Carl Zeiss MC Flektogon 2.8/20 on Nikon

[jordand]

A friend of mine found this in an old military laboratory and gave it to me. It has never been used, still in a plastic bag inside its leather-velvet casing.
The serial number on this copy has only four digits, which puts it early in the production period, based on what I found during my eBay enquiry. Lucky me!
The mount is screw-type, known as M42, I believe.
My question is: is this what I need to mount the lens on Nikon D7000 body?
https://www.fotodioxpro.com/m42-lens...t-adapter.html

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Jordan,

That adaptor does seem to be the correct variety and although the glass element it comes with allows infinity focus (apparently), it will somewhat reduce image quality. That said, I have no personal experience, I'm just applying theory and (hopefully) common sense.

I do have some experience of using film era manual lenses on my D5000:
There are a couple of other aspects to using old lenses on your D7000, you can only really shoot in full 'Manual' mode - are you going to be 'happy' with that?
I believe you won't be able to use; P, A, S or Auto-iso M with it.
You may have some form of exposure metering on the D7000, I didn't on the D5000, but haven't bothered to try my old manual lenses on on my D7100.

It will obviously require manual focusing, not always easy.
Additionally; remembering to stop down to the shooting aperture after focusing wide open, is a faff, especially if hand holding and trying to maintain a composition you may not be able to see so well through viewfinder after stopping down.


Using a manual lens on a DSLR really slows you down, some may find this an advantage in certain circumstances, all depends upon your personality and any time pressure when shooting.


You'll have no EXIF data recorded in your shots with this lens; e.g. focal length and aperture - and if you intended to use TTL flash with it, the camera won't know what focus distance you're at, which might impact exposure calculations.

All the caveats aside; the adaptor isn't a lot of money, so if you need a close focusing, slightly faster than 'kit lens'* lens, go for it.
It'll be fun for a while, but at that focal length and speed, I'd be surprised if you keep using it for long.

* e.g. assuming you have an 18-55mm kit lens, that would be about f/3.5 at 20mm, so f/2.8 isn't really going to be a noticeable speed difference (for all the inconveniences).


Given the camera and lens(es) you (may/may not) have (?), this probably isn't a huge advantage, if it is in good condition, you may be better off selling it to someone for whom it would be more useful - and putting the funds towards a new (or s/h) lens that will extend your shooting opportunities in a direction you'd like to go. (e.g. Macro, telephoto, UWA, fast prime, since this lens does none of these)

HTH, Dave

PS, if I am wrong on anything here folks, please educate me.

[rpcrowe]

When we used manual focus lenses with SLR film cameras, both the lenses and the cameras were better suited (in most cases) to manual focusing than using these lenses on DSLR cameras.

The cameras often had viewing screens that made focusing easier - some even had split image type focusing in the center spot.

The lenses were most often of the automatic variety, in that you could focus with the lens wide open and when you fired the camera, the lens would stop down to the chosen aperture and then reopen prior to the next shot.

Totally manual lenses were slow and IMO a great PITA to work with since you needed to open the aperture to focus and then manually stop down to the shooting aperture before firing.

There were also, "Pre Set" lenses with which you selected the shooting aperture and set a mark on the lens. You were then able to manually shut down the diaphragm to the selected aperture without needing to look at the lens.

SLR film cameras were not very popular (Exacta was one brand Practica was another)) until the automatic diaphragm came along allowing you to shoot without having to stop down and then have the aperture open up for the next shot.

IMO, the reason that many of the famous photojournalists used rangefinder cameras with 50mm lenses is that it was, in the times of Henri Cartier Bresson, difficult to use other than a 50mm lens on most 35mm rangefinder cameras and SLR cameras were slow and a PITA to use.

I think that the Leica M series (M2 and M3) and the Canon S series (S3 and SP), in the mid to late 1950's, were the first rangefinder cameras capable of viewing and focusing with other than a 50mm lens.