Buying Vintage Glass

Cost Effective Glass

I see a lot of questions on how to acquire lenses on the cheap at the GH2 user forum on Vimeo and thought I'd write up about what I've learned from acquiring great quality lenses on a low budget.  If you're like me then you may have exhausted most of your funds when purchasing the camera body.  I am still extremely new to interchangeable lens systems, and when I invested in the GH2 I was coming from the school of thought that the camera is the deal.  You get a great camera, you get great images right?  Wrong.  So having never purchased lenses before I wasn't ready to understand two things: 1) how expensive they are 2) how important they are to image quality.

Glass is expensive.  Having entered into the world of interchangeable lens systems you need to understand an important rule: INVEST IN GLASS.  Lenses are an investment.  They are the eye of your camera.  How the image looks through the lens is how it is going to look.  If you have a crap lens your footage will look like shit.  If you have a stellar lens your footage will be amazing.  So there's a reason why certain lenses are hundreds of dollars and others are thousands.  Yet there's a cost effective way to buy lenses.  With an adapter and the help of Ebay you can purchase a 50 year old lens for next to nothing and get great results.

MF Lens Systems and Adapters
Let's start with lens systems.  When you invest in a camera body you are really buying in to a certain lens system.  When looking for vintage lenses you need to look for outdated MF (meaning manual focus) lens systems.

• Minolta MD/MC - Stick with the Rokkor line
• Canon FD
• Nikon Nikkor MF
• Pentax M42 mount
• Check out Super Takumar
• Yashica
• Konica
• Olympus Zuiko MF

Go Russian!  Very inexpensive lenses can be found from old Russian lens manufacturers.  These are usually sold by people from the Ukraine, so shipping is going to be around $20.  They are either for the M42 or M39 (Leica) mounts.

• Helios
• Jupiter
• Industar

I've never spent more than $30 on an adapter.  Don't see the point in dropping a lot of cash on a piece of metal.  Unless you have to purchase an adapter which requires a piece of glass, then I'd consider paying a bit extra.  Most of my adapters are from Fotodiox.  It's a solid brand.

Before you purchase a lens, research it.  There are great forums out there like forum.mflenses.com and flickr is a great resource as well.  Look at photos taken with the lens.  Pay attention to sharpness and detail, color rendition, flare, vignetting.

What to Look for?
Keep in mind you're buying vintage glass.  You aren't buying a new lens.  The lens will be used.  And it will have decades of wear.  And certain things can happen to the lens that you don't want.  However, we want to buy a lens that works like new.  So, when buying a lens on Ebay you want to make sure the seller checks for certain things.

• Haze, fungus, scratches - these affect the glass and therefore image quality.  Even if the seller says they don't, they're lying.  Purchase a lens which does not have these.
• Oil on aperture blades - Still don't know why, but I know it's bad.  You don't want this.  Avoid.
• Aperture blades are snappy - You want to make sure your aperture ring actually works and that the blades are responsive and snap into place.  I've ran into trouble a few times where I have ordered a lens whose aperture ring doesn't move the blades.  If you haven't checked ahead of time you will not be able to return it.  So double check with the seller and make sure the lens actually works.
• Smooth focusing ring - over time the focus ring can get dust or rust, or the grease can wear off and focusing becomes stiff and problematic.  Make sure the focusing is smooth.
• Dent on filter ring - to me, this makes a lens useless if I can't put a ND filter on it or at least a UV filter for protection.  If you really want to save money, go ahead, but I don't want a busted lens.

Do not purchase a lens without a description that reviews these areas or asking the seller about them.  Don't purchase a lens where the seller only provides pictures and says "you get what you see".  You cannot judge a lens' functioning based upon a picture.  Do not buy a lens from a seller who says "I don't know much about these things but it seems to work".  This person has no idea what they're talking about and wants your money for junk.

How to Search on Ebay

As stated above, make sure the seller understands what they're selling and make sure your lens is in good condition.  That way if it arrives in a condition less than described you have a right to return it.  To search for vintage lenses on Ebay you can type in any of the lens systems previously stated or you can search for a focal length.  Go under Camera and Photo and select "Lenses" you want "Used" and "Manual Focus".  The best way to save money on ebay is to follow an auction until the last 30 seconds then make a bid.  Give yourself a $10 cushion as other people also take this same approach.  Or look for newly listed lenses and jump on a good "buy it now" deal. 

IMPORTANT: before bidding and buying familiarize yourself with the price range of the item you are considering.  Do not pay more money than you need to.  Many people over price vintage lenses.


Please comment below if you found this post helpful or have any questions.

HDR Tests

Yeah this is how I spend my weekends.  I test approaches to color grading with my footage.  I came across a discussion on the GH2 user group blog on vimeo on how to create HDR video.  HDR stands for High Dynamic Range.  Basically it means retaining greater detail in you highlights and shadow areas.  They had found an approach wherein you duplicate the original video layer and stack it adding various blend modes and filters.

With the first video I attempted the process as they suggested.  I am using FCPX so my process is a bit different.
Duplicate the video layer.  Change the duplicate blend mode to overlay and invert the layer using a negative filter.  Desaturate the layer all the way down.  And to make the effect a bit subtle I changed the opacity to 53%.
Duplicate original layer again and stack.  Duplicate blend mode is Linear Burn, opacity at 85.5%.


I wasn't extremely pleased with my results so decided to give this some more thought.  The next test I was able to pull out the shadows and highlights yet the subject is still blown out and too soft.  The process isn't worth going over because it was not successful in creating the look I'm after.  However, with each new video I am learning more about the particular ways blend modes affect the overal image.


This last video I was able to create results very close to what I'm after.  Still not entirely there but I am on the right track now.  Here is the process:
Duplicate original layer.  Set blend mode to linear burn, opacity at 26%.  Then underexpose the image to -22%.
The purpose of underexposing was to get an even mid tone across the face.
Duplicate original layer again and stack. Set blend mode to Multiply, opacity at 34%.  I then completely desaturated the top layer.  Can't recall why I thought this was necessary, just did it.
Then you nest these clips into a single clip.  In FCP7 this was called a nested sequence and in FCPX it's called a compound clip.
I then color corrected the clip using the histogram and vectorscope as guides.  I saturated the image and crushed the blacks.  Then I added a sharpen filter.
NOTE: All levels are approximations that I eyed and are subject to change for specific footage being used.

ISO 12800 Test Footage

Here's my first test run on my GH2 with the new ptool hack.  I am going to start calling this camera Vader since I have another in the mail.  Figured if I had two I might as well name them.  I'll call it Vader because it's black and survived being drenched in hot coffee.  Not necessarily molten lava or metal but dangerous nonetheless.  I am seeing some poor banding issues.  There's a distinct dark bar in my shots.  Definitely something internal in the camera, a problem with the processor or the sensor perhaps.  Hopefully my GH2v2 will not be afflicted with this same problem.  I don't notice this issue in other test videos I see from other users of this camera.  Good thing this will be my b camera from here on out.

Ptool v 3.63 Hack

Just installed the new hack on my GH2.  Upped the rec mode to 44mbps at 24H and FSH.  The rest of the rec modes are at 35mbps.  Modified the GOP settings slightly.  Only lowered the frame numbers to the next suggested increment.  For example went from 15 down to 9, from 30 down to 15, etc...  Probably won't produce quite noticeable results but I'm just warming up my camera before trying any further modification.  Also, removed the ISO limit.  I can now record video at ISO 12800.  Will do some tests tonight and post footage later.

Vitaly Releases ptool Version 3.63

The newest user ready hack has been released for the GH2.  The latest hack allows for higher bitrates (reported as being steady at 44mbps as opposed to the last hack which was 42mbps), GOP modification, and removes the ISO limit.  Some pretty impressive test footage has been posted showing the GH2's video performance at ISO 12800!  You can check out Andrew Reid's site here.  He gives an in depth review of performance as well as provides tests footage.  I am currently charging my battery and will install the new firmware this afternoon.  Will post test footage later tonight!

Resurrection

My camera lives!  It's a miracle.  For some reason I put the battery back in to try one last time to turn it on and success!  I have already filmed an interview on it today and had no problems recording over 18 minutes of footage.  The LCD doesn't even flicker, which it was doing after initially turning it on post coffee spill.  So by next week I will have two GH2's one silver and the other black.  This isn't an unwanted thing.  I needed a b camera anyway.  So I will use the coffee survivor as my b camera.  Only because I don't fully trust its capabilities yet.  Need to put it under more rigorous testing.  But I have my friend back and am very pleased to be able to shoot video today.

I'll post a lens test soon.  Last week I received a lot of russian lenses in the mail.  BRING OUT THE RUSSIANS!

Death of a Friend

I killed my GH2 yesterday.  Spilled an entire cup of coffee on it.  I am not extremely sad about it, but just disappointed at the situation.  I use that camera everyday and I am starting to feel lost without it within arms reach.  I really feel I built a relationship with this tool.  I hang out with it.  I appreciate its presence in my life.  I have ordered a new one.  It will arrive sometime next week.  It's coming from Taiwan.  It's the Japanese version, but with the ptool hack I can change the menu language to english.  Haven't found a tutorial on exactly how to do this yet so I figure it must be my responsibility to do this once I figure out how.  But this situation has given me an opportunity to really observe the effect of this loss on myself and understand a relationship that can be developed between the videographer and his camera.  Between the craftsman and the tool of his craft.  I am going to miss shooting with my black GH2.  The new model will be silver.  It really will feel like a different creature.  Silver and japanese.  I just hope it's not too difficult of a task to get the english language on the menu.