I picked up a late-series (made-in-Japan) Oly 50/1.8 with some internal fungus (and therefore extremely chaep) from a friend to experiment on. My initial thought was that due to the small register-distance difference between the OM (46mm) and the F(46.5mm) mounts, a conversion should be very easy... And it was!
I'm sorry to say that I was so excited about the ongoing project that I completely forgot to photo-document the conversion work, even though the camera was sitting next to me, with off-camera flash primed and ready... :P I'll soon have a mint-condition lens to convert, and I'll try to document that conversion in stead!
The conversion was very simple.
1: Unscrew the old OM-mount from the lens.
2: Unscrew and remove the aperture-lever from the lens.
3: Grind down the a small mounting-ridge on the seat of the lens.
4. Use the old OM-mount as a template to drill screwholes in the M42-Nikon adapter
5. Mount the adapter in place of the old OM-mount - with original screws and superglue.
Done!
*Infinity focus is perfect - but I had to grind down a small centering-ridge on the mount-seat. Everything went as planned, I had measured everything beforehand with a micrometer. I felt confident to glue the adapter in place after a quick infinity-check.
As of the fungus being present, 1.8 is fairly unusable. The fungus is mostly present in the rim of the inside of the front element (the entire front lens-assembly is hardmounted with glue from the factory. This makes it impossible to separate the front group to clean it...). All shots at 1.8 suffers from severe veiling glare, but you can see the inherent potential of the system!
From 2.8 onwards, the OM50 clearly outperforms MY three Nikon 50's - a 50/1.4 AIS and two versions of the 50/1.8. When I say "outperform", I cannot substantiate this claim with any measured performance, this is just my own very personal opinion.
I find the 50/1.4 the easiest to focus correcly, and I greatly value its 2.0 performance, but I do prefer the way the Oly "draws" the OOF areas, at all focus plane to background distance ratios that I can say that I've used. Large-scale contrast also seems better in the Oly.
I don't want to clutter this thread with lots of my mediocre photography skills, but I felt I had to include some examples... :P
Yes I have, but since all the 1.4's except the last batch (s/n over 1,100,000) seems to have a "not brilliant" reputation, I'm still waiting to get a hold of a mint example of that batch
It also seems that it matter what batch it's from - not only for IQ - but regarding the mounting-plate as well.... Only some of the production batches have the two-part mounting plate that I need for this conversion. A sample where the mounting-plate is solid right through would be MUCH harder to convert! See the last pictures, you can see that the back plate (with the actual F-mount) is one piece, and that the part where the DOF-scale is etched/printed is one separate piece. If they are one solid piece, as is the case with some 1.4's, I would have to grind some 1.5mm of steel off.... A bit to much work as I don't have access to a lathe right now.
But I have my sights set on it! :P hehe
I really like the way it draws, if only I could get better 1.8-2.0 performance the 50/1.4 AIS would probably spend a lot less time on my camera...!
i've always been a fan of the zuikos... question, what about aperture settings? are you still able to stop down with the depth of field button? This is the only issue I see with my 1.8, also a bit beat up like yours.
@ bellyface: I rerouted the spring from the button inside to keep the aperture at the aperture ring set value - IE no stopdown via lever... The button protruded into the mounting part of the back end, so I would have had to grind it down. Certainly doable, but not worth it for me.
@ mh: I've had three types of 1.8 Nikkors, one late AF, AIS and one series E. (That makes two, really, the Series E is by definition not a "Nikkor", it's a "Nikon" :P )
"Better" is in this case a matter of opinion - the Zuiko is definitely sharper and has better overall contrast from F4 and up (compared to all of the Nikkors) all over the frame, and it has better overall contrast - but maybe less fine detail sharpness - at F2.8. It also draws the Bokeh (behind plane of focus) in a very different way. Softer edges, but with more contrast. I definitely prefer the Zuiko. It is very similar to my (converted) Leica SL Summicron 50, but inspecting the lens drawings you can see that they are VERY similar in construction.
At 1.8 the Nikkors blow the Zuiko out of the water, but remember that I have a very flawed copy (lots of fungus at the edge of the front element).
Of all the Nikkors, I actually prefer the Series E, but since I only had one sample to compare with, this can be pure QC variance. The difference was in any case very small. Construction and glass is the same as the AIS, but the coatings are not exactly the same. The AF wasn't very good, but it should have had the same performance as the AIS... I put this down to sample variation also. I didn't find it good enough to pursue a good copy.
The only "good" thing about Nikon's and Canon's new 50/1.8's is the price/performance ratio.... Overall, they're really not that stellar performers... Until you factor in the price!
They're probably both contending for the "best IQ performance per payed amount of money" throne in the "bought brand new with factory guarantee" class. This in itself make them very good - not the ultimate optical performance...
I just sold my OM-1 and Zuiko 50/1.8. While I did appreciate the lens' general drawing characteristics, it just was not in the same league as my 3-cam Summicron-R 50... I waited a couple years before selling it... but I just couldn't find reason enough to use it (other than the OM-1 being such a nice classic camera).
I've been using the "new" Canon EF 50/1.8 for more than 20 years, optically I think it is quite good when I need AF, rendering is harsher than the Zuiko, but contrast and sharpness are better... still a trade... I guess I feel I've taken so many stellar photos (IMHO) with the EF 50 that I get over its otherwise humble appearance. (I have more EF 50 prints on my wall than Summicron prints FWIW).
I've never shot anything Nikon... but kind of always thought a cheap EM w/50/1.8 could be fun to knock about...
Well, "new" is kinda relative when talking about standard primes... Except for the Summilux Asph. and the new Sigma 50/1.4, there hasn't been anything that I would qualify as "headline news" for the last 30 years or so :P
Some new macrolenses in the vicinity of 50mm has surfaced, some with floating elements, and that may be "news"....
If I had the opportunity to choose from stuff that can be bought from new stock right now, I would put the Zeiss ZF50/2 macro on top of my list. This mostly because that when used at 0.5-3m subject distance it makes almost anything else (with F2.0 capability) look shabby in comparison And... It will be available in EF-mount sometime next year - the ZE50/2.
But you seem to prefer "very good, with AF" to "world class, no AF" In many aspects a wise choice!
No, the opposite, but for some subjects AF helps get more good shots than MF... though obviously my Leica lenses are way better than my Canon consumer primes...
I do like small and light so I can have a camera with me always...
Those Zeiss lenses look promising... though not cheap... Leica-R is still cheap and world class.
>>But you seem to prefer "very good, with AF" to "world class, no AF" In many aspects a wise choice!
Optically, the MKI and MKII EF 50/1.8's are identical. I bought an EOS 650 and EF 50/1.8 MKI from the very first shipment to USA... wow! was that a cool rig at the time. After 20 years, the MKI started to get some haze... so I sold it for way more than it should have been worth and bought a EF 50/1.4... after 3 or 4 years I realized that I liked the photos from the 50/1.8 better and sold the 1.4 to get the MKII 1.8... so I'm not wrong, just compressed and simplified the history.
ISO1600 wrote:
If you're talking about the mkII version, you're either wrong or you have a time machine.
Here's a quick cut-away drawing of what has to be ground off. Hope you can see what I mean... It's a small (~1mm) ridge that probably is there to help center the original mount when assembling the lens.
I got a little bit carried away when reassembling I was working with composite adhesives, and was kind of in a hurry to get things right, hence no photo's
Red is original mount.
Blue is the adapter ring, and as it hasn't got a corresponding "rift" where the "ridge" can sit, it can't make contact with the seat surface. As it happens, the adapter was almost exactly the right thickness (~0.7mm) to make infinity focus right from the start, no adjustment.
If I get my 1.4 or a mint 1.8 of the right batch, I promise to remember to photodocument things BEFORE mixing up the superglue :P
Apart from Oly, not much else. Leica R is relatively easy (I'm working on a Summicron 90 and an APO-Elmarit 180 now :P ) - and so is most 645-formats - they have ready-made adapters for most existing 645-formats to Nikon-F.
These pictures both characterize the Oly pretty well, I think! Something about the way it handles the dynamic range says "like me, please...!" to me.... :P There's enough fine sharpness, but it never gets "harsh" as you say. :P
my bad...