Lens mount adapter question.

[Fifer]

I have a Carl Zeiss Planar 1.4 / 50mm T* lens on a Contax / Yashica mount, which I'd like to use on a Canon EOS EF mount body.

I've seen plain adapter rings on sale at around £10 which look like they would do the job. There would be no auto focus or diaphragm control, but I'd be quite happy to shoot in manual or aperture priority mode.

Around the £15 to £20 mark and above, there are adapters with an AF confirm chip, indicating a fixed value of 50mm F 1.4 in EXIF value. What would be the advantage over the previous ring?

At the top end of the scale there is the Leitax adapter, with or without a chip. They are very expensive, and the set-up seems to be extremely complicated. I don't think I'd go for one of these!

Does anyone have experience of these adapters, whether they are any good or not, or any to be avoided?

Cheers,
Jim

[Rocket]

Not used any of the above but I have lashed quite a rew different lenses to my Pentax DSLR and my Sony mirrorless.

Looking on line I think your lens has an aperture control ring - so that helps a lot.

I have used the plain metal rings on my Pentax to fit M42 lenses it was no problem. You may have alter things in the menu to enable the camera to fire when it thinks it has no lens attached.

The AF confirm chip will enable you to twist the focus ring with your hand but get the beep and the little square that confirms focus. (if enabled)

That is how it works in theory but I have don't had experience of that lens or canon bodies

[clf]

Originally Posted by Fifer

I have a Carl Zeiss Planar 1.4 / 50mm T* lens on a Contax / Yashica mount, which I'd like to use on a Canon EOS EF mount body.

I've seen plain adapter rings on sale at around £10 which look like they would do the job. There would be no auto focus or diaphragm control, but I'd be quite happy to shoot in manual or aperture priority mode.

Around the £15 to £20 mark and above, there are adapters with an AF confirm chip, indicating a fixed value of 50mm F 1.4 in EXIF value. What would be the advantage over the previous ring?

At the top end of the scale there is the Leitax adapter, with or without a chip. They are very expensive, and the set-up seems to be extremely complicated. I don't think I'd go for one of these!

Does anyone have experience of these adapters, whether they are any good or not, or any to be avoided?

Cheers,
Jim

be very very careful of the AF confirm chips. I can recall when I got my adapters reading of horror stories with the EOS AF chips. Frying the camera completely. The ones I remember seeing were quite crude anyway.

I do have adapters to fit all my lenses onto the Canon, and also to fit my Canon lenses to my Samsung also.

Be aware however, that some film designed lenses do not convert well to digital. There was a Minolta lens, a very highly thought of lens, even now. But when attached to a this particular lens whilst sharp, exhibited a huge amount od chromatic aberration.

On the whole though, do it! lol But use the manual adapter. You will get use to focusing by eye. Make sure though, the adapter does allow for focus to infinity. One of my adapters doesnt. However, that adapter does then convert all of my lenses into close focus lenses. My 85mm east German Zeiss lens is a superb macro lens. The adapter also allows me to use my bellows

[Fifer]

Originally Posted by Rocket

Not used any of the above but I have lashed quite a rew different lenses to my Pentax DSLR and my Sony mirrorless.

Looking on line I think your lens has an aperture control ring - so that helps a lot.

I have used the plain metal rings on my Pentax to fit M42 lenses it was no problem. You may have alter things in the menu to enable the camera to fire when it thinks it has no lens attached.

The AF confirm chip will enable you to twist the focus ring with your hand but get the beep and the little square that confirms focus. (if enabled)

That is how it works in theory but I have don't had experience of that lens or canon bodies

Hi Paul, thanks for that. The lens does indeed have an aperture control ring and stops down to f 16. It would be handy having the beep and the square confirming focus, but I could live without it. I don't want to fry the camera, as per below, so maybe the chip is not such a good idea. It is nice to know what it is for though.

Originally Posted by clf

be very very careful of the AF confirm chips. I can recall when I got my adapters reading of horror stories with the EOS AF chips. Frying the camera completely. The ones I remember seeing were quite crude anyway.

I do have adapters to fit all my lenses onto the Canon, and also to fit my Canon lenses to my Samsung also.

Be aware however, that some film designed lenses do not convert well to digital. There was a Minolta lens, a very highly thought of lens, even now. But when attached to a this particular lens whilst sharp, exhibited a huge amount od chromatic aberration.

On the whole though, do it! lol But use the manual adapter. You will get use to focusing by eye. Make sure though, the adapter does allow for focus to infinity. One of my adapters doesnt. However, that adapter does then convert all of my lenses into close focus lenses. My 85mm east German Zeiss lens is a superb macro lens. The adapter also allows me to use my bellows

I don't want to chance frying the camera, so the plain adapter would appear to be the way to go. I was reading in an American forum that the Planar 1.4 lens worked well with canon digital cameras, but it will be interesting to see what the results are like on my own camera. I don't enter competitions or do anything technical, just holiday pics and general interest stuff shared with family and friends, so I don't really have the restrictions that a serious photographer has.

Some of the adapter rings that I've looked at don't say whether they allow focus to infinity or not, but the one I'm looking at just now says that it does. I'll order that one and see how it goes.

Thanks Guys,
Jim

[Rocket]

just as a matter of interest, many mirrorless cameras give you the ability to greatly magnify the viewfinder image so you can set focus accurately with manual lenses. (I have it set on the button next to the shutter release, one press and the viewfinder zooms right in on the subject) Focus peaking is available also which also helps. Really handy for old lenses.

[Fifer]

Originally Posted by Rocket

just as a matter of interest, many mirrorless cameras give you the ability to greatly magnify the viewfinder image so you can set focus accurately with manual lenses. (I have it set on the button next to the shutter release, one press and the viewfinder zooms right in on the subject) Focus peaking is available also which also helps. Really handy for old lenses.

It is interesting to know Paul, but unfortunately my camera does have a mirror. Worth thinking about for the future though.

Cheers,
Jim

[Rocket]

Originally Posted by Fifer

It is interesting to know Paul, but unfortunately my camera does have a mirror. Worth thinking about for the future though.

Cheers,
Jim

Indeed, it is features like this that help people choose which cameras to buy. Cameras have so many features these days and a feature that is of great use to one person may be of little use to another person.

[Fifer]

Originally Posted by Rocket

Indeed, it is features like this that help people choose which cameras to buy. Cameras have so many features these days and a feature that is of great use to one person may be of little use to another person.

I tend to be of the "keep things simple" school, and have to admit not buying a camera for many years now. I've seen friends and relations fork out a lot of money for the latest all singing, all dancing cameras, then setting them on automatic and leaving them there! In the hands of professionals, or serious amateurs, they will be wonderful tools, but to the average amateur "snapper" they really are overkill.

Apart from wanting to try the Zeiss lens on the Canon body, I've also been toying with the idea of pinhole photography or even the very quirky Holga lens, on the Canon. Maybe a backward step, and very hit and miss, but I've seen some amazing results too.

After seeing some of the beautiful and widly varied images on the forum it has rekindled my interest in photography, so maybe a new camera in the future?

Jim

[Rocket]

Originally Posted by Fifer

I tend to be of the "keep things simple" school, and have to admit not buying a camera for many years now. I've seen friends and relations fork out a lot of money for the latest all singing, all dancing cameras, then setting them on automatic and leaving them there! In the hands of professionals, or serious amateurs, they will be wonderful tools, but to the average amateur "snapper" they really are overkill.

Apart from wanting to try the Zeiss lens on the Canon body, I've also been toying with the idea of pinhole photography or even the very quirky Holga lens, on the Canon. Maybe a backward step, and very hit and miss, but I've seen some amazing results too.

After seeing some of the beautiful and widly varied images on the forum it has rekindled my interest in photography, so maybe a new camera in the future?

Jim

I agree about the camera usage. You can get a camera with a good sensor and a good piece of glass for a reasonable cost. For normal everyday use that camera will be fine. If you want to do things like

Large wall prints
Really low light pics
Very fast moving focus tracking
Wireless connection and linking to social media
etc etc

That all costs more. I suppose if you are well off you can just buy the best of whatever you like and if I won the lottery I could easily spend £10000 on gear in no time.

I used to have quite a collection of legacy glass that I could fit on my Pentax 12mp DSLR (mainly to save money) but I sold most of them as they did not perform well on the 24mp camera I have now. I am really glad I played around with those old lenses though. It was good fun and taught me a lot using only manual. I do have and will no doubt buy in the future modern manual lenses Samyang (and others) make some fantastic modern high quality glass. It means I can buy top quality resolution at affordable prices, the trade off is convenience.

I keep a couple of Takumar lenses as I just can't bring myself to sell them. Here I wrote in 2012 about the great sharpness and how tricky they were to focus. Now on my new camera they are easy to focus but not as sharp as the modern lenses
https://www.pentaxforums.com/lensrev...00mm-F5.6.html

[Fifer]

Originally Posted by Rocket

I agree about the camera usage. You can get a camera with a good sensor and a good piece of glass for a reasonable cost. For normal everyday use that camera will be fine. If you want to do things like

Large wall prints
Really low light pics
Very fast moving focus tracking
Wireless connection and linking to social media
etc etc

That all costs more. I suppose if you are well off you can just buy the best of whatever you like and if I won the lottery I could easily spend £10000 on gear in no time.

I used to have quite a collection of legacy glass that I could fit on my Pentax 12mp DSLR (mainly to save money) but I sold most of them as they did not perform well on the 24mp camera I have now. I am really glad I played around with those old lenses though. It was good fun and taught me a lot using only manual. I do have and will no doubt buy in the future modern manual lenses Samyang (and others) make some fantastic modern high quality glass. It means I can buy top quality resolution at affordable prices, the trade off is convenience.

I keep a couple of Takumar lenses as I just can't bring myself to sell them. Here I wrote in 2012 about the great sharpness and how tricky they were to focus. Now on my new camera they are easy to focus but not as sharp as the modern lenses
https://www.pentaxforums.com/lensrev...00mm-F5.6.html

As per normal, your shots of the birds on the Pentax forum are pin sharp with vivid colours. You have the wild bird photography down to a fine art.

The closest I ever got to a bird, was this crazy Emu that came over to say hello in Wei Hai.



I'm not on social media, so the wireless connection wouldn't be of any use to me, and I doubt if I would ever contemplate making a large wall print. Most of the bells and whistles of these new cameras are beyond what I'm looking for really.

In the second paragraph, "It was good fun." sums it up for me. It should be fun. My first cameras were mostly completely manual, and the only "automation" was a needle in the viewfinder that stopped in the centre when the exposure was correct (or supposed to be). In the drive for perfection, photography has become very intense, and almost clinical. A good photograph to me is one that is pleasing to the eye, and not necessarily technically perfect.

I tend to be a hoarder too, and rarely get rid of anything. I dug out my old Leica III f, and at first sight it looks a bit daunting with all the knobs and dials, but it is not a difficult camera to use. The rangefinder is extremely accurate. I may just run a film through it to see if it still operates properly. A friend once asked how to turn it on? He hadn't seen a camera that didn't have a battery!



I'll probably end up developing my own film again. All the fun of the fair!
Jim