Suggestion: Manual-Focus lenses subforum

[SkedAddled]

There's an awful lot of fine glass out there which is as old or older than I am, which also mounts to my EOS camera with the use of inexpensive adapters. Many of these lenses are still considered to be some of the finest examples of camera optics ever to be, even though they occasionally predate the second world war or earlier.

Yes, there are many arguments pro and con, yet it remains that many film 'purists'
have been giving these lenses new life by mounting them on their sparkling-new
digital cameras, and they are mostly raving about how much they love the lenses
from their 'lost eras' when used with modern digitals.

Carl Zeiss, Helios, Asahi/Takumar, Tamron, Soligor, Hanimar, Leica, Chinon, Olympus/Zuiko, Voightlander, Yashica, Jupiter -- They're all good lenses, and more.

I am confident that we have many manual-focus users right here on this same forum,
so why not open the forum to such endeavors? There are dedicated resources for this,
I know, but why shut this aspect out of the digital age? I hope to acquire one or two
SMC Takumar lenses, or a CZJ lens in my time. Maybe a Russian mirror lens, or a
M42-mount cinematic projector lens. Lots of possibilities, actually.

But what's keeping this aspect of lenses out of the fold?

[Perry Ge]

I'd be interested in this too, but I can see good reasons for not having such a subforum.

On a side-note, you are the ONLY other person I know (other than myself) who has a Hanimar 135mm M42 lens - f/2.8 or f/3.5 version? I have the f/3.5 Super "S" version that I got for $7 .

[SkedAddled]

Originally Posted by perryge

On a side-note, you are the ONLY other person I know (other than myself) who has a Hanimar 135mm M42 lens - f/2.8 or f/3.5 version? I have the f/3.5 Super "S" version that I got for $7 .

I paid a whopping $12 for my fully-manual f/3.5-22. It was 'old new stock,' and indeed arrived exactly as fresh from the factory in original packaging.

[Laramie]

I'd like to see it too. As I have gotten into manual focus Olympus Zuiko lenses, I'd love to see a subforum for MF stuff.

[Froggeh]

I'd also like to see a subforum for MF stuff.

[::John::]

ok - 4 users out of 180,000+

As with other forums here, show that you have the numbers and interest from many of you.

The Celestial forum started because a dedicated group of Celestial photographers created a thread in one of the share forums and showed us it was a popular choice.

You could do the same in the Lens forum - create a thread and title it appropriately - and show us your stuff!

The Underwater photographers are also going through a similar scheme to see if they have the general board interest to sustain a forum of their own.

Best of luck, we'll be interested to see how it goes.

John

[Laramie]

A similar thread to what you suggested is ongoing in the "lens archive" I believe. Seems whenever somebody posts questions or samples about MF lenses, they seem to get lots of replies and there's a good amount of interest. I think it would help is searching/sorting through lens questions and topics as MF lenses become more popular.

Originally Posted by ::John::

ok - 4 users out of 180,000+

As with other forums here, show that you have the numbers and interest from many of you.

The Celestial forum started because a dedicated group of Celestial photographers created a thread in one of the share forums and showed us it was a popular choice.

You could do the same in the Lens forum - create a thread and title it appropriately - and show us your stuff!

The Underwater photographers are also going through a similar scheme to see if they have the general board interest to sustain a forum of their own.

Best of luck, we'll be interested to see how it goes.

John

[Froggeh]

Hi John,

thanks for responding here too. simply put, MF users are currently discouraged from using the board. If we review/sample photo a lens, we don't want to 'junk up' the AF lens sample photo archive (for that's what it is, so everything is in one post there). After our first couple of lenses, we just move forums to talk about MF stuff, because it gets buried under a deluge of random questions (eg. title '70-200 IS or 70-200 non-IS'?)

Personally (having run a number of large forums), I'd suggest that these fora are created in order to allow these sub-sections of the comunity to thrive. If we don't have anywhere good to discuss things, how are we to sustain the 'MF-users' group feel, and pool information? As much as the search forum helps, it's a question of Signal vs. Noise.

[Pete]

Ok, here's an idea.

If people want to start a discussion thread about brand specific (Carl Zeiss, Helios, Asahi/Takumar, Tamron, Soligor, Hanimar, Leica, Chinon, Olympus/Zuiko, Voightlander, Yashica, Jupiter, whatever )MF lenses in the Lens section, then it would probably be a good idea to have a thread linking to those threads.

So, if someone's interested in a Takumar lens, they could go right to the Takumar thread and read/discuss. The sticky thread would be a placeholder/index for the lot of them (in the same way that the lens archive has an index). This idea proved useful in the bag review thread in the Accessories section

-=LINK=-

If someone wants to start up such an index thread (and is happy to maintain it), then we'll look at it and sticky it for you.

[borealis]

I've owned a few Hanimars....

[borealis]

I'd be interested in the discussions.
5Dmk2 videographers using MF lenses would likely find it useful.