DPReview TV: Shoot Pentax 110 lenses on Micro Four Thirds!

Thanks for the post ----- But Pentax 110 Lenses come with a high cost!
+1+ Financial - they have proved to be "trendy" and the action prices have been rising.
+2+ Useability - the lack of aperture control
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Solution - for similar "small footprint" lenses for M4/3 - take a moment to look at the truely tiny lenses made by Cheecar/Fujian in c-mount: available in 25mm, 35mm and 50mm. They have advantages over the legacy Pentax 110 lenses while maintaning the Pentax benefits.
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Advantage of the Fujian mini lenses:
[1] Available new for £10-20 GBP / $15-30 USD with C to M4/3 adapters from many auction websites
[2] in the perspectives 25mm, 35mm and 50mm
[3] All have variable apertures
[4] with faster F1.4 to F1.7 apertures than Pentax 110
[5] Are new build - so fungus, haze and dust are not a problem

My advice is to start with the 35mm Fujian F1.7 - and if in doubt, just google "35mm Fujian F1.7" for some reviews and inspiration on You Tube and beyond.

Best wishes - Paul C

I have the full Pentax 110 kit and also a Pentax Q7 with three lenses. I got an adapter to use the 110 lenses with the Q (incidentally a very good camera considering the sensor size). The 110 and Q lenses are very good - what do you expect from a Pentax prime? So I disagree with your derogatory comments about the quality of these lenses. Old doesn't mean bad - I still use mainly Minolta lenses on my Sony A7.

Brilliant :) and a great idea for the folks at Pentax/Ricoh :)

Love the video, fun to watch, I might get one of these lenses because I just remember I have a Lumix G1 somewhere :) BTW, love Chris screenshot lol.

Another idea for fun videos: if you switch to 35mm sensors, how about delving in the world of vintage Leica M39 screw mount lenses? It's still huge, and besides high quality products such as original Leica lenses there are a lot of funny cheap Sowjet lenses out there, some of which are surprisingly good and others are technically so bad that it is really fun to see the artistic results the can create.

I had a lot of fun to watch this video, in particular the look of the combo with an OM-D that I never expected to appear that oversized... ;)

Someone buys these lenses. Will be fun for awhile and they will then gather another 40 years of dust.

And, you can still get 110 film if you want the full experience!

Great pictures. The sharpness or lack of doesn’t bother me at all. Not sure how much post if any has been done, but lack of sharpness and the color profile gives them real character. Looking at the shot of the fence in the snow or the blue corrugated surface with the flash of orange you’d be forgiven for thinking the images didn’t come from an Olympus m4/3. At a time where we complain if a camera can’t do everything brilliantly, it’s great to see what enforced limitations (and a sense of fun) can produce. As a kid I owned a Fuji 110 film camera. It was very plasticky, the rear door was really loose and....it took the best photos! My dad had the Agfa equivalent, an exquisitely made and designed object that just never delivered the same results as the cheap little Fuji.

Makes me wonder why all my M43 lenses are so 'big' when these tiny things cover almost the same image circle, and at f2.8! Yeah OK, no diaphragm, AF, or OIS, and pretty average optical performance, but still, the size difference to current M43 primes is a little startling, no?

Apparently cold weather makes things shrink.. so the body-lens look is very appropriate.. hahaha

I’d like to see Pentax and Olympus partner not only on MFT but also 44:33 medium format mirrorless, although I know this is not a good time.

Better pics than usual. The little Pentax lenses seem to be a great job but no surprises as they made good gear.

Flare resistance seems really good too, I wonder did they use SMC coatings on 110 lenses?

My cousin had rich parents (my aunt and uncle) and they bought him a Pentax 110 system, I remember he had it in 1982 when he was about 10/11. He went on to be a pro photographer and now teaches photography.

I use Pentax-110 lenses on Fuji-X APS-C ...

Examples here => https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/122-lens-clubs/397024-pentax-110-system-film-lenses-aps-c.html

Like M43, so yes to Pentax joining in. And will look on eBay for lenses!

Is there any way to simulate the aperture which was built into the 110 bodies so that the lenses can be effectively stopped down for use on digital? I suspect that image quality would increase significantly if there were a way to stop them down to f/4 or /5.6, and they'd still let enough light through to be useable.

If delving into old/adapted lenses is truly an adventure, you have to play with the Zeiss Jena series of glass. I loved using it on a lot of different bodies, but I suspect that audiences would most appreciate its pairing with a Fuji body.

been doing this since 2010 with home build mods before commercial adapters arrived.. 18mm 24mm 50mm 70mm 20-40 2.8

the 24mm is literally the size of a soda bottle cap

great topic and inspired shooting , maybe you should shoot not very sharp vintage treasures all the time ?

Great video. Much better audio coming out of the XT4.

I would love to see M43rds or C-mount lenses adapted to a Nikon Z camera. Both of those adapters exist and I wonder how much vignetting is present.

Pure enjoyment on a cold and lazy Sunday afternoon... and I always learn something new when I watch the Chris & Jordon show :D I also appreciated many of the technical DIY'ers who have added interesting facts to the comments below... and I'm sure there will be more. Thanks Chris/Jordon... keep up the good work!

HAGD, Bob

What I think about a MFT Pentax? Well, actually I have been thinking that would be a quite logical move with their long history of offering performance in a small package. If they were to bring something like the ME or the MX in MFT, that would be awesome! I'd trust them to bring on some fine lenses too. And compared to other options to complement the SLR sales, it would be a pretty low risk one.

Nice and funny video, but a little late...

I played with Pentax 110 lenses on mFT - w i t h aperture - back in 2010...

http://www.meinezersaegtenkameras.de/Emft%20adapter.shtml

Regards,

Sven

Interesting and fun, thanks. If the economy goes the way I expect, articles on stuff that's inexpensive but fun might be a good idea.

There used to be much more of this; using window screen to make star effects, fisheye lenses made from door peepholes, cheap lenses used with T adapters, old view camera lenses, etc. Stuff like Lens Baby used to be priced appropriately, and it was fun to experiment with.

I enjoyed the video. But I think it's only fair (to the now-mostly-retired Pentax engineers who designed this system), to emphasize a point that only a few others are making:

In this experiment, the lenses are being used in a way never intended. Not "wide open" but beyond that. They're really wider than f/2/8 but were designed to be used with the Auto 110 body's built-in shutter/stop that controls the opening. Optically, it's no fair to go without the stop that makes them f/2.8 as engraved.

If you went inside a modern lens and removed the aperture mechanism including associated rings and baffles, you'd be shooting through edges of the elements and the sharpness would take a noticeable hit. I think that's part of the story here.

Though perhaps not razor-sharp, I think their reputation is going to suffer unfairly because of these stop-less adapters on digital cameras. By adding various stops, you'd find the sharpness is better at actual f/2.8, probably much better at f/4 to f/5.6.

I like the snow photo's a lot. Great framing (if that's an english expression at all).

Guess they could join L-mount.

try* a bunch of C mount lenses

I have the whole set of these Pentax auto 110 lenses that I got for cheap years ago. I only had one native lens at the time so these and other dirt cheap legacy glass seemed attractive. I mounted them on the Panasonic GF-1 and the results were okay optically. They look comically cute being dwarfed even by the m43 bodies. Eventually however I just decided to go with native lenses.

I contemplated grabbing a Pentax Q. With the 70mm would make 385mm or 329mm on the Q7. Alas, I think I would get better photos if I just grabbed a Stylus 1 which is a 28-300mm and similar sensor.

Thinking these lenses would be fun on a small M43, such as an E-Px model. Nice video though, it's great to see you guys having fun like this.

Starring Chris Niccolls as one of one!

A neighbor had the Pentax 110 and in the late 1990's he used it one last time and commented that the photos looked better than when the camera was new and he was correct, the film got better so the photos were better.

I have a set of these lenses along with the camera, and I use them on micro four thirds. I also have the magnetic aperture disks.

f/2.8 is what they would do with the Pentax 110 camera's dual internal aperture - some of these lenses measure all the way down to f/2.0 in the real world.

Yes, Pentax should make a digital 110. Pentax should make a micro four thirds camera. This will never happen though, since Pentax has trouble making DSLRs and has tried twice already with mirrorless.

This video enticed me to make a quick trip through ebay where I was taken aback at the availability of Pentax 110 system cameras, lenses, flash, etc.

Those lenses do look fun, and with an EM9 (IBIS) they would be a perfect match.

The X-T4 is doing a good job too. The GF100 and X-T4 sure make great looking videos.

It's refreshing when photography is fun & not hung up on systems & pixel peeping. Thanks for this video.

I saw the video and let myself encourage to give DPR a suggestion for a future test: Quailty vs weight optimization. What system, sensor size and lens will give the best image quality per kg equipment. Assume same FoV, lighting, shutter speed and so on.

m4/3 with a f/1,4 lens vs a FF camera with a f/2,8 lens and so on.

Another fun episode guys!

I really appreciated the fact that the Fujifilm X-T4 was used to shoot this episode (presumably intentionally) giving us an opportunity to further evaluate the performance of the newly introduced IBIS system and video AF. More valuable even than the initial review of the X-T4 in this matter...

The same applies to a previous sponsored article here at DPReview (exploring creativity with the X Pro 3, that did not allow for comments) which in fact I enjoyed mostly as a showcase of the wonderful video capabilities of the X-T3 that was used to film that video.

I have to say that, colour in this video filmed with the X-T4, in my personal opinion, looks to be so much more natural than previous videos shot with the Panasonic SH1. Just a personal opinion of course. Therefore, I would greatly appreciate a video comparison of your take on video colour science of various companies and models of hybrid cameras currently in the market.

Keep up the exciting work!

As always you guys make awesome videos, and this one only shows how much fun you can have using those fully manual lenses even in an non cooperating landscape.

One great advantage of mirrorless systems is this ability to use old lenses full of imperfections but with magical rendering.

Thank you

While we're on the subject of "ancient" lenses that are both tiny and still gorgeous today, let's not forget the old Zuiko 200mm f/5, a truly "pocket" sized 200mm lens if ever there was one. If you're looking to "get to 400mm" on your fancy new E-M1 mk3, and don't mind manual focus but want insane sharpness at f/5-8 before diffraction gets too nasty, then that's a unicorn of a lens.

Pentax could be an interesting addition to m43, particularly if they made bodies incorporating their 4-shot whole-pixel-shift function - which neither Olympus nor Panasonic do (why?).

These lenses belong firmly in the past though. They are terrible.