Sony NEX with 'junk' lens,..Tokina 100 to 300mm

Bugleone

Regular
Location
England
I had a (small) cupboard full of Canon FD lenses that had sat there for over 20 years. I never could bear to part with them and anyway, until recent times they have been more or less valuless so I have kept them.

About 10 or so years ago I started to be given boxes of Canon FD equipement as people began to junk it and aquire digital systems. Because I'm considered to be ecentric and because It was well known that I had NOT thrown my FD lenses people used me as their concscience by passing over all this stuff for me to 'use or dispose of as I saw fit'......

Eventually it got to where I could no longer interest photo students and other 'worthy cases' to take this stuff so it gathered dust in what was now a much larger cupboard!

With my aquisition of the NEX 3 I have been delving in the darkness of teh cupboard to fiond out if there are any nuggets to mine.......

These are the first frames from a Tokina 100 to 300 f5.6 lens that is about 30 years old. The lens itself I would class as 'valuless' and could be picked up for pocket change. However, with the NEX's crop factor the 300mm length becomes equiv to 450mm!! These pix shot a few mminutes walk from my door using a cheap tripod which also comes from 'the cupboard' ........

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EDIT:....I have discovered that I can 'sharpen' in picasa (PMB does not work)
 
Sound like you are going to be having fun exploring/experimenting with the contents of this cupboard. You certainly have scenic views and interesting wildlife just a stone throw from your house. Thanks for sharing.
 
What lens adapter options do I have?

I have an old 35mm nikon 1000 with various lenses most are tokina. I would love to use them for my nex especially after seeing this. I saw some cheap nex-nikon adapters on ebay. Should I get one?
 
The Canon FD adaptor that I used in the above shots was £12 on ebay and arrived from Hong Kong in about 4 days,......the quality is more than good enough for purpose. The adaptor has a 'stop down' ring so that you can focus at max aperture and then quickly stop down, however, in practice you won't really need it with long focus lenses because they have shallow depth of field and focus is quite easy to see with most apertures. The latest firmware for NEX3 also has 'peaking' which is a focussing aid that highlights the areas of sharpest focus in a contrasting colour to make it easy to see and adjust.
 
Just a general comment - you get what you pay for. I ordered a cheap adaptor off eBay to enable me to put Nikon lenses on my GXR M unit. When it arrived the lenses rattled and dangled from it - you could see daylight through the mount. I returned for refund and struggled to get my money back, eventually having to get eBay to arbitrate and decide in my favour. Instead I went to the nice people at SRB Griturn and bought a Novoflex adaptor which, although 5x more expensive than the cheap rubbish on eBay actually does work. :)
 
The point here is that these (Tokina and similar) are more or less junk so while SRB (an excellent company of many years standing) and Novoflex (an even MORE excellent company) may well make good stuff it's not really applicable when several of the lenses together are only worth a fraction of the adaptor cost. I do notice that the phrase "you only get what you pay for" tends to be used by people who don't have to consider 'what they pay'..... just my observation.

If you look carefully on ebay you can find the same adaptors sold thru UK companies for not much more cost and this give one a better chance of deducing a reputable opertion.
 
NEX-5N with 800mm lens!

I tried my old Pentax-M 400/5.6 on my NEX-5N yesterday evening, also with my 2X converter, and the results were on the whole better than when I had my K-5 connected to it, or should I say more pleasing, as there was less chroma problems, but maybe slightly less sharp. Got my adapter from Amazon.co.uk, and this is not the cheapest they sell, but the second cheapest, and the fit is perfect! But I am awaiting a Novoflex adapter as well, as the one I have can't control the aperature on lenses without an aperature ring (the DA series of Pentax lenses). My wife has a Novoflex adapter for her E-PL1 and that works just great (bought from SRB, by the way)!

Tried a little video with the 400, with converter, after sunset, and it worked great - the 'target' was a shop downtown, across the wide river Göta Älv, from about a mile's distance. The temperature was about 10 C, and there was no wind. Even then the air moved about occasionally, corrupting the view (there was probably a chimney under me somewhere upsetting the air), but my what picture quality the rest of the time: Could easily read the sign above the shop window, quite amazing.

Indeed, this NEX-5N is a keeper!
 
The point here is that these (Tokina and similar) are more or less junk so while SRB (an excellent company of many years standing) and Novoflex (an even MORE excellent company) may well make good stuff it's not really applicable when several of the lenses together are only worth a fraction of the adaptor cost. I do notice that the phrase "you only get what you pay for" tends to be used by people who don't have to consider 'what they pay'..... just my observation.

If you look carefully on ebay you can find the same adaptors sold thru UK companies for not much more cost and this give one a better chance of deducing a reputable opertion.

Easy, Old Chap. The lenses you refer to as "junk" are, believe me, a lot better in quality than the adaptors that come out of the East via eBay. I have used many in the past, Tokina, Tamron and Sigma, alongside Nikon, Olympus Zeiss and Leica glass and can attest to the fact that the best of the independents is very good indeed. An optical chain is, like any other, no stronger than the weakest link; if that link is so poorly made it rattles you may as well be using plastic coke bottles on your camera.

As for "you get what you pay for", I'm sorry if I offended. Next time I shall stick to the facts - "Buy cheap, buy twice" ;):D
 
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