Manual focus lenses

[yayas]

Hi Bob,
Lately I've been following manual focus forum in my local community, and it's quite interesting. There are certainly a loads of lenses I haven't even heard the names before. Then I'm planning to get M42 and Nikon adapter to mount some of them in my camera. Well I haven't got either adapter or lenses, but it's pretty easy to find some.
Clear to me, what they after is bokeh. I never seen bokeh-lover like they are. Swirly, creamy, and many more types of bokeh.

Reading your article makes me rethink about that. All the efforts, stop down metering, painful focusing, and so on.
I won't likely get 50-55 range lenses for portrait shots, as I'm very well covered.

Some reasons I want to try this route are getting a cheap macro lens (MF is not a serious issue), and wide-angle prime, such as Olympus OM 28mm/2.8 when the focusing also not serious issue.
The macro lenses that come to my attention are Nikkor 55/2.8 and Nikkor 55/3.5, which are reviewed as very, very sharp macro lenses.

With the reasons (cheap macro and wide) is it worth trying?

Thanks.
Regards.
Andreas

[Bob Atkins]

If you can find inexpensive manual focus lenses that can be adapted to EOS, then there's no reason not to try them. When you are working slowly, as you often are when shooting macro or landscape images, then AF and auto aperture aren't all that important.

[yayas]

The Nikkor 55mm micro + adapter will cost me around $100.
I don't think I'll get macro lenses in that price.

28mm is not wide enough for my crop-sensor, so I would use it for walkaround/street traveling.
As a normal lens, will it give me so much hassle in focusing? If so I'll drop this option.

Thanks.

[Bob Atkins]

Sounds like a good price for the macro.

I'm not so sure I'd want a 28mm manual focus stop-down lens for general purpose and street work. I sometimes use a Canon EF 24/2.8 for that and AF and auto aperture can be useful. I have used an old Vivitar 19mm f3.5 for that purpose and it wasn't too hard to use because of the additional depth of fiield the 19mm gives.

However 28/2.8 manual focus lenses can be found dirt cheap, especially "generic" brands in Pentax screw mount, so you're not going to lose much if you try it and don't like it.

See, for example: 28mm f2.8 Pentax screw mount lenses on eBay

[yayas]

Thanks, Bob

I'm convinced you don't have luxury of time for searching around and browsing images, but I'll give pBase links of those Nikkor lenses, in case someone in the forum is interested too  :

http://www.pbase.com/cameras/nikon/55_28_ais_micro
http://www.pbase.com/cameras/nikon/55_35_micro_ai

Anyway, I'll also consider Pentax adapter.

Best regards,
Andreas.

[klindup]

I had not realised that I could possibly use the Takumar lenses bought for my Pentaxes (all screw thread) on and EOS.  Can anyone tell me where in the UK I can buy an adapter to use these lenses in manual mode?

thanks

Ken Lindup

[Bob Atkins]

Sorry, I don't know UK stores. I suspect that any major camera dealer would either have one or be able to get one. There are lots of them on eBay (US) but I don't know about eBay (UK). Price in the US is anything from $10 to $25, more with a focus confirmation chip.

See http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/reviews/m42_eos_focusing_adapter.html for info on the focus confirmation chip.

See http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/eosfaq/manual_focus_EOS.html for general information on lens adapters.