Please recommend me some Manual Focus EF lenses!

[kye]

2 hours ago, maxJ4380 said:

I was going to suggest one of those friction clothes, mum has a few in the kitchen drawer for hard to open jam jars. If that didn't work, one drop of wd-40 on the threading left to  sit over night, only one drop mind you as you dont want to find out that wd-40 might be also good at delaminating glass elements

It actually feels like it's in a softer set of threads, so it's not like metal on metal where it grips and then slides easily, this just requires a certain level of force to get it to move and once moving it requires the same force to keep it moving.

I would absolutely never ever put something like WD-40 into an optical assembly!  Not only would it potentially dissolve or melt any plastic it comes into contact with, but solvents can 'wick' into things and spread across surfaces (especially bad if those surfaces are on the inside and you can't get at them to clean them), and solvents will evaporate and likely fill every void or space with fumes, which can potentially condense on the surfaces of the lenses and dissolve the coatings etc.

I've glued things together before with PVA glue, which is water based, and after the glue had dried (ie, the water in it evaporated) it had condensation all over the sensor and lens etc.  I set it on a windowsill in the sun to dry for a few days and it cleared up fine, but I think that was mostly because it was water and that didn't interact in any way with the lens or sensor elements.

[eatstoomuchjam]

Famously, the greases that Leica used in their old lenses would evaporate and deposit on lens elements over time.  It can be cleaned, but the danger of evaporation/depositing is real!

[Emanuel]

39 minutes ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

Famously, the greases that Leica used in their old lenses would evaporate and deposit on lens elements over time.  It can be cleaned, but the danger of evaporation/depositing is real!

Not only the Leica :- )

[kye]

Further lens contemplation reminded me of my Tokina RMC 28-70mm F3.5-4.5 for m42 mount, which is deliciously imperfect, and when combined with an ultra-cheap wide-angle adapter gets even tastier..

I've struggled with this lens because the main issue with it is that it's a dumb lens and so there's no way for the cameras IBIS to know what focal length it's at.  This is fine for tripod work, but that's not really how I shoot, and if it was tripod work is slow enough that I could just use primes.

Then I realised that as I now own an EF speed booster I can get an EF zoom lens and it should report the current focal length to the camera and the IBIS challenge goes away.

As such, I started looking for the absolute worst, most imperfect, least sharp, EF zoom lens I could find.  Luckily, if you search ebay in ascending price it makes these gems obvious and you can peruse at your leisure.

So I have now snapped up a lovely Tokina zoom that according to the Pentax forums has decidedly poor optical performance.  Hooray!!  Pics when it arrives, but I'm excited.  

I was also made aware of the existence of the Tokina AT-X PRO F2.8 zooms, which are interesting, but a long way from the top of the (price ascending) ebay search results.  I also found a couple of the F2.6 Angie designs too, those were $3-4K..  wow!!  Being famous on the internet sure makes things more expensive!

[maxJ4380]

Nice images, was it overcast that day, they seem a little subdued ? or is that the lens combo you think ?

A long way from the top is a good thing i reckon 🤔 Be careful with the at-x pro 24-70mm pro 2.8 there's  3 versions from memory.   I forget how to tell which the "better" one is. Google would help no doubt. I also suspect the tokina 24-70 at-x pro's might be flying under the radar. I vaguely remember this lens getting a good rap and an almost cult like status in some video forums. Pentax forums is a handy place to visit...  

I must be cdo its like ocd but with the letters arranged alphabetically, like they should be 🙂 Would you believe i only just gave that lens a wipe over 😞.

I also have had an ef-mft metabones xl speed booster 0.64 arrive. With my metabones the internal focus was way off and the internal element was free to rotate willy nilly. Completely the opposite to your speedbooster Kye. I suspect the screw that holds it tight is maybe either bent or stuck as i cant move it by hand. its also in the open position which allows the element to move freely. I also don't have a screwdriver that small either,  so until one arrives, i have a temporary work around.

The whole internal lens is losey goosey, i think theres about a half a millimeter of play. I know it seems like huge amount. However it really is quite loose, i can get a rattle out of it, if i shake it. Not sure if that is why it was up for sale, i suspect its been played with then sold when it became all to hard. 

I initially had the 17mm takumar mounted to it but i think in hindsight that probably wasn't helping, with the depth of field so i put the 50mm on it instead. I can wind the lens element almost all the way in and it becomes a tighter fit and i can get infinity focus ( i think )  i have to double check. No issues with mounting the 50mm on the metabones

Here's a pic of the front of the metabones and back of the 50mm takumar. i used the 50mm as that measured the longest out of the measurements i took. There seems to be plenty of room between lens elements. I have the chipped ef mount on it and the back of the takumar barely protrudes, less than a millimeter i think, cant measure it as i tossed the digital calipers... it would be interesting to compare it to the back  front of the viltrox.

 

  

One interesting fact i picked up is that the Olympus em-10 ii and the em-1 iii do not like the ef adapter with the chip on it. The chip is supposed to tell the camera that its a 50 mm f1.4. I always figured some metadata would be nice even if it was wrong data at least i had a place to start. However the Olympus's simply refuse to start up, all i get is a grey screen. If i depress the lens lock mechanism and turn the adapter slightly ( and i presume ) the contacts no longer touch the the cameras will fire up and work. I have two other brands of camera and the chipped ef adapter works fine on them. I have no idea why i haven't noticed it before.

The problem is tilting the camera in any direction indicates to the lens, it should try its best, to immediately fall off ( don't ask me how i know this )🙄