About buying adapters on eBay...

[milosh]

Hey everyone,

maybe three weeks ago I bought an old used lens, it's a Tamron Adapt-all 80-210mm f3.8 MACRO from 1979 I think. Anyway, I searched for an adapter on eBay and bought one from China. It arrived and it works great. The lens can focus to infinity and the adapter is made of some alloy, seems pretty high quality.

I also had a chance to buy a used Yahica 50mm f1.7 but I was reluctant because I didn't know whether there are adapters for it. So I searched internet about it and came to a conclusion that there aren't any adapters from Yashica to Nikon. But then I searched for it again on eBay and found many of them. They even have glass in them. But the lens was already sold when I came back to pick it up.

So, the lesson is: even if websites say that something doesn't exist, check on eBay, Chinese people make everything.

[OsmosisStudios]

... Lesson is actually to double-check with someone who knows the equipment in question: they might know whether it's worth the expense.

[nathanbarlow]

"they even have glass in them" - unless you get a decent one, the glass will be terrible quality.

[milosh]

Of course, always ask about the item someone who already bought it, by searching through sellers feedback.

I suppose the quality of the glass is not so high (after all it is easier to make a HQ alloy adapter than a HQ piece of glass), but at least you can use it. That's better than nothing. Some of these lenses are really cheap, and adapters are usually 20-40$.

[inkista]

Ok, here's the deal on adapters with glass in them--if you need them, it means the mount you're adapting has a shorter flange-to-sensor distance than the Nikon F mount. The glass is needed to achieve focus to infinity. If you're using a macro or portrait lens, though, where you don't need infinity focus, you can probably use a ring that doesn't have glass in it.

The ones with glass in are typically cheap, low quality, and will rob you of sharpness and even a little max. aperture. In essence the adapter rings with glass elements act very much like teleconverts, both in adding a bit of focal length, subtracting off your max. aperture, and fuzzing up your sharpness. Whether it's worth it or not, well, it can be a matter of personal taste, but for most pixel-peeping geeks, it's not.

Basically, T-mount are really the only adaptable mounts to Nikon with simple glassless adapters.

The Nikon mount is also much more problematic to adapt to, since it has nearly the largest flange-to-sensor distance of any SLR 35mm mount system. The only one that's larger is Leica R, and only by half a millimeter, so a simple ring ain't gonna do it. However, if you're willing to rip the mount off the back of the lens, Leitax has mount kits that will let you adapt Leica-R and Contax-Yashica Zeiss lenses to Nikon (iirc).

This is one of the areas where you really want a Canon.

[fletch]

Originally Posted by inkista

This is one of the areas where you really want a Canon.

Surely its one of the areas where you really want an Olympus!

I just ordered my first old lens and adapter for mine. An Oly OM 50mm f1.8 with a 4/3rds adapter.

[OsmosisStudios]

Originally Posted by milosh

Of course, always ask about the item someone who already bought it, by searching through sellers feedback.

I suppose the quality of the glass is not so high (after all it is easier to make a HQ alloy adapter than a HQ piece of glass), but at least you can use it. That's better than nothing. Some of these lenses are really cheap, and adapters are usually 20-40$.

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

[nathanbarlow]

Originally Posted by fletch

Surely its one of the areas where you really want an Olympus!

I just ordered my first old lens and adapter for mine. An Oly OM 50mm f1.8 with a 4/3rds adapter.

Nup canon FTW

its because canon has the smallest/largest flange distance - which means almost any lens can fit into it with the right adapter. Plus canon allows focus confirmation and some light metering modes to work with a non electrical contact lens. The focus confirmation does required a chipped adapter though.

[windrider86]

Originally Posted by fletch

Surely its one of the areas where you really want an Olympus!

I just ordered my first old lens and adapter for mine. An Oly OM 50mm f1.8 with a 4/3rds adapter.

Wohoo!!
I've purchased a number of Om lenses off of Ebay and have yet to be disapointed

[inkista]

Originally Posted by fletch

Surely its one of the areas where you really want an Olympus!

Nup, Nathan. Fletch is correct. Theoretically. The Oly/Panasonic four-thirds system has the smallest flange-to-sensor distance of any dSLR system (38.67mm vs. EOS's 44mm), and is indeed the king of adapting. The problem is that there are many more people with Canon dSLRs than there are with Olympus dSLRs, and so the adapter makers have targeted Canon. While you can only adapt 6 mounts to Canon and you could adapt 10 different mounts to Olympus four-thirds (see the chart I linked to above), you can't find four-thirds adapters for all 10 mounts.

Realistically, you'll probably only be able to readily find adapters for the same six mounts Canon EOS can use: Pentax K, Nikon F, Olympus OM, Leica R, Contax/Yashica, and M42. I'd assume because of the economics of scale and the cost of setting up the machining required.

But Panny/Oly µ4/3? Different story. Seriously pwns in this arena. The micro four-thirds mount can not only be adapted for every manual-focus SLR mount, it can also take every manual focus rangefinder-mount lens as well. µ4/3's flange-to-sensor distance is 20mm. Leica M, M39, Olympus Pen F--the old glass and adapters thereto for µ4/3 are coming out of the woodwork. And having the ability to mount M39 is particularly sweet, because that was the "standard" mount everybody used: you can find Nikon, Canon, Leica, and Zeiss in M39. You can actually find Canon FD, Minolta MD, etc. etc. for µ4/3. It's the manual focus lens set's darling format. The only problem? ... everybody wants the wide lenses. [sigh]. Crop factors have that effect.

And I keep telling you guys. The Oly OM 50/1.8 is a terrific bargain, and almost a pancake lens. But the one you really want is the Oly OM 50/1.2. And the 18/3.5. And the 40/2 pancake. And... man, those OM Zuikos are nice.