Emmanuel Episcopal Church

Emmanuel Episcopal Church at Brook Hill was built in 1860.

Kit: D5100 Conon 55mm 1.2 with Fotodiox Adapter

The Set up

This was one of my fist attempts at using this 1960/70 Canon 55mm 1.2 lens I got from my father. To mount this to my Nikon DLSR I used a Fotodiox adaptor.

The Process

This was a great location with beautiful trees and grave stones. The building was also very interesting but I didn't get many shots of it and none were that great, next time.

I am enjoying shooting with these old lenses despite the learning curve and inherent issues with focusing and the inability to use the cameras light metering or other features of modern cameras.

*Zone Focusing is using the aperture and the distance scale on the lens to set up a "zone" that will be in focus. I am still learning and processing this but the way I am currently doing this technique is placing an f stop say f8. On the lens there is scale that corresponds to the lenses f stops. It starts with the highest f stop on one side an goes down to the lowest number as it moves to the center of the lens and then back up again on the other side. You line the infinity sign up on the f stop you are using on the right side of the lens. Then were the f stop is on the right will line up with a distance in feet and or meters. From that number to infinity should be in focus. For my 55mm set to f8 everything from about 6 feet in front of me to infinity should be in focus.

The Issues

Focal Length: Between the full framed lens and the photo adaptor this 55mm lens turned into an much longer focal length. I didn't do the math before I went out there but I believe the lens is creates a 1.5x magnification/crop and the adaptor is about the same. So it probably ended up between 85 and 123mm +-. This did cause me to have to be farther away from subjects than I was expecting.

Focus and all other modern conveniences: Manual Focus, between my old eyes and using this vintage lens on what is probably considered a vintage or DSLR manual focus is problematic. DSLRs do not have the split imaging focus like the old SLRs did and my camera is too old and low-end to have Focus Peeking. Another issue with vintage lenses is there are no sensors to give your camera any information so you have to shoot in manual mode and at least in my camera shoot with out any focusing indication or help and no use of the light meter.

Since these photos have been taken I have started to try and use Zone Focusing* or Hyper Focusing, I am sill learning.