Set of lenses - Nikon D, Canon FD, Minolta or others?

[Nikkor]

Nikon D lenses have crappy focus rings, and an autofocus so slow and loud you don't want to pay for it. Another reason is that they usually have new optical formulas and some of them are worse than the ai-s. Just check http://www.naturfotograf.com/index2.html

[mercer]

13 minutes ago, Inazuma said:

Thanks for the responses guys.

The Olympus OM lenses look really good but don't have a cheap speed booster knock off for my Fuji. The Minoltas also look really good and would be nice to use natively with my Minolta film camera but they don't fit on EF mount without a glass adapter (I use a c100 for video work). The Contax's look great but are a little more expensive than the others. So i'm leaning towards the Nikons atm. One thing I'm confused about is how much difference there is between the AI, AI-S and D lenses. Most people seem to recommend sticking with AI-S. Are they really the cream of the crop?

I'm also considering M42 lenses since there are so many of them. But I may end up spending a lot of time looking for the right ones :D

Well, if you go with the ef speedbooster, then the sky is the limit, just get a dummy adapter for Nikon to ef or m42 to ef or Olympus to ef or yashica to ef... Etc...

[Inazuma]

40 minutes ago, mercer said:

Well, if you go with the ef speedbooster, then the sky is the limit, just get a dummy adapter for Nikon to ef or m42 to ef or Olympus to ef or yashica to ef... Etc...

That is smart...

[TheRenaissanceMan]

9 hours ago, richg101 said:

Minolta lenses are superb.  Sadly they can't be adapted to EOS...  

They actually can-- just not easily. A lens tech can convert the mount with infinity focus for $150 per lens. It adds expense (sometimes more than the lenses themselves are worth) but gives them vastly better compatibility.

I find the Nikkors sterile, but that's a personal taste thing. Another point to keep in mind is that Nikkors focus "backwards" compared to every other manufacturer, so that's something you'll have to get used to. Otherwise, they're widely available, competitively priced, and compatible with everything.

[sgreszcz]

On 11 April 2016 at 1:54 PM, andrgl said:

Obviously too heavy, but it should meet your CA and sharpness requirements: Sigma 18-35 with both a dumb adapter and focal reducing adapter. On a BMPCC that gives you a range of 32-106mm f1.0-1.8.

If I go with something like the Sigma 18-35 for use with my G7 with the lens turbo II, then I should probably stick with the Nikon mount so that I can adjust the aperture?

 

[Justin Bacle]

6 hours ago, TheRenaissanceMan said:

They actually can-- just not easily. A lens tech can convert the mount with infinity focus for $150 per lens. It adds expense (sometimes more than the lenses themselves are worth) but gives them vastly better compatibility.

I find the Nikkors sterile, but that's a personal taste thing. Another point to keep in mind is that Nikkors focus "backwards" compared to every other manufacturer, so that's something you'll have to get used to. Otherwise, they're widely available, competitively priced, and compatible with everything.

There's a cheaper solution.

It is possible to adapt then using this very thin adapter (http://www.ebay.com/itm/Thin-Minolta-MD-Lens-to-Canon-EOS-serial-Camera-Adapter-without-glasses-MD-EOS-/111751120312) which makes your minolta lens compatible with the EOS system. At a flange distance of 44 mm (EOS) though instead of the 43.5 mm required (minolta MD/MC). I bought one two years ago)

This usually means it doesn't focus to infinity but it is okay for focus up to 5-10 meters (depending on the focal distance and aperture of the lens).

However, changing the adapter from one lens to another is a pain (tiny tiny screw of very poor quality).

I would only recommend this if you have a very rare minolta lens that you absolutely want to use (85/1.2 bokeh master anyone ?)

[kidzrevil]

Nikkor ai-s

[andrgl]

17 hours ago, sgreszcz said:

If I go with something like the Sigma 18-35 for use with my G7 with the lens turbo II, then I should probably stick with the Nikon mount so that I can adjust the aperture?

 

Yes exactly.

I went Nikon because of the manual aperature (which is declicked using the Metabones adapters,) and because it can be used on both Nikon and Canon bodies.

That said, EF might be a better choice if you want to use autofocus for stills and video.

[JazzBox]

I had a nice set of FD and I loved them, now I have a set of Contax Zeiss and I find that they are super: better construction, better feeling when you use them, better sharpness at wide open aperture (the FD 50 f/1.4 and the FD 85 f/1.8 where unusable wide open), great color rendition.

The only drawback is the number of blades for the bokeh, most CY have just 6 blades. But wide open they are very close (someone says identical) to Zeiss Primes.

[IronFilm]

On 4/11/2016 at 8:41 PM, Nikkor said:

If you go nikon, go ai-s not af d.

Or go AF-D if you want to later on match it up with a Nikon DSLR for top notch quality stills as well.

[Nikkor]

Just now, IronFilm said:

Or go AF-D if you want to later on match it up with a Nikon DSLR for top notch quality stills as well.

The autofocus from af-d lenses is useless. I say this because I do have the 135 DC, 85 1.4 D, 60 2.8 D, and 28 1.4 D. And the image quality is better on the ai-s counterparts.

[dahlfors]

9 hours ago, Nikkor said:

The autofocus from af-d lenses is useless. I say this because I do have the 135 DC, 85 1.4 D, 60 2.8 D, and 28 1.4 D. And the image quality is better on the ai-s counterparts.

I haven't used those lenses. But the AF has certainly not been useless on the 50mm f/1.4 AF-D nor the 50mm f/1.8 AF-D.

[Nikkor]

7 minutes ago, dahlfors said:

I haven't used those lenses. But the AF has certainly not been useless on the 50mm f/1.4 AF-D nor the 50mm f/1.8 AF-D.

Well, on the ones I have it won't work precisely, and it's noisy as hell (I use them for manual lenses, I'm faster and more precise than the screwdriver), the 135 and 85 have the worst color fringing wide open I've ever seen, older lenses don't have it that pronounced, maybe it's a digital thing... Btw,these lenses are the dark age for nikon.

[dafreaking]

13 hours ago, Nikkor said:

Well, on the ones I have it won't work precisely, and it's noisy as hell (I use them for manual lenses, I'm faster and more precise than the screwdriver), the 135 and 85 have the worst color fringing wide open I've ever seen, older lenses don't have it that pronounced, maybe it's a digital thing... Btw,these lenses are the dark age for nikon.

Hmm. I thought there was a lotta love for the Nikon "Bourne" Zooms.

[Cinegain]

Why bring those into the discussion? Those are high-performance AF-S ED zooms...

[Nikkor]

25 minutes ago, dafreaking said:

Hmm. I thought there was a lotta love for the Nikon "Bourne" Zooms.

Those zooms are different, the 28-70 for example, has a built in focus motor, prone to failure but not like the screwdriver Af. The 80-200 still has the bad AF but the lens is better than the newer 70-200 until version VR II.

I'm just saying, it's not worth to pay for the AF when you can get manual, better built lenses, with focus rings that work better for manual focusing.

[dafreaking]

49 minutes ago, Cinegain said:

Why bring those into the discussion? Those are high-performance AF-S ED zooms...

My bad.. I thought they were AF-D zooms. At least the 80-200 which is recommended is not the AF-S version.

[Cinegain]

Even then... I'm not going to use autofocus any day soon. If you're planning on boosting them on M43 or E-mount, you'd not even have the option. There's glassless electronic solutions now, but I think those haven't proven themselves worth getting yet. I'd probably would want the focus to be a creative/tactical choice, so I'd just go ahead and go all manual anyways. If you shoot a D7200 or D750 it might be a different story on some shots you'd want to get.

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

Just get a Nikkor AI-S set, plus a Canon EF speedbooster & dumb Nikkor-EF adapter. 

This will work best for your situation with a Fuji + C100II. 

You'll get used to reversed ring. I interchange them in one shoot and get used to it just moving the rings a few pulls, so in weeks/months of use, it'll be the ''normal'' for your muscle memory and find EF direction to be wrong. 

Plus, AI-S lenses are very high optical performers, not hazy/flary/dreamy m42s vintage type images, more like regular modern L glass for many of the Ai-s lenses.

Newer AF-D lenses are not recommended as they are designed for AF, stills, thus the mechanics & focus rings quality were severely cut down as they had no use for their target customers (stills shooters) and just added extra cost so they just made ''usable'' plasticy rings.