Two of the three vintage lenses I’ve ordered have arrived along with two focal reducers to match their mounts. The first lens to arrive was a Pentax 35mm f3.5 with M42 mount. I have a straight M42 to X-mount adapter from Urth that I’ll probably keep on it, making the effective focal length ~52m on my Fujifilm X-T2.
The second lens to arrive was a Canon FD 24mm SSC f2.8. This is one of the lenses I’ve been more excited about getting since I’ve been aching to shoot at that focal length for years, never really satisfied with the 27mm I’ve been shooting at with my Fujinon lens. While I have an Urth FD to X-mount adapter for the FD 24mm, this is a lens I definitely want the full focal length so I’m keeping a Zhongyi FD to X-Mount Speedbooster II on it.
The third lens? Man, I can’t wait for that baby to arrive! And I’ll be using a Zhongyi M42 to X-mount Speedbooster II on that when it arrives. Though I’ll also be happily switching it out with a straight mount adapter.
To give you an idea of the difference the focal reducer/speed booster makes, here are two shots taken with the Pentax 35mm, the first without the focal reducer, the second with it.
And here are a few samples with the Canon FD24mm f2.8 (which I’m already in love with.) The last shot of the wood bee was an exercise in testing how quickly I could manually focus on a fast moving subject. Thankfully, I don’t generally work with subjects that move this quickly. So that’s nice. 🙂
Bee shot is very well done… I have one with my 50mm 1.8 nikkor series E. It takes years of practice and skill to get lucky sometimes.
“It takes years of practice and skill to get lucky sometimes.” lol
And thanks! The wood bees might be the easiest to shoot because they’ll hover for a moment in the same spot and stay in the same region for a few seconds. I kept hoping I could get one closer but I just wasn’t patient enough. Maybe a task for tomorrow.