9. So now it’s a 400mm on a 2x crop sensor. So an insane 800mm equiv. Never had I used a lens this long but boy is it some good fun. Would not use this professionally, but it’s just so fun to use. It’s like a telescope. I’m waiting for a full moon to show up so I can give it a go on that.

Here’s some of my favorite shots I’ve gotten so far in the first week that I’ve had it. I shot these all from my house.

Yeah, best $14 I’ve ever spent.

Adapting lenses is lots of fun. And, yes, can be cheap!

The flower shot has lots of character. Good luck getting that with a modern, electronic lens.

The ability to adapt my Nikon lenses was one of the major draws of M4/3 when I was buying into the system. I actually added quite a few nikon AI-S lenses to fill holes in the M4/3 lens line-up, which in fact, still exist. A 105mm f2.8 macro and 200mm f4 IF macro.

I also inherited a number of Pentax SMC Takumar (50mm f1.4, 105mm f2.8) and Olympus OM (135mm f2.8) lenses.

When I was in St. Petersburg , Russia a few years ago, I picked up a Jupiter 8 (50mm f2, Leica L39 screwmount) for 2000 rubles (about $32!). It's a great little lens, with really nice color signature and TINY. It sort of got me on the road of adapting rangefinder lenses.

I love the wasp and flower.  Yeah its a little soft, but man that lens has some character!

sounds like a great way to spend your lunch money to me!

magnesus3 wrote:

altjonny wrote:

Simon97 wrote:

Adapting old lenses is fun. Some of the primes can do much better a click stop down. Don't expect much from old tele zooms. Peaking can help with faster focus and the wonderful ibis of MFT stabilizes any old lens.

Yeah with manual focus I’ve been totally relying on the focus peaking through the EVF on my G9. It’s really helpful.

Not sure how it is called on Panasonic but on Olympus there is Magnify which is way, way more accurate way to focus (magnifies the focus point) than peaking. I often miss focus with peaking, never with magnify.

That’s what mine does. You can customize it. Mine magnifies and shows blue dots on the area that is in focus.

magnesus3 wrote:

HRC2016 wrote

The ability to use vintage lens on m43 is one feature that I never discuss. Sure, it's .possible. But so is taking a picture through a prism or without a lens?

Why are you being so hostile? Those photos are soft, but they are taken with 2x teleconverter. There are vintage lenses which are very sharp and useful and they are cheap, not everyone has tons of money. They were good for photos back then, why not now?

He’s just like that …

farmer35 wrote:

If you enjoy those zooms, you might think about spending some time getting to know the 58mm too. I have that lens but don't use mine much either. In my case it's because I like the MC Rokkor 55mm f/1.7 better. And it's not very expensive either, not $5 cheap, but it should be well under $50. Another of my favorite Rokkors is the 28mm f/2.5.

I would use the 58mm but sadly the aperture ring is broken. It will do nothing if I turn the ring. I haven’t taken the time to learn how to fix it myself. I believe the aperture is stuck completely wide open so I can’t stop it down to get a slightly sharper image. I like how tough that lens feels. Pretty much solid metal and glass, feels great in the hand. They don’t make lenses like that anymore.