Does that support camera control too or do you have to use the ring?

Yer I am saying it had a manual aperture ring, but the camera left it open until you pressed the shutter like my DSLR does. Or flicked the preview lever.

Yer I am saying it had a manual aperture ring, but the camera left it open until you pressed the shutter like my DSLR does. Or flicked the preview lever.

That was pretty standard, wasn’t it? I could do that on my old Praktica!

Yer I am saying it had a manual aperture ring, but the camera left it open until you pressed the shutter like my DSLR does. Or flicked the preview lever

Sorry, should have used quote. I was replying to GrahamS.

I’ve used old auto-stopdown lenses so I know what you mean.

I think this depends largely on what kind of shot you’re trying to get.
If you quite like highly processed looking shots and you tend to shoot abstract or detail shots where composition and subject are the most important things, then I think you can get away with virtually any lens.
See the huge growth of iPhone photography for eg.

However, I’ve found that the majority of my shots are as wide an aperture as possible – it’s just what I prefer.
I also prefer my processing to look natural – no surreal HDR photos for me.

You don’t have to spend huge amounts though. I get by with just 2 fast lenses:
Tamron 17-50mm F2.8 (cost £250)
Canon 50mm F1.8 (cost £60)

I know 5e I was replying to Graham too 🙂 Not sure if it was needed though.. anyway as you were 🙂

My Dad bought that Chinon when we were little kids and really looked after it so it stayed mint. He decided it was too much faff after taking it to my Sister’s graduation and taking loads of pics only to discover there was no film in it, so he gave it to me for I think 20th or 21st birthday. Best present ever to be honest, because as a kid that thing was like a holy item with which I was utterly fascinated.. endless questions asked on my father’s knee, demonstrations and supervised picture taking.. a symbol of the whole father-son relationship 🙂

Then someone burgled my shared house in Didsbury and nicked it.

5th: yeah it supports camera control (you set it to f22 then flick that little lock switch) then it will function like a normal modern lens and only stop down when the shutter is pressed.

grips: I’m pretty sure that on this one the aperture ring manually moves in the aperture blades so it stops down as soon as you turn it and the preview button has no effect (but I never actually use it like that so I’m not certain).

The only time I’ve ever really used the aperture ring is with the lens off the camera when I’m explaining aperture to someone new to photography.

i.e. showing them something like this:

5th: yeah it supports camera control (you set it to f22 then flick that little lock switch) then it will function like a normal modern lens and only stop down when the shutter is pressed

That’s very neat. I must admit, I do like aperture rings. Seems a sensible place to put the control.

Well again on my old stuff, when you took it off the camera turning the ring moved the aperture. However there was a little lever in the mounting plate that the camera flicked up when you attached it, keeping the aperture wide open until it needed to be moved.

You could jiggle the lever and see the aperture open and close with a lovely snicky snicky snick. Your lens might also have one.

It does have a certain amount of logic to it – and it makes the aperture scale much easier to understand when you can see it all in front of you, where one stop is literally one clunk of the ring.

But…

It means every lens has to have the additional weight, size and mechanical complexity required for the aperture ring and your apertures are limited to full stops, rather than half or third stops on most modern bodies.

You could jiggle the lever and see the aperture open and close with a lovely snicky snicky snick. Your lens might also have one.

Hmm.. maybe it does then. I’ll have a play tonight.

your apertures are limited to full stops

Mine had half clicks…

“I thought that when using the viewfinder (i.e. when not acutally taking a photo) the camera uses a large aperture, and the aperture only actually closes when you take the photo? Non?”

Correct. But it can only give you the largest aperture (hole) it is capable of.

So a 1.4 aperture lens will let in more light to the viewfinder and the sensor than a 2.8 or a 4.0

My camera has a Fn button that you can assign to one of a load of things. Lots of the functions I would quite like to have quick access to, and I’ve programmed them before, but it’s currently on aperture preview and I suspect it might stay there…

Nikons have a dedicated preview button AND a programmable Fn button 😛

Oh right.. anyone wanna buy a load of Oly kit then?

Rent one and try for yourself

http://www.lensesforhire.co.uk

and let me know what you think – I amseriously tempted by a 17-35 f2.8!

Lensesforhire. No Olympus.. buggers.