The price to performance of used cameras is absurd. My view is that digital photography tech hit maturity in 2008 with the release of the Canon 5D Mark II and Nikon D700.
There is an overwhelming amount of professional gear out there at rock bottom prices. Consumer gear can be a blast when it’s cheap enough. The right camera for a style of shooting is going to be better than whatever the newest camera happens to be. (Unless you’re doing sports/action/wildlife. AF tech is getting absurd.)
Third Party Battery Paranoia
I have had batteries fall apart, fail within months, and with a capacity far below what’s on the label. It’s difficult to find good quality third party batteries.
There is an easy way ANYONE can inexpensively capacity test camera batteries. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to capacity test camera batteries. It is a simple DIY project that only requires, ~$30, a screwdriver, and pair of wire strippers.
Picking Out Vintage Lens Winners
All lenses aren’t equal, especially when it comes to vintage and early digital camera lenses. Modern lenses will give you images that are razor sharp corner to corner. Vintage lenses can set themselves apart by how they render, the color you can get with them, interesting bokeh, or other characteristics not valued by current photographers.
On the other hand, many vintage lenses are not good. Their performance may not be good enough to set them apart from other lenses. Worse, as time has gone on some lenses have defects such as haze, fungus, balsam separation, or degraded grease, that will render them worthless because of the difficulty in repair.
I’m somewhat indiscriminate in my purchasing of gear, so I get a mix of good, bad, and average. The lens reviews will help you find a lens worth owning. These are popular film cameras that recieve frequent lens questions.
The Yashica 55mm f/2.8 ML macro lens is well constructed, sharp, and has little distortion. Compared to other vintage macro lenses, the only standout feature is that it is expensive.
A 27mm extension tube is needed for 1:1 magnification. However, 90-105mm macro lenses are a better choice for 1:1 because they have larger working distances.
Used Price and Where to Buy
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Used copies of the Tamron SP Di 90mm f/2.8 Macro lens have the best price/performance. The lens is sharp from f/5.6-f/11 with no chromatic aberration. Weighing 418g (14.7oz), the lens is the lightest macro lens I have reviewed in the 90-105mm focal length range. Working distance is comparable to 105mm lenses because the front element is recessed.
Used Price and Where to Buy
A newer version of the lens has been released, but new copies are still being sold. Gray market copies of the lens are also available, for a large discount, but without the warranty.
Tamron’s 90mm f/2.5 SP Macro 52B Adaptall 2 lens produces sharp images at f/8 & f/11. Used on any crop body camera, at f/5.6, the soft corners won’t be an issue.
There are 26 Adaptall 2 adapters that can be used with the lens. Any 35mm film SLR mount can be easily found, which makes adapting the lens to a mirrorless camera easy.
The lens is only manual focus. Despite being compact, the lens is heavy. To get to 1:1 magnification, the Tamron SP BBAR MC 2X Adaptall tele-converter is required.
The Sigma 50mm f2.8 macro lens can be difficult to find. I think this is due, in part, to the poor build quality. It is surprising to find old manual focus Sigma lenses in good condition.
My copy has a Nikon F mount, but it was made with other camera mounts.
Image quality is similar to other macro lenses from the late 1970s and 1980s. It likely shares one of the two optical designs used in the alternative macro lenses. My guess is that the lens has 5 or 6 elements.
The Olympus 50mm f/3.5 OM-System Zuiko Auto-Macro lens is a well built lens. Having the aperture located at the front of the lens makes it easy to adjust when adapted to a mirrorless camera.
Used Price and Where to Buy
When I was checking prices on the Olympus 50mm macro in November 2018, there were many lenses available and prices were low.
Due to the large amount of supply, you should have no problem finding a great deal with a little shopping around.
The 60mm f/2.8 Micro Nikkor was released as a replacement for the unpopular and short-lived, 55mm f/2.8 AF Micro Nikkor.
The autofocus in the lens is driven by a screw drive motor built into some Nikon camera bodies. Nikon has been phasing the motors out of entry-level DSLRs for several years.
Camera bodies such as the D5600 or D3500, will not be able to drive the autofocus for the lens. The Nikon F to Z mount adapter will also not provide autofocus. Manual focusing will still work.
