GH2 Building a vintage lens package for video

Azmyth

Azmyth

Veteran
Lets say I wanted to buy several vintage lenses to use for video. (I'm going to rent some stuff here and there because its cheaper to do that than buy some of these for the length of time I'd be using them.)

It doesn't look like I'm gonna be able to go the PL mount route this time, so gonna have to shoot on vintage primes.

This is what I already have..

Canon FD 1.8 50mm
Yashinon-DX 1.7 50mm - M42 mount
Rexagon 2.8 28mm - M42 mount
Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 4.5-5.6g 55-200mm (not even sure these are usable at all)
Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 5-5.6g 18-55mm

What would I add? take away?

I'm on a budget as well.
 
I went the FD route and currently have the 50mm f1.8, 28mm f2.8, and 80-200 f4.5 vivitar.

Fairly happy with my choices but if I had to it over again I wouldn't have been so cheap and picked up the FD 24mm and 50mm f1.4
 
Stupid question.. I'm looking at alot of vivitar lenses.. do they have different mounts? or do they have a universal mount like the FD's/M42?
 
Azmyth said:
Stupid question.. I'm looking at alot of vivitar lenses.. do they have different mounts? or do they have a universal mount like the FD's/M42?
Click to expand...

Vivatar is a third party that makes different mounts for any popular brand camera. I have some Nikon mount ones, but they also make EOS, Pentax, FD, Sony, etc...
 
I have a Vivitar Series one 35-70 and just bought a Series 1 70-210 for 20 bucks on ebay .
Both are the first Series (early 70s) of Series 1, with 15 elements, that where made by Kino Presicion (KIRON).

I love that glass. It takes a man to handle it, cause there are shotgun zooms, but if you master them, they give a very distinctive look.
I use them without a sunshade ore mattebox, cause I love the way they flare.

Here is some good reading:

http://www.cameraquest.com/viv90180.htm
http://www.robertstech.com/vivitar.htm

Frank
 
Azmyth said:
What would I add? take away?

I'm on a budget as well.
Click to expand...

Definitely consider the Jupiter-8 50mm, I got mine for $40 on ebay. It's an old soviet lens, actually a copy of a zeiss sonnar 50mm, which is a more expensive lens. Here is the just a super quick test I did after I got mine in the mail on Thursday.

 
+1 on the Canon FD 1.4. Great little lens. It's extremely lightweight and it's tack sharp at f5.6, although, it's not bad wide open either.
 
Zxander34 said:
I went the FD route and currently have the 50mm f1.8, 28mm f2.8, and 80-200 f4.5 vivitar.
2.jpg


Fairly happy with my choices but if I had to it over again I wouldn't have been so cheap and picked up the FD 24mm and 50mm f1.4
Click to expand...

is the vivitar sharp wide open?
 
Postmaster said:
I have a Vivitar Series one 35-70 and just bought a Series 1 70-210 for 20 bucks on ebay .
Both are the first Series (early 70s) of Series 1, with 15 elements, that where made by Kino Presicion (KIRON).

I love that glass. It takes a man to handle it, cause there are shotgun zooms, but if you master them, they give a very distinctive look.
I use them without a sunshade ore mattebox, cause I love the way they flare.

Here is some good reading:

http://www.cameraquest.com/viv90180.htm
http://www.robertstech.com/vivitar.htm

Frank
Click to expand...

Yeah, I have to second the Vivitars. I have a Series 1 70-210 (Kiron) and a Series 1 28-105mm f2.8 -3.5 that is also of Kiron manufacture. They are beasts, with the push pull zoom, but I love them. They also have outstanding contrast and of the vintage lenses I have from that period (1970s -early 1980s) are the sharpest I have. The Macro on the 70-210 is excellent and make beautiful close focus shots. The Vivitar Series 1 lenses, when they were introduced, were high end pro-sumer grade lenses and fetched a very nice price. They are available very inexpensively now, and I can not recommend highly enough picking up a couple, at least. I paid $35 for the 75-210mm, in Nikon F mount, off of eBay and $120.00 (With shipping costs) for the 28-105mm, also in F mount off of eBay. Vivitar did manufacture in multiple mounts. I personally would recommend picking them up in Nikon F mount, as it can be adapted to almost any other mount available, or likely to be introduced.
 
jeree said:
is the vivitar sharp wide open?
Click to expand...

Yeah, Vivitar Lenses especially the KIRON made, are pretty sharp wide open.
I have Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm f3.5 and Vivitar 28mm 2.5.
Both are from KIRON, very Clear Glass, Strong body and very sharp.

However the 28mm (the one in my Avatar) is not in use since last few months, and thinking about selling it.
 
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