NEW CAMERA - OLD LENSES

I'm not sure, Steve, I was just grateful at the time for the gift although I didn't realise then how useful the Spyderlenscal was. I doubt if it was luck that it went well as I know you are organised in what you do. When I put the Tamron back together I found that when I calibrated it with the Spyderlenscal it wasn't that far out, in fact I would have been happy with it as it was. I think you have to either mess up badly or have a really worn lens that on reassembling it doesn't focus as well as it should. For me it was making sure everything went back in the same position and also making sure that the lenses were absolutely clean and clear of dust etc when being put back. There's nothing more frustrating to put everything back together and then see a dust fleck or the like behind a glass.

 

Yep, I agree Steve, carrying around anything above a 300mm is for the specialist, and to be honest I would think carefully about carrying a 300mm around before doing it. It would have to be for a thought out and prepared project I think.

 

Here's the newly arrived f1.7 50mm Pentax lens which is in near Mint condition with no marks or real signs of wear. Also there's no dust or fungus at all in the lens and the aperture blades move very smoothly.





These are the two Kit Lens that came with the Camera bundle. They're, in truth, not a bad pair of lens but they're Automatic Focus and I'm more in a Manual mode so they're taking a back seat for the moment.

 

I took the Camera, with the newly arrived F1.7 lens on it, out for a amble around the garden today just to take some hand held, manual control. test shots. The light wasn't brilliant so the lens was made to work for it's living.





I have only resized the pics and put a frame around them otherwise what you see is what the lens has produced. Since these are the very first I have taken with the lens I'm fairly pleased with the sharpness of them as, if I remember rightly, they were taken at F1.7 which is not it's sharpest aperture and is much better around f2.8 to f5.6. So tomorrow, weather permitting, I'll get the tripod out and do some shots at different apertures and see what's what. The short depth of field is something I will have to get my head around. But since the lens is around 35 years old and cost me £34 I'm more than happy with it.

 

Hi Steve, I haven't as yet but it's a good idea and I will in future I think. For casual first time hand held shots I quite happy with the results, although the image stabilisation in camera does help there's no doubt!! I need to get use to the very shallow depth of field with this particular lens.....and it does differ from the f2 50mm in that. Another wander around tomorrow with the tripod and some patience is called for I think. The colours rendered by the lens is definitely the Pentax slightly warmish ones that the Pentax fanatics seem to love.

 

That's a lovely collection of Cameras and Lenses, Scrungee. You don't need to buy any more cameras, except for that new four thirds DSLR, because with that range of lenses you're off to a cracking start. Well, as you say you'd need the MF-1 OM Adapter which will cost you from £16 each onwards, but it would be worth it. Your lenses would fetch a good price on E.Bay, but don't ever sell them!! A Pentax f1.4 is going from £95 and ever upwards.......so an Olympus lnes will be around the same.......why not make use of them and buy a DSLR!!

I bought two Tamron Adaptall II for my old Tamron lenses, which had Canon fittings on, and it's great to bring them back into use. I bought an Adaptall II for both lenses as I didn't want to be messing about changing over from one lens to another with an adapter.
I've got a feeling that there's more than us with a collection of old lenses and cameras lying around in the GC gang.

 

Armandii, how long did it take you to clean and re-assemble it? Only asking because there are some very cheap lens on ebay advertised with fungus, I wonder if it's worth getting one and spending a couple of hours cleaning it. If it takes a lot longer I'll give it a miss

 

Hi JWK, to be honest it took me about 3 hours over 3 nights without rushing. But once I'd got the confidence it was pretty easy and quicker so, all in all, if you're going to doing it in one night then probably it would take an hour and a half at most.
If you're thinking of doing it I would take a look at the Pentax Forum where not only is disassembly of Pentax lenses described with pics but third party lenses as well. I would also get the appropriate items and tools as well......and definitely a tray covered with a soft white cloth to work in and make sure any screws don't bounce onto the floor. I found the fungus surprisingly harder to remove than I thought because it looks so fragile and thin, but a cotton bud dipped in the Isopropanol Alcohol [which is about £7.49p for 250ml] gently scrubbed over the fungus will get it off. Once I'd cleaned a particular piece I'd put it in a plastic food bag to keep it clean and dust free, and I also wore latex gloves as recommended. Personally I think it is definitely worth it. The sense of achievement of putting an old lens back into service is really good, and being able to use it is even better!!. The Tamron 80-210mm lens I cleaned up is back in action and is giving great pics [as in the Thread "A walk around Shakely Mere"]. In fact the lens is so clean and bright now I'm having to take exposures down a stop or two!!

 

Thanks for that Armandii.

I got myself a lovely little Pentax 50mm f1.7 A series lens for very little on ebay a few days ago. It takes really sharp photos compared to the kit lens that came with my camera, also it is simple to use. All the camera modes and features work OK apart from having to manually focus, to help out the camera's focus indicator beeps to indicate it is in focus. So for a few quid I have a much better lens with shake reduction. It even has a skylight filter attached that the seller didn't describe and obviously didn't realise was on there.

Now I'm hooked and might go for another cheap A series lens. The one I've got has some dust inside but it doesn't seem to show up on the photos I've taken so far.