Your thoughts about manual focus lenses on digital bodies..is it a good idea?

Does it remember the lens by mere number or does it needs to be chipped to recognize/remember the lens? I'd try on my D850 but I don't have a non-chipped lens...

Like my D750, the D850 remembers Non-CPU lens data by number. See pages 218-200 in the English version of the manual for a full explanation.

So how does the little dot and <> arrows work with fully manual, unchipped lenses??

None of my cameras have <>arrows at any point, some have a focus confirm dot which works just the same on all manual lenses. Others use different focusing aids such as focus peaking & simple magnified views which again work just the same as they do for native lenses The only difference is some native lenses can tell the cameras when the focusing ring has been moved allowing it to automatically engage magnified view while I have to press a button for it on all other lenses. I found this auto magnify feature a pain so eventually turned it off.

From what I've read, IBIS works best if it knows the focal length of the lens. Understandably, a 20mm focal length might need corrections different from a 500mm focal length.

Yes, It stands to reason - longer focal lengths magnify the image more, so the sensor needs to displace further to counteract the same amount of tilt.

Having the IBIS overreact by 10 fold is much worse than not having it at all.

Not to hijack the thread, but it is REALLY nice having image stabilization and focus peaking for my manual lenses with a Nikon Z camera. I do find that for my135mm f2 lens I have to magnify the electronic viewfinder image for focus to come in properly. 100mm and below lenses do ok without magnification.

ocus peaking for my manual lenses with a Nikon Z

What's the longest MF lens you've got to try it on?

 

I've got a 500mm and 600mm f4 AFS, sadly now MF only, would they work OK with Z focus peaking?

I do find that for my135mm f2 lens I have to magnify the electronic viewfinder image for focus to come in properly.

This prompted me to see how my Sony a7Riv would fare under similar conditions. So I pulled out my manual focus (Nikon fit) Samyang 135mm f/2 and stuck it on the Sony via an F-to-E adapter.

 

I already had a little still life set up, and just snapped away handheld with a speedlight on the camera. It was pretty dim; the room was only lit by a single table lamp. However, the EVF was bright as day, and IBIS steadied the image superbly. First attempt using focus-peaking was a bit off, but I looked closer at the way the red fringing was behaving, and got good to spot-on results after a few tries.

 

Here's the whole frame, from about 3 metres away.

And a crop, focussed on the camera guided only by focus peaking.

Aperture was wide open at f/2 and depth-of-field was near non-existent. Maybe +/- 6mm at best. I therefore had to be careful not to rock back and forth after getting the focus peaking where I wanted it.

 

I threw the focus off and back a few times. It was quite consistent in getting good focus on the camera front.

 

Then I switched the lens to my DX Nikon D7200 and stepped back a bit further to about 4.5 metres. This time I just used the confirmation dot in the viewfinder and the central focussing rectangle. Not so consistent this time, but a lot better than I could do by eye alone. I got the focus confirmation dot to its full on and steadily lit condition.

 

The whole frame.

 

And the crop.

 

However, the depth-of-field was a bit deeper this time, due to the greater distance.

 

The sharp edges of the camera made a good target for the focus sensors of course, and I had less luck trying to focus on the wooden mannequin. It was then that focus magnifying came to the rescue.

 

'Eyeballing' the focus alone was a complete failure. Not much better than chance or guesswork.

I have a 400 f5.6ED and a TC-301 2x teleconverter that on a tripod are fun. I tried the 400mm and the combo hand held with the z7 and was not steady enough to get good images. After realizing I could enlarge the image in the eyepiece (not good for framing.....) I tried the 400mm alone and still could not hold steady enough. It is a beautiful, cloudless day today so maybe I'll try again with faster shutter speeds. Maybe if my hands were steadier.

I found my 135 f2 Zeiss is poor unless I magnify the image in the eyepiece, but the 100 f2 zeiss is fine without magnification. All focus peaking focus.

I have a 400 f5.6ED and a TC-301 2x teleconverter

I guess handholding 800mm with only IBIS for help is tricky!

 

How much difference is there if you turn OFF IBIS?

Okay, with bright sunlight it is doable with the 400mm lens and 1/250th shutter. I do have to magnify the viewfinder heavily, focus, and then drop back to no magnification to frame, but I can get sharp focus with f5.6 at 70 yards.

I mainly used the 800 mm focal length (400 plus 2x tele) to take moon shots with a D800, later D850. I would prop the lens on the rail of my deck to get good shots. The lens goes past infinity on focus, so it could be tricky.

In bright light the 400 mm was ok on a DSLR, but as my eyes get worse it is more of a crap shoot. The magnification-focus peaking is helpful if slow.This is today, probably 100 yards away

hand held with 400 mm, f5.6. magnified to focus, with focus peaking. Then 100% crop of license. Not too bad.

Meh. Moon shot with 800 mm, f8. I had to prop it against a chair. With magnification in the viewfinder it is very difficult to get the lens on the moon. This was best of 7. I think I have sharper ones using the D850 and a tripod, with live view. This is maybe 33% crop.

So I think past 200mm-ish, IBIS can't make up for the difficulty holding the lens steady, in my experience.

Edited February 21, 2021 by rconey

'Eyeballing' the focus alone was a complete failure. Not much better than chance or guesswork.

 

Inspired by your post, I did some tests to see how consistently I could focus with no aid. Focusing thus on a static subject without hurry isn't a challenge, since you can iterate over several exposures. I decided to try focusing ten times on the same subject in rapid succession, thoroughly defocusing between shots, with no interstitial chimping, and allowing only a few seconds per shot. To eliminate any help from the focus confirmation LEDs, I moved the focus point well to the side and moved my eye down so that I couldn't see the LEDs. I had the camera on a tripod to eliminate body movement as a variable.

 

I did a couple of runs, which averaged out to about 45 seconds per 10-shot run. With a 105mm f/2.5 wide open on my D810 at a subject distance of about five feet, I found that my focus from shot-to-shot varied by as much as a few millimeters. Accuracy was tolerable in every shot, but I only nailed it in about half of them.

 

By the way, I find the D300 easier to focus without aid than the D810 because its focusing screen tends to sparkle when the focus is spot-on, if there is sufficient detail in the subject. I guess you could call it a kind of focus peaking! But the usefulness of this phenomenon will depend on how well the focusing screen is calibrated. Mine is calibrated very well, but I had to remove one of the spacers to get it that way.

Inspired by your post, I did some tests to see how consistently I could focus with no aid........

I think focus peaking, 'normal' AF and human eyeball might all be affected by the lens used.

 

I tried the same experiment, this time in quite good daylight, but with a few different lenses. A 105mm f/1.8 Ai-S (but 'chipped') Nikkor did really badly. I couldn't get good focus with either the confirmation dot, nor with focus-peaking and neither by eye. The only thing that consistently worked was magnified EVF/LiveView. A series E 75-150mm f/3.5 zoom (also 'chipped' as a 110mm fixed focal length) did slightly, but not much better. An AF 180mm f/2.8 ED Nikkor in MF mode on the Sony was also quite hit-and-miss.

 

The thing all those lenses have in common is that they show a fair amount of blue-purple fringing wide open, while the 135mm f/2 Samyang shows none whatsoever.

 

Surprisingly, the cheap little Series E zoom has the least fringing wide open, and gave the most consistent focussing results using the two focus-assist methods.

 

I'll try some more 'fringey' and non-fringey lenses when I get time, but my eyes were getting tired staring at flickering red haloes and little green arrows and dots.

nor with focus-peaking

I 'assumed' focus peaking is determined completely by camera body sensor feed analysis, so how can this be?

 

If it doesn't work, ie show's an incorrect focus-lock position, it has to be that the focus point is determined not at the taking aperture and on stopping down for the actual exposure the focus has shifted....off!

 

If that's the case, how can zoomed LV be any better, unless it's at taking aperture?

 

Without getting too laborious, what happens when you stop-down the aperture manually and then focus via Focus Peaking as opposed to focus wide open and then shoot stopped down.

Well, that was easy. Today I pulled out the tripod for a moon shot. 800mm. I am able to turn off auto iso, and IBIS, and use live view on the tripod as opposed to using autoiso for hand held. That means iso 64 on tripod, but iso 2500 hand held. So, for me 200-300 mm lenses go on a tripod unless very bright light, even with IBIS.

That means iso 64 on tripod, but iso 2500 hand held.

What are the shutter speeds involved?

 

OK, more tests!

 

Who's got a Z body and a 200-500mm AFS VR or 500mm PF AFS VR?

 

Rack it to 500mm and try the same handheld shot of a stationary target about 15m away with..

1. IBIS ON and VR ON

2. IBIS ON and VR OFF

3. IBIS OFF and VR ON

4. IBIS OFF and VR OFF

 

What shutter speeds do you need for a reasonably sharp picture?

 

3. should be around 1/60th (lens gets you about 3 stops by itself)

4. should be around 1/500th (reciprocal of focal length)

Hand held 1/800th sec at f8, iso 2500. Crop from the first image I put up.

Tripod 1/10th second, f8, iso 64, and 3 second shutter delay. You have to be careful not to have too long a shutter time or the moon's motion will blur things.

Edited February 23, 2021 by rconey

You have to be careful not to have too long a shutter time or the moon's motion will blur things.

Indeed! Hand panning to match the lunar movement sounds a little bit tricksy!

Figured I would join in and share the excitement of the arrival of my M42 to M4/3 adapter. I hooked up my radioactive Takumar 50mm F/1.4 to the EM1 MkII and shot a single frame just to test it out. Shot wide open, focus on the Invisible Woman books (my wife got two copies in case one disappears I think).

 

I also shot a single frame with the Helios 44-2 58mm wide open at 50cm distance. Focus on the 3 on the B.

 

Some proper testing on Thursday when the sun is supposed to come out.

 

I hooked up my radioactive Takumar 50mm F/1.4 to the EM1 MkII and shot a single frame just to test it out.....

They're about as good(!) as I'd expect an old Super-Tak and Helios to be.

 

I found that a 55mm f/1.4 Chinon - AKA Mamiya Sekor - was the best of the old M42 thread 50/55/58mm film era lenses I have lying about. Which isn't saying a lot. Nikon's offerings were slightly better in terms of edge-to-edge sharpness, but suffer from Nikon's woeful inability to control LoCa properly.

It is just fun to play around. If one is serious about the boring stuff, it is better to stick to the native lenses.

This is Nikon Z to Leica M to Pentax K to M42 in order to mount a Takumar SMC 50/1.4.

Nowhere near “great” from any subjective perspective but charming nevertheless - especially for video or black & white.

Helios again on the EM1 MkII

 

 

Sensors do not behave very differentl from film, so the final picture will depend on the characteristics of he lens if set correctly. An advantage is that one does not have to wait for development and printing to judge the results.

 

A special problem woth digital autofocus SLRs is that their screens are not designed to facilitate fmanual ocussing. This is why for instance Canon offers a special screen for focussing manually with some of their digital cameras,

 

Mirrorless devices rely on electronic rather than optical viewfinders.

 

In my experience joystics for moving the central focussing and light metering point usually leads to difficulties in placing focus and exposure exactly where you want. I gave up on Olympus PenF for that reason and switched to a Nikon Z, but it has the same problem. Easy to anlarge in order to focus, but one sees a random part of the motive . Peaking works for the entire picture, but is less precise and the peaking colour needs to be st according to the motive in order to get enough contrast (no red or yellow for autumn leaves for instance).

Pen F? Touch screen?

Sensors do not behave very differentl from film, so the final picture will depend on the characteristics of he lens if set correctly..

 

one interresting difference is dependncy on how reflective the inside of the lens barrel , and internal coatings of a lens are, this is because a sensor mostly is much more reflective that a film surface resulting in the possibility of more internal reflections which can be disturbing.

For this reason Sigma, among others, changed internal lens coatings with the introduction of digital camera's in general to it's "DG" attributed lenses for Digital. The difference is visibel in the longer (tele-) zoom'ss particularly.