Hi from Alfie.

[Hamish Gill]

canon ef has a 44mm flange back distance Brian... shorter than most other brands
this means you could get an adapter to fit nikon, pentax, m42, sony, oly om, leica r and more to your camera and get infinity focusing!
pentax and nikon are the only brands with the same mount for a good long time ... and if you really want compatibility ... i get FULL function from my nikon ai's and on on my d3

 

[Brian Moore]

Good to know, Hamish. Thanks.

 

[Hamish Gill]

In short ... Get one of them AF confirm m42/ef adapters and rock that Helios Brian ... You know you want to

 

[Brian Moore]

I DO want to. But the damn Helios is 58mm focal length, and on the crop-sensor 7d it would make me feel like I was shooting with blinders on. I might do it anyway, though.

 

[Hamish Gill]

You might find the portrait photographer within Brian

 

[Brian Moore]

You never know, Hamish!

 

[alfie Wright]

I went out for a few Easter beers with Sally last night & ended up a little drunk!

What's wrong with that I hear you say! Well it seems I went on ebay & this morning I had two offers for lens excepted & have another still pending What have I done!

Haha, I didn't want to do this just yet, but it looks like I now own a Zenit Helios 44K4 58mm f2 & a Pentax-A 50mm f1.7 & still have an offer open on a Tamrom SP90 f2.5 Macro that has some adaptall mount or something. I've emailed the seller to withdraw the offer on the Tamron, but the other 2 are pretty cheap.

I hate the mixture of ebay & beer! At least it's not ££££'s of Hifi this time!

 

[Hamish Gill]

Haha good effort!!
Good choices!

I have a couple of adaptall lenses ... The sp's are rather good although I have had a few issue using them with digital cameras and flare so that might have been a good choice too

 

[alfie Wright]

SWMBO didn't find it so funny

Hamish, what is this adaptall that seems to be on some of the older Tamron lenses? Also what is this 'Hugo high five' I've pressed it on one thread thinking it was a link to something

 

[Hamish Gill]

Hugo is our mascot .. When you high five him on a post he likes that post ... If you slap him he goes away and stops liking it ...
It's a "like" button basically ...

 

[Hamish Gill]

Tamron made a load of lenses with interchangeable camera mounts
Basically you could buy one lens and then adapt it to what ever camera you had the adaptal mount for
I bought my 17mm sp with a canon fd mount (from memory) sold the adapter on eBay and bought a Nikon one
I have also bought lenses before with no mount as they tend to go a little cheaper if you can find them

 

[Brian Moore]

If you slap him he goes away and stops liking it ...

Who'd dare?

 

[Emma Pugh]

Welcome Alfie

 

[alfie Wright]

Hi Alfie and welcome.

Welcome Alfie

Thanks for the welcomes Paul & Emma

 

[alfie Wright]

Hugo is our mascot .. When you high five him on a post he likes that post ... If you slap him he goes away and stops liking it ...
It's a "like" button basically ...

Oh I see Similar to 'post of the day' or Rep points. That's pretty cool!

Tamron made a load of lenses with interchangeable camera mounts
Basically you could buy one lens and then adapt it to what ever camera you had the adaptal mount for
I bought my 17mm sp with a canon fd mount (from memory) sold the adapter on eBay and bought a Nikon one
I have also bought lenses before with no mount as they tend to go a little cheaper if you can find them

Thanks for the explanation, Hamish. Make one lens with interchangeable mounts rather than lots of different copies of the same lens with different mounts. I suspect it helps then keep the price of their lenses down. Is there any disadvantage to this adaptall mounting system?

 

[Hamish Gill]

Not really ... I suppose the main limitation of it as a concept is that more modern lenses comunicate electronically with the camera. Because of this it would be an impractical solution these days as different brands, at least best guess would tell me, comunicate different info back and forth from the lens... Not to mention the problems with driving AF etc

There is a whole website dedicated to adaptall kit here adaptall-2.org

The only real disadvantage I have discovered I outlined previously ... On my 17mm sp I got some pretty nasty flare when using it with a digital camera ...
But this can be an issue with any older lens and digital due to the reflective nature of a digital sensor and lens coating not geared up to deal with such reflections

 

[Andy Boardman]

Hi Alfie

Hi Alfie welcome on board, ask as many questions as you like, always someone on here who will be able to answer you.

 

[alfie Wright]

The Zenit Helios 44K-4 58mm f2 & the Pentax-A 50mm f1.7 arrived yesterday. Both seem very nice & quite sharp when stopped down a little & both a little soft wide open. The 44K-4 is taking a bit more getting used to as there's no A setting & needs to use stop down metering. I think I've got it sussed now, but it slows things down a little at the moment.

Hmmm... must not drink beer & use ebay!!!!

 

[Hamish Gill]

Bit of vintage softness is part of the fun ... Makes for that lovely sorta creamy dreamy feel!

 

[alfie Wright]

I'll let you know about the 'vintage softness' when I've managed to take a decent image LOL. I've mostly been playing around with DOF & OOF, the extra work of 'stop down metering' & even manual focus does seem to get me thinking a little bit more about what I'm trying to capture, so it could all be good in the end!