Recomended 35mm lenses for 35mm adapters

Apefos Adapter

Apefos Adapter

Well-known member
I will list some 35mm lenses recomended for use in 35mm adapters. The lenses in this list are the best to avoid vigneting and hotspot. The lenses I will list is full size frame lenses, not the aps sized for small sensors. I do not recomend the Canon EOS EF and the Nikon G series because they do not have the f/stop ring. Buy lenses with the rear glass with 20mm diameter or bigger. best rear glass are 25mm diameter or bigger. Just buy zoom lenses with constant aperture f2.8 or f3.5. The zoom lenses with variable aperture f2.8-4.0 works good too. Wide angle fixed focal lenses with f2.8 or darker aperture are not so good due to vignetting.

I am starting a channel in vimeo to show some lens footage. keep tuned.

http://www.vimeo.com/lenstest

any brand 14mm f2.8
Tokina 17mm atx pro
sigma or tamron 17-35mm f2.8-4
nikon 17-35mm f2.8
sigma 20mm f1.8
sigma 24mm f1.8
any brand 24mm f2.0
sigma 28mm f1.8
any brand 28mm f2.0
nikon 35mm f1.4
any brand 35mm f2.0
any brand 50mm f1.2 or f1.4 or f1.8
any brand 85mm f1.2 or f1.4 or f1.8 or f2.0
any brand 100mm f2.0 or f2.8
nikon 105mm f1.8 or f2.0 or f2.5
any brand 135mm f2.0 or f2.5 or f2.8
nikon 180mm f2.8
any brand 200mm f2.8 or f4.0
any brand 300mm f4.0 or f4.5
any brand 35-105mm f3.5
soligor 35-140mm f3.5
nikon 75-150 f3.5
any brand 70-200mm or 80-200mm f2.8
vivitar 70-210mm f3.5 or f2.8-4
any brand 24-70mm or 28-80mm (or something like that) f2.8
 
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New videos - zoom lenses

New videos - zoom lenses

I uploaded new videos to the lenstest channel:

vivitar 70-210 f2.8-4
vivitar 70-210 f3.5
vivitar 70-150 f3.8
nikon 70-150 f3.5

the channel has many videos and you need to search some of them in the next pages...

http://www.vimeo.com/lenstest
 
Awesome resource, this is really helpful info! The videos in particular are great to see. Thanks for doing this.

I must say though, I disagree that the Nikon 24mm f2 is sharp edge to edge - I have one and it definitely goes soft on the edges, and I see the same thing happening in the clip on Vimeo. Still a nice lens to have, but the edge softness is a bummer.
 
nikon 24mm

nikon 24mm

I like the nikon 24mm f2 because it shows no vignetting. maybe the out of focus in the video clip is because somethings are far and somethings are near the lens, so just some parts gets focus.
 
Vivitar 28mm f1.9

Vivitar 28mm f1.9

There is a new video in the lens test channel in vimeo. The Vivitar 28mm f1.9 You can see the San Francisco church of the architect Oscar Niemeyer.

Thanks
 
Do you know if any of these lenses, and if so which ones, are "true zoom" lenses or parfocal lenses meaning that you can focus and when zooming in or out (changing the focal distance) the focus does not move?
 
zoom wth constant focus

zoom wth constant focus

yzmotoxer807 said:
Do you know if any of these lenses, and if so which ones, are "true zoom" lenses or parfocal lenses meaning that you can focus and when zooming in or out (changing the focal distance) the focus does not move?
Click to expand...

The following lenses have the feature you want (I tested them and you can see the videos on vimeo):

Asanuma 35-105mm f3.5
Soligor 35-140mm f3.5
Vivitar 70-150 f3.8
you can find these in different mounts like nikon, canon fd, etc
These ones have a very smooth zoom ring, so you can zoom in or out while shooting

Tamron 17-35 f2.8-4 can do this too

The following ones I did not test but I think it has this feature too

Canon Fd 35-105mm f3.5
Nikon 17-35 f2.8
Sigma 17-35 f2.8-4

The key to find this feature is chose lenses with two touch system where there are two rings, one for focus and one for zoom

Thank you
 
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i have trouble focusing on anything less then 18mm. I am using an HVX200a and redrock m2 with microx adapter. I could have my zoom offset. What is the widest lens you can use with my rig?
 
Apefos Adapter said:
There is a new video in the lens test channel in vimeo. The Vivitar 28mm f1.9 You can see the San Francisco church of the architect Oscar Niemeyer.

Thanks
Click to expand...

I'm seeing some serious softening around the edges of your shots. This cannot be attributed to depth of field for a 28mm because the DOF should be fairly deep, particularly from that distance.
 
lairhair said:
i have trouble focusing on anything less then 18mm. I am using an HVX200a and redrock m2 with microx adapter. I could have my zoom offset. What is the widest lens you can use with my rig?
Click to expand...

If I understand your comment correctly, then it's probably a matter of setting the Flange Focus Distance (FFD), i.e. the distance between the back of the lens and the ground glass that the image forms on. It appears to be fairly common for the M2 to ship from the factory with this not very precisely set... and the problems seems to be more obvious the wider a lens you use. When I got mine, and when borrowing one from a friend before I got mine, I saw the exact same problem: the wide lenses would focus way "past infinity" and therefore couldn't focus on anything closer than about 30 feet.

On your longer lenses the problem is still there, but shows up as more of an issue of the lens distance markings not matching reality, rather than being obvious that you can't focus on things.

The fix is to move the ground glass on the motor shaft until it's at the right spot... which is an incredibly tedious set-n-recheck process. There is a tutorial video on the redrock support forums showing you how to do it.

Once you get this set right you shouldn't need to touch it again... but it sure does point out the value of the external adjustment ring on things like the Letus Ultimate!

Duncan
 
HV20 have soft edges in macro mode

HV20 have soft edges in macro mode

disjecta said:
I'm seeing some serious softening around the edges of your shots. This cannot be attributed to depth of field for a 28mm because the DOF should be fairly deep, particularly from that distance.
Click to expand...


I tested the HV20 in macro mode without the apefos adapter, in the same macro position used when mounted in the apefos. I pointed the HV20 to a milimetric paper and I did two tests, one with nothing between the HV20 and the milimetric paper and one with the condenser between the HV20 and the milimetric paper. In both tests the HV20 show soft edges. So I concluded the HV20 have soft edges in the macro mode. It is not an apefos problem.
 
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