Sacrilege!! (or not)

I MAY be about to engage in sacrilege.
I have an opportunity to trade a piece of spare radio gear for a Nikon D70 with the stock 35-70 and 70-300 lenses along with a wicked nice 60mm Macro f/2.8D.

I HAVE a Canon Rebel XT with the stock 28-90, a Tamron 70-300, Tamron 17-35, and a 55-250 with IS.
What are the opinions on Canon vs Nikon at this level? (6-8 MP)

Let the holy war begin!!

No, I haven't given up (yet)

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. This whole job thing keeps interfering...


I have just finished some test shots with a pair of M42 tread mount lenses I have. I made an interesting discovery, my eyes SUCK!! All this time I have been getting what APPEARS to be good focus to my unassisted eye, and when I look at the result, BLEAH!


It seems the diopter adjustment on my camera is nowhere near strong enough to allow me to do naked focus. Fortunately, there is a remedy for this, I have ordered and await delivery of a pair of adapters that will activate the focus sensor in the Canon.


In the mean time, I am drafting up a post on the M42 lenses as far as basics...


The Vivitar
85-205mm two ring f/3.8 (constant)

From Old Glass

A (blurry) test shot with the big Vivitar

From Old Glass

The Yashica Yashinon-DS
50mm f/2

From Old Glass

A test shot with the Yashica 50mm f/2

From Old Glass

The challenges emerge...

I have now had a chance to take some of these lenses into the real world and see how they perform. The answer is, it's not so easy as I thought! All the older lenses I have been testing were designed to be used with SLR and rangefinder cameras that have analog focus assistance built right in. Split prism, micro prism, even the two arrows and a light system in my old N2020 are all sorely missed now.

This is an example from the 135mm Jupiter-11

From Old Glass

Not so good with the focus, eh?

This is from the Nikkor 50mm

From Old Glass

Again, not so good. It LOOKED good in the viewfinder, but a Rebel XT doesn't exactly have a huge VF... clearly I need a focus assist.

Finally, from the Vivitar 85-205 f/3.8 with a 2X teleconverter

From Old Glass

Again, it looked good in the VF. And I KNOW this lens is sharp when it's in focus.

Apparently, there are adapters that have a circuit built in that will enable the built in focus assist on a Canon EOS body. Not cheap, but I will be trying to raise the funds to grab one and try it on.

I'll try and have a review of the Vivitar M42 lens yet this week. It rocks, WHEN you can get it in focus...

Also, if anyone else is experimenting with this type of thing, and would like to contribute, PLEASE let me know, more information is a good thing!

Ciao!

Robert

Funds running short...

So my funding for this project has run dry, so it's time to start putting things on the market to finance my research!

First to go is the Rollei RF 35 with the Leica Summicron f/2 50mm, LTM to M adapted and the Jupiter-11 135mm f4 (scale focus only on the Rollei)

Asking $450

Pictures are in this blog.