New Life For an Old Lens

[rpcrowe]

I have a very old Tamron 90mm f/2.8 SP AF Macro lens. This is the lens that was issued by Tamron after the Adaptall series and prior to the Di series. Unfortunately, it died on me. It would no longer auto focus and the lens would not stop down to the shooting aperture. A Tamron representative told me that it would cost more to fix this lens than it was worth. I could live with manual focus but, a macro lens is worthless if you can only shoot it wide open. UNLESS...



UNLESS, I use it on my A6500 for portraiture. The f/2.8 aperture is great for portraits and the Tamron can manually focus quite well with the A6500 (thanks to focus peaking). The 90mm focal length is 135mm equivalent and this lens produces quite nice bokeh so it is just fine for portraiture. The A6500 IBIS provides the image stabilization that this lens never had when it was used on my Canon bodies...

It looks like I have another portrait lens in my collection

[xpatUSA]

I have a very old Tamron 90mm f/2.8 SP AF Macro lens. This is the lens that was issued by Tamron after the Adaptall series and prior to the Di series. Unfortunately, it died on me. It would no longer auto focus and the lens would not stop down to the shooting aperture. A Tamron representative told me that it would cost more to fix this lens than it was worth. I could live with manual focus but, a macro lens is worthless if you can only shoot it wide open. UNLESS...



UNLESS, I use it on my A6500 for portraiture. The f/2.8 aperture is great for portraits and the Tamron can manually focus quite well with the A6500 (thanks to focus peaking). The 90mm focal length is 135mm equivalent and this lens produces quite nice bokeh so it is just fine for portraiture. The A6500 IBIS provides the image stabilization that this lens never had when it was used on my Canon bodies...

It looks like I have another portrait lens in my collection

Interesting! I didn't know that the MC-11 worked with non-Sigma lenses.

[Hanginon]

I think it's great you can again use this lens - but I am leery of portraits taken at f/2.8, unless there is background I deliberately want to blur - the depth of field is too shallow to render all the facial features in focus. In your example, the eyes are sharp, but it looks like her nose is too soft, no?

[rpcrowe]

There is really only a rather small selection of Sigma lenses that will integrate flawlessly with the MC-11 and Sony bodies. Lenses such as most of the ART series as well as some of the contemporary series work quite well on the Sony with the MC-11. In fact, the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 contemporary in Canon mount is said to work as well as native Sony glass when adapted with the MC-11. However the Sony 30mm f/1.4 lens that is not "contemporary" will only provide limited AF capability with the MC-11 on a Sony body. "Limited AF" usually means that some functions like Eye-AF are not available with the adapted lens.

Other Sigma lenses and all other brand lenses with Canon mounts will work to one degree or another when adapted to the Sony body. Some will AF reasonably well with the MC-11 while others such as my Canon 100mm f/2.8 USM (non-L) macro will not AF at all.

When I shoot with my Canon 85mm f/1.8 lens adapted with the MC-11 on my A6500, I don't have Eye-AF available but, do have face detect which will get me in the ballpark focus wise. I can then switch to manual focus (with a toggle switch I can operate with the thumb of my shooting hand) and get critical focus on the eye manually with the help of focus peaking. If the subject is a distance from me, I will also use the enlarged view to critically focus. It is a lot easier to use the 85mm f/1.8 lens in this fashion than to focus and recompose on the Canon 6D2.

However every Canon mount lens that I own will allow manual focus when adapted to the Sony body with the MC-11. Some lenses, like my Vivitar (Samyang, Rokinon, et.al.) will actually work better on the Sony A6500 adapted with the MC-11 than it does on my Canon bodies because, IMO, with the aid of focus peaking. manual focusing is easier. Focus peaking is also great when shooting the 100mm Canon f/2.8 macro in manual focus mode.

I even have a very old Sigma 28mm f/1.8 lens which can not be used on any Canon body newer than the 10D. It works just great in manual focus on the Sony A6500 with MC-11...

Just how well adapted lenses work on Sigma bodies also depends on the body. I have read that the A6500 and the A7iii have the best success with adapted lenses.

I usually shoot at this wide aperture when I want to blur a background outdoors. However, I do shoot my Sony 50mm f/1.8 lens wide open much of the time.