I'm asking mainly cause I'm trying to do portrait work on the side and I want a good portrait lens at some point. My 50mm 1.8 takes a damn good picture, just wondering if there are other good apsc lenses, which was why I was asking about the 1.4 30mm Sigma Art lens.
I checked Google and the K1000 was manufactured from 76 to 97...that's longevity. I'd be surprised if I got one good shot using that lcd less contraption...granted my camera doesn't have an EVF I'd still be lost I bet.
Well, there is a battery on it, and is operated by holding down the shutter halfway, and it has a needle in the viewfinder that'll tell you your exposure. It even mechanically communicates the aperture so that it can take that into account.
Well that's pretty damn cool. All I would have to do is get used to manual focusing then.
It's getting thrown onto an APSC camera, but I'm not the first person to use it on a D7100. I've heard nothing but good things about that lens.
Edit-1050 That lens seems like an industry standard lens. Can't wait to be able to afford it. I wonder how far I need to stand away from people to get them in the frame.
This is a 100% crop at f1.4 on my APSC camera, and I really can't see it getting much sharper than this. Using a Canon film lens. Given I can practically make out individual leaves on the tree in the reflection of her eye, I'd say they aren't "way less sharp", at least not to any point that anyone would really give a damn.
Yeah compared to a lot of lenses I've looked at that lens seems like a bargain. I mean yeah the Sigma 1.4 50mm is probably better but I can't afford the damn thing. I'd be better off just buying a used D610 before I buy that lens cause there's not that much of a price difference. I've already been shooting with a full frame lens on my camera without even knowing it and I've been getting great pictures out of it.
Manual focus is not my forte. I need more practice at that, but I don't always have that much time for shot planning when shooting random ass people on the street or in the middle of a busy subway platform. Does Samyang really only make manual focus lenses?Well if you're fine full manual, Samyang makes a 1.4 85mm for $260, which is my next lens.
That's a definite skill I'm going to have to learn. I have enough to deal with since I'm trying to shoot more in manual mode. I snapped off a few pics of this woman playing the violin and I was quite pleased with my results. I mainly was using aperture priority mode as my primary setting prior to that, but there are just times when it just does whatever the fuck it wants and just under or over exposes an image cause it can't always stick to a consistent shutter speed.
I think it's only visible to me in Live View which I don't touch cause it doesn't give me a read out with any kind of information. I get no info regarding exposure changes, shutter speed changes or anything. It's the one blatant weak point on my camera.
Try learning to read the meter. The default matrix metering will try to be clever so switch to something more primitive like centre weighted, spot or average. I look around with spot or centre to get a rough understanding of what the camera meters the ground/sky/shadows to. The camera in those modes always meters to middle gray so if the brightest is 4 stops over and the darkest is 4 stops under that should be a decent exposure.
Try learning to read the meter. The default matrix metering will try to be clever so switch to something more primitive like centre weighted, spot or average. I look around with spot or centre to get a rough understanding of what the camera meters the ground/sky/shadows to. The camera in those modes always meters to middle gray so if the brightest is 4 stops over and the darkest is 4 stops under that should be a decent exposure.
It's digital so you can just shoot in manual to see when things blow out, etc.
Manually focusing with an old SLR made for it is much easier than on a modern DSLR. They have focus aids that will tell you when you're in focus like a split prism (middle) or micro prisms (outer):
Split prisms should be lined up and even tell you "what way" to turn the ring while micro prisms turn sharp just as you nail focus and look dotty when you're off.
They stopped when AF took over
I've said this in the past and I guess I was too broad.
Well the hell do I find some of this in the menu? This is making my head hurt.Try learning to read the meter. The default matrix metering will try to be clever so switch to something more primitive like centre weighted, spot or average. I look around with spot or centre to get a rough understanding of what the camera meters the ground/sky/shadows to. The camera in those modes always meters to middle gray so if the brightest is 4 stops over and the darkest is 4 stops under that should be a decent exposure.
It's digital so you can just shoot in manual to see when things blow out, etc.
Manually focusing with an old SLR made for it is much easier than on a modern DSLR. They have focus aids that will tell you when you're in focus like a split prism (middle) or micro prisms (outer):
Split prisms should be lined up and even tell you "what way" to turn the ring while micro prisms turn sharp just as you nail focus and look dotty when you're off.
Edit: Didn't see the conversation had moved over to Samyang >.<
You can get those kind of focusing screens for DSLRs where you can change them, but be note that some of them can mess up certain metering modes.
Samyang for Nikon has automatic aperture so I think it's mostly licensing. The big manufacturers don't share how AF works on their system so I'm pretty sure Tamron and Sigma had to reverse design it and they have still had a reputation of being unreliable.
It would be cool if they made an AF lens for mirrorless. Zeiss had similarly only sold MF lenses (apart from first party Contax lenses), but made their first AF lenses as a third party for E mount. MF for mirrorless is also the hot new thing so something like Loxia which is fully manual, but electronically connected for aperture data and punch in focusing could make some marks in the mid range.
AF Nikons will also tell you when you're in focus either with the little green dot or (if enabled in the options) a little rangefinder using the exposure comp slider to tell you which way to focus. It should work on any lens. I've used it with a lens just held in front of it
Canons can technically do the same, but need an electrical pin mounted fooling the camera into thinking a Canon EF lens is mounted.
Does that also show up in the viewfinder?Sorry, I ramble a bit
Go to menu->custom setting menu->autofocus->rangefinder and turn it on. Make sure your lens is in MF.
Make sure you're not in M and get something with contrast behind the focus point selected.
That +/- bar in the bottom of the viewfinder with a 0 in the middle will tell you if you're in focus (two lines next to the 0 in the camera I tried) or if you're out of focus which way to focus. If nothing lights up, half press the shutter. If all the lines light up it can't find focus so point at something with lines or contrast or change focus point.
Here's a video showing how to set it up and what it looks like.
