Want to improve the quality of your photos? Are you dreaming of that creamy bokeh and unique characters to your images or just looking to have some real fun with photography? Well, this may come as a shocker but more often than not, your camera body won’t help you achieve those – quality lenses will! But those lenses for digital cameras are often way too expensive especially the f1.4s or the f1.2s. There are 3rd party manual lenses that are good like the 7Artisans 35mm f1.2 MK II but I have something better for you – vintage lenses. Adapting vintage lenses on your digital cameras is easy, fun and often inexpensive.
To use vintage lenses on your digital camera you’ll need an adapter, the adapter you’ll need will depend on your camera mount and the mount of the lens. Let’s say you have a Fujifilm mirrorless camera that has an FX mount and a Pentax lens with a PK mount, in this case, you’ll need a PK-FX lens adaptor. But there are some exceptions, like the wonderful Nikon F-mount, you can use vintage F-mount lenses straight to your modern Nikon DSLRs, although you’ll need an FTZ adaptor if you’re using the newer Nikon Z mirrorless cameras. This case is the same with the other brands but you’ll have to do your research to make sure compatibility or what adaptor you need.
Obviously, you’ll need to manually focus these vintage lenses, although some adaptors offer autofocus features I wouldn’t recommend those. Those adaptors are rare and expensive, plus why deprive yourself of the fun of focusing manually? Okaaay, one can argue that they may have poor sight or that the subject is far away I won’t hit focus. Fear not! because most mirrorless cameras and DSLRs (in live view mode) offer focus peaking, where you can digitally zoom in on your display and nail that precious focus. Additionally, vintage lenses often have an aperture and focus scale markings on them so that you can effectively zone focus. What is zone focusing you ask? Well, that is for another blog.
If I were you, I’d start hunting vintage lenses online or at your local flea market. Vintage lenses can be found fairly cheap compared to modern glasses and sometimes offer better image quality. Using Vintage lenses is a good and inexpensive way to level up your photography and have fun!
Here are some sample photos taken with a vintage lens on a digital Fujifilm XE-3 mirrorless camera.
Pentax K-mount to Fujifilm X-mount (PK-FX)
Nikon F-mount to Fujifilm X-mount (NK-FX)
Tamron F-mount to Fujifilm X-mount (NK-FX)
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King 