About buying adapters on eBay...

[douglas]

An adapter for my Olympus from olympus is quite expensive. The picture they show looks just like the one I bought on E-bay for about 1/5 the price and it works well.I have also bought some old OM lense, 2 are fine and I really like a Samyang 28mm 2.8...it's a great lens, one, a 135mmprime I should have sent back as it has mould. It seems to work O.K. but it's going to be a winter project, in "taking a lens apart to clean it" LOL At the price I paid it was not worth sending it back. Keep it awayfrom other lenses etc.

[inkista]

I've bought AF-confirm chipped adapter rings for C/Y, Oly OM, and Leica-R for canon EOS on eBay from big_is and happypage_hk, and been really happy with them, although I think that happypage_hk is putting his chips on fotodiox pro rings, which makes them have a much better fit than big_is's. I also like that they're painted black. Both sellers now offer programmable chips, where you can set the max. aperture and focal length on the chip.

Chipped adapter rings, if you're not nervous about using them, have the advantage of giving you autofocus confirmation feedback, and if you're adapting to four-thirds (bonus!) you retain in-body stabilization. Also, your EXIF will be less empty. Whether it will be accurate is another issue.

[fletch]

Originally Posted by inkista

Fletch is correct.

Never get tired of hearing that!

MY OM 50 still hasn't arrived due to the postal strike. Ahh. Just want it now! £20 for a mint condition (I hope) 50mm F/1.8 is such a good deal everyone should do it (unless you have a Nikon!) The f/1.2 is a lot more pricey so I won't be going there!

[milosh]

Originally Posted by OsmosisStudios

There's a difference between "asking the seller" and "asking someone knowledgeable". You're missing it entirely.

I never said anything about contacting a seller.


Inkista, thanks for all the info. Since you mention you bought chipped adapters which give you AF confirmation feedback, I have a question about using my Nikon with this old Tamron. Is it possible to use the in-fucus confirmation light (the green dot in the viewfinder that goes on when subject is in focus)? I have a feeling that it stays more on when a subject is in sharp focus (it doesn't blink so often).

[arfamow]

Hi everyone,
I have been reading your discussions about adapters and although I didn't understand much
you might be able to help me. My mother has recently given me a couple of lenses from my late fathers camera bag, they are from an Olympus OM 20 approx 15 years old. 1 says on it 28mm with a lot of other figures and symbols and the other says 100 - 200mm with figures and numbers. Although I am a photo taking enthusiast, I only have a Kodak Easyshare compact camera and do not understand anything about lenses etc. My question is, would I be able to use the lenses on my Kodak with an adaptor ? and if not would there be any make of compact camera that would take the lenses. I ask this because I would like to use the lenses if possible so that I can take close up photos but I don't understand the technology of
a DSLR.

[arfamow]

Hi everyone,
I have been reading your discussions about adapters and although I didn't understand much
you might be able to help me. My mother has recently given me a couple of lenses from my late fathers camera bag, they are from an Olympus OM 20 approx 15 years old. 1 says on it 28mm with a lot of other figures and symbols and the other says 100 - 200mm with figures and numbers. Although I am a photo taking enthusiast, I only have a Kodak Easyshare compact camera and do not understand anything about lenses etc. My question is, would I be able to use the lenses on my Kodak with an adaptor ? and if not would there be any make of compact camera that would take the lenses. I ask this because I would like to use the lenses if possible so that I can take close up photos but I don't understand the technology of
a DSLR.

[nathanbarlow]

I highly doubt that SLR lenses will fit on a point and shoot. The only way I would think would involve a hell of a lot of knowledge and tooling. And thats a big IF.

If you want to use changable lenses, you pretty much need a SLR / dSLR / rangefinder / medium format camera / etc not a point and shoot.

You can buy 'add-on' lenses for point and shoots which screw onto the primary lens and act as a wide angle or a telephoto lens. Quality does vary though.

[inkista]

Originally Posted by milosh

Inkista, thanks for all the info. Since you mention you bought chipped adapters which give you AF confirmation feedback, I have a question about using my Nikon with this old Tamron. Is it possible to use the in-focus confirmation light (the green dot in the viewfinder that goes on when subject is in focus)? I have a feeling that it stays more on when a subject is in sharp focus (it doesn't blink so often).

Yes, that's the way AF-confirmation works. While the camera can't physically link to push the glass around, the autofocus system can still do its contrast detection thing and tell you when it thinks you're in focus by blinking the lights/beeping at you.

I don't know how your particular combination of lens/adapter/body would work, but try it and see. This will also work with regular non-adapted lenses when they're in manual focus mode.

Precision manual focusing is harder than it used to be because dSLRs are optimized for autofocus, and our matte focus screens don't give us the same focus aids we used to have back in film days (prism, split circles, etc.). So, this is the one big arena of interest for folks using manual focus lenses.

[inkista]

Originally Posted by arfamow

... My mother has recently given me a couple of lenses from my late fathers camera bag, they are from an Olympus OM 20 approx 15 years old. 1 says on it 28mm with a lot of other figures and symbols and the other says 100 - 200mm with figures and numbers. ... I only have a Kodak Easyshare compact camera ... I would like to use the lenses if possible so that I can take close up photos but I don't understand the technology of
a DSLR.

You can't use the lenses on your camera--they need the lens mount to screw on. But you can use the 28mm for close-up photos by simply flipping it around backwards and holding it in front of your digicam, like a magnifying glass. This is called "lens reversal" and is one of the basic poor man's macro techniques.

[milosh]

Originally Posted by inkista

Yes, that's the way AF-confirmation works. While the camera can't physically link to push the glass around, the autofocus system can still do its contrast detection thing and tell you when it thinks you're in focus by blinking the lights/beeping at you.

I don't know how your particular combination of lens/adapter/body would work, but try it and see. This will also work with regular non-adapted lenses when they're in manual focus mode.

I assumed that it works like that. As far as I have noticed with this lens and the adapter, when a subject is far from being in focus, the AF confirmation light blinks constantly and rapidly. When I focus on a subject, it still blinks but less often, and slower.

Originally Posted by inkista

Precision manual focusing is harder than it used to be because dSLRs are optimized for autofocus, and our matte focus screens don't give us the same focus aids we used to have back in film days (prism, split circles, etc.). So, this is the one big arena of interest for folks using manual focus lenses.

I hear you on that! I find it very hard to achieve sharp focus when shooting portraits. Looking through the viewfinder it seems like subject is in focus, but when I zoom it in after taking the picture, I see it's not. It's really hard, but maybe I'll get better at it.