Category Archives: Other

05Feb/18

My M42 Lenses on the Fotodiox Pronto Autofocus Adapter

E Mount, Fotodiox Pronto, M42

In this article its all about the compability of my M42 lenses to the Fotodiox Pronto (Techart PRO AF) adapter.

As the autofocus works with all lenses, better when its brigt worse when its darker, this article is about if the 4,5mm focusway is enough. (More Info about the adapter)

The test was done with this setup:

Sony Alpha 7RII + Fotodiox Pronto + Fotodiox M42 auf Leica M + M42 Lens

 

Lens
Needs manual prefocus?
prefocus steps
additional info

Carl Zeiss Flektogon
20mm f2,8

no

0

 none
Helios 44-2
58mm f2
(Frontmod)		 yes 2 Only works with the center AF spot
Carl Zeiss Flektogon
35mm f2,8
(Frontmod)		 yes 3 Only works with the center AF spot
Zenitar Fisheye
16mm f2,8		 no 0 none
Meyer Optik Görlitz
Primoplan
58mm f1,9		 yes 2 none
Exaktar
55mm f1,4		 yes 2 none
Meyer Optik Görlitz
Trioplan
100mm f2,8		 yes 4 none
20Dec/17

Fotodiox Pronto – Autofocus with old lenses

Fotodiox Pronto
Fotodiox Pronto

As I came home from the office today [22.12.2017] there was a parcel waiting for me. Mr. Schmitz from the german Lumiere-Shop borrowed me one of his Fotodiox Pronto adapters untill February 2018. By then I will do several testing with this adapter to check out how it performs and which lenses it works good with.

Next to the Pronto adapter iitself there was an additional Fotodiox M42 to Leica M Adapter in the parcel. This adapter allows me to use my M42 lenses with autofocus.

First impression

I can’t tell anything about the box as my adapter was already unboxed and came in a plastic bag.

The housing of the adapter is made from metal. No plastic. The inner moving part is brass-coloured and looks really cool. I really have to say that the adapter feel really well finished . No wiggling, no sharp edges and no strange uneven joints.

The adapter sticks out at the bottom of the camera, when there is no L-Bracket mounted to the camera. If you want to place the camera on the ground it will not be balanced well and fall over. If you use an L-Bracket the adapter and the bracket are on the same plain. It stands rock solid.

Funcionality

The Fotodiox adapter works the same way as you would when focusing a avintage lens. It shifts the lens forth and back to get the subject in focus. The maximum shifted distance is 4,5mm.

The adapter uses the sony Phase-Detection-Points to see if there is something in focus or not. Cameras which only have Contrast-AF-Points,like the A6000, will not be able to use this system.

Following posts

In the next post i will test all my M42 lenses. I’ll test if the focus works, if the 4,5mm are enough or if you have to pre-focus yourself and i will try to test the speed of focus with different apertures.

If you have any questions about the adapter feel free to leave them in a comment.

15Dec/17

Christmas Markets – Giant photographic playgrounds

Tipps and Tricks, Lens Reviews
Why Christmas Markets?

Actually im not a huge fan of Christmas Markets. Expensive food, headache causing glogg and masses of people walking between either more or less beautiful little shacks. Nevertheless I really enjoy going to Christmas Markets. Equiped with my camera, a gorillapod tripod and several lenses which I wanna do some experiments with.

For me Christmas Markets with all their colourful lights, the hats filled up with candles and twinkling odds and ends are the perfect oportunity to live out my imagination. Taking photos on a Christmas Market is really varying and wont get boring. Besides all the light sources there are aswell some moving objects like carousels and christmas pyramids.

Long exposures, Flektogon 20mm f2.8
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Bokeh Tests
“Exploding Bokeh”

In the end I want to show you my latest experiment. The exploding bokeh of a slightly modified Carl Zeiss Flektogon 35mm f2.8 lens. I love it.

Feel free to comment and tell me your opinion about taking photos on a christmas market. Maybe even share some examples.

30Nov/17

What is bokeh?

Important facts, Uncategorized
What is bokeh?

This question splits up the photographic community in several groups. Overall you can say that bokeh is the not sharp area of a photo. For some photographers “good” bokeh is when the unsharp area is smooth and calm. Others love it when the bokeh is swirly (Helios 50mm f2) or bubbly (Meyer Optik Görlitz Trioplan 50).

Bokeh is created when light sources are out of the focus area of the lens. These light sources dont create a sharp spot on the sensor plane. They create a blurry spot shaped like the blur circle of the lens.

As you can see in this illustration the light from source A creates a huge spot because its in the out of focus area.  Source C has the same phenomenom. Only light source B creates a sharp spot on the sensor.

If you open the aperture of your lens as wide as you can, the sharp area gets smaller and its easier to get bokeh in the background.

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The shape of the bokeh is dependent to the shape of the lenses aperture. Lenses with a huge number of aperture blades like the Meyer Optik Görlitz Trioplan 50 create almost round bokeh bubbles.

Lenses with five blades in the aperture create a pentagonal like bokeh.

Thank you Ian Chattam for the example.

A different bokeh effect is the swirly bokeh of the Helios 44-M4 lens. It swirls the out of focus area around the center of the image.

In the end you cant say what bokeh is the best or perfect. It depends on what you want to create and what you personally like. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

05Oct/17

What’s the plan?

Camera Mounts, Important facts, Lens Mounts, Other, Tipps and Tricks

For 4 days now my site is already available and I have had more than 130 visitors since then without to much content, who have generated more than 600 clicks. In addition I had many comments in several Facebook Groups with positive feedback for this project.

Now it’s time to fill all areas of this page with content. On the one hand I would like to provide a comprehensive database in the area of adapting old manual lenses to modern cameras, on the other hand I would liket o fill this page with content to get a good google ranking.

I have the following plans for this page:

  1. Camera section: There will be a separate page for each camera system, describing which old and manual lenses are best suited to use. Among other things, advantages and disadvantages are to be shown here. It is important to me that I am advised by an “expert” to avoid any false bullshit. So if someone can write some lines about another camera system based on what I wrote about Sony E- and Sony A-Mount please contact me.
  2. Lens section: In addition, there will also be an area where everything revolves around lens mounts of old manual lenses. Here I want to present the advantages and disadvantages of different lens mount systems and give helpful tips.
  3. Blog: In the blog I will presend and review all my own lenses and describe their special features. I will try to be as standardised as possible on aspects such as sharpness (centre and corners), bokeh, colour rendering and vignetting. THe plan is currently to review one lens a week. In addition, I would also like to conduct interviews with other lovers of old manual vintage lenses and let you have a sneak-peak in our world. Apart from these two points, there will occasionally be other postings about eccessories, special techniques, comparisons and other photographoc gimmicks.

If you have any suggestions, wishes or questions in any way, don’t hesitate to contact me either publicly by comment or quietly and secretly by mail. I am looking forward to any feedback and criticism (as long as it is formulated in a reasonably constructive way).

03Oct/17

This is the beginning…..

Important facts, Tipps and Tricks, E Mount

Hello everyone. This is my first ever blog post on my own page about vintage lenses and adapting them to modern mirrorless cameras.

I started this project out of my own love for vintage cameras. About 3 years ago I found a mystical box with various old Exakta EXA mount lenses inside it. At this time I used a a Sony Alpha 77II as my main camera. Adapting the old lenses coming with EXA Mount to my Sony A Mount translucent mirror camera was quite easy. There are several adapters but they all need an compensating glas element.

Because of the loss of quality that my cheap far east adapter gave me I soon decided to move on to a Sony Alpha 6000 my camera in combination with adapters and vintage lenses.

The good thing about the Alpha 6000 is the really short flange focal distance of the Sony E Mount system. This gives the adapter enough space to be built without a compensating glas element.

After a while of being active in several Facebook and Instagram communitys I decided to buy some more old objectives like the legendary Meyer Optik Görlitz Trioplan 50 and 100. Up to today I own over 40 lenses which will be reviewed in this blog. The list of lenses can be found here.

After posting some of the really cool photos I took with these lenses the first questions began to pop up. People asked me about the lenses, the technique, the camera, the adapters and it happened more and more often. So I finally decided to start this project and spread the love and addiction for vintage lenses.

On this page, me and some guest authors will tell you everything what we know about all the different lenses, adapters and camera systems. If you have any questions feel free to comment or email me.