Vintage lenses & adaptors reviews/impressions/talk/li​nks for EOS.

Various Pentax M42 mount lens impressions.

Fotodiox M42-EOS adapter
Unchipped, no focus confirmation. Mechanically it's fine. Little to no play when mounted. Ordered on eBay for <$20 USD IIRC. Good buy.

Dimension 135mm f/3.5
Great lens. Beautiful colour. Easy to focus w/ 6D. Sharp wide open. Nice background blur. Compact & light. Adequate build. Twist the focus ring far enough and the front section of the lens will separate from the rear section. Aperture ring labels don't line up with click stops. Variations of this lens are common and generally inexpensive.

Example 1

Chinon 55mm f/1.7 Macro
1:3 macro, although I've seen 1:2 reported. Aperture blades on my copy are stuck wide open. Sharp in center, increasingly soft toward the edge. Background blur can get weird in certain settings, takes on a spiral characteristic at times. At macro distances bg blur is nice. Works fine with 2x TC but image quality suffers. Flare prone which can be used to good effect in backlit situations. Love this lens. Tempted to get it fixed but happy with it broken. Doesn't seem particularly common on eBay or in vintage camera shops. Pricey when available.

Example 1
Example 2
Example 3

Zeniton 28mm f/2.8
Difficult to focus with standard 6D focusing screen. Lens is soft with significant vignette wide open. Not great but has a look to it. Good/bad depends on the subject.

Photo from aezoss's gallery.
Image hosted by forum (878511)

aezoss wrote in post #18739003
Dimension 135mm f/3.5
Great lens. Beautiful colour. Easy to focus w/ 6D. Sharp wide open. Nice background blur. Compact & light. Adequate build. Twist the focus ring far enough and the front section of the lens will separate from the rear section. Aperture ring labels don't line up with click stops. Variations of this lens are common and generally inexpensive.

The highlighted descriptions typically are indicitave of a past disassembly, with an incorrect reassembly. I'd suspect a stop screw on the focus barrel was either not properly reinstalled, or omitted entirely, as far as the halves coming apart. Or it could be an internal stop.

I've not heard of the Dimension label.
If you're inclined to attempt repairs yourself, folks on the MFlenses forum may be able to guide you along,
as well as potentially identifying the lens's maker.

twoshadows wrote in post #18738969
Thank you, Craig, for giving me the heads up on these old Tamrons.

I'm just glad that I didn't lead you astray in choosing,
and certainly pleased your copy is a good one.
The more I use mine, the more I appreciate it.

SkedAddled wrote in post #18739396
I'm just glad that I didn't lead you astray in choosing,
and certainly pleased your copy is a good one.
The more I use mine, the more I appreciate it.

I'm setting up an open shutter shoot (bulb mode w/tightly controlled lighting used to build a scene piece by piece) as I write. Planning to use the Tamron. It should be a stringent flare test (cramped space, lighting at hard angles...). I'm still impressed by the MFD @ 80mm. I won't be at 80mm for this shoot, but there'll be one soon, I imagine, lol. I love creative tools - with unique capabilities - and this lens seems to be just that. I think, like you, I will find an affinity for it. For now it's still unfamiliar, awkward.

I'm off to familiarize.

SkedAddled wrote in post #18734365
Generally true, but one caveat:

Some lens' rear assemblies project further behind the mounting plane than others.
It's typically a non-issue on APS-C cameras due to the smaller sensor and thus,
a smaller mirror.

But due to the larger mirror required for a full-frame camera, the bottom edge
of the mirror has been known to collide with some lenses. This is much more of an
EF vs. EF-S lens issue, although I've read about vintage lenses presenting
the same scenario. Some people have actually ground some of the lower mirror
edge off to accommodate such lenses on FF cameras.
This is commonly called "mirror shaving."

It's a fairly rare scenario, but to the best of my recollection,
it's more likely to occur with the more exotic or uncommon lens mounts,
or altogether different types such as standard lenses for cine(C)-mount or
enlargers, for example.

There is a lot of useful compatibility information here:

https://www.pebbleplac​e.com/

johnf3f wrote in post #18739538
There is a lot of useful compatibility information here:

https://www.pebbleplac​e.com/

This is a vintage lens thread. I see one article about putting an Oly 300mm on a Lieca. Otherwise none of it applies? If there is compatibility info, can you please provide a more direct link?

twoshadows wrote in post #18739654
This is a vintage lens thread. I see one article about putting an Oly 300mm on a Lieca. Otherwise none of it applies? If there is compatibility info, can you please provide a more direct link?

+1
As Julia put forth in her opening thread post, as well as the thread's title:

The guy at pebbleplace seems to concentrate exclusively on Contax and Leica cameras, which are decidedly not Canon EOS.

I just saw this thread, great idea!

We used to have a member here named Ron Chapel who put together a good deal of info adapting lenses to EOS back when it was much harder to find adapters. Not sure if any of it is still of use, but here's the link;

https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=57023


Also, Rick Denney put together a buying guide specifically for old Zeiss Jenna lenses;
https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=70506

The guy at Pebbleplace certainly concentrates on Contax and Leica lenses - but not Contax and Leica cameras - see below, nothing but Canon EOS compatibility data!


https://www.pebbleplac​e.com …ases/contax_dat​abase.html

https://www.pebbleplac​e.com/databases/leica_​database.html

johnf3f wrote in post #18740318
The guy at Pebbleplace certainly concentrates on Contax and Leica lenses - but not Contax and Leica cameras - see below, nothing but Canon EOS compatibility data!


https://www.pebbleplac​e.com …ases/contax_dat​abase.html

https://www.pebbleplac​e.com/databases/leica_​database.html

Thanks John.

This is good stuff.

Well, I stand corrected.

Thanks for specifying, John.
Those are some well-done charts.

No worries - I found them very useful too.

SkedAddled wrote in post #18734365
Generally true, but one caveat:

Some lens' rear assemblies project further behind the mounting plane than others.
It's typically a non-issue on APS-C cameras due to the smaller sensor and thus,
a smaller mirror.

But due to the larger mirror required for a full-frame camera, the bottom edge
of the mirror has been known to collide with some lenses. This is much more of an
EF vs. EF-S lens issue, although I've read about vintage lenses presenting
the same scenario. Some people have actually ground some of the lower mirror
edge off to accommodate such lenses on FF cameras.
This is commonly called "mirror shaving."

It's a fairly rare scenario, but to the best of my recollection,
it's more likely to occur with the more exotic or uncommon lens mounts,
or altogether different types such as standard lenses for cine(C)-mount or
enlargers, for example.

Good points. There are also some M42 lenses that can be easily filed/sanded/ground at the back to avoid mirror slap instead of shaving the mirror. One such lens I encountered was the MIR-1B (very cool flare monster if anyone is interested in such a thing). If anyone is unsure whether the mirror will hit the back of the lens the best way to test it is by engaging live view. The mirror raises much more gently compared to when there is a shutter actuation so there is far less chance of damaging the mirror.

I have a Tamron SP 60-300mm on the way. Really excited about this lens' capabilities. A 5x zoom that has a great reputation and does 1:1.55 macro.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #18740244
I just saw this thread, great idea!

We used to have a member here named Ron Chapel who put together a good deal of info adapting lenses to EOS back when it was much harder to find adapters. Not sure if any of it is still of use, but here's the link;

https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=57023


Also, Rick Denney put together a buying guide specifically for old Zeiss Jenna lenses;
https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=70506

Good links, Jake. Ron's intro is informative and there are a lot of knowledgable "old timers" chiming in. I think I'm going to link Ron's intro in the first post of this thread...