10 Vintage Lens Mistakes (STOP wasting MONEY)

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Ma Chaine en Français / My french Channel : @mathieustern-fr

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MY VINTAGE LENS ADAPTERS SELECTION
🔴 M42 ADAPTERS

🔴 FD ADAPTERS

🔴 MD ADAPTERS

🔴 M MOUNT ADAPTERS

🔴 Lens cleaning tools :

SOCIAL

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[martyzielinski]

A professional with 58 years experience good advice in this vid.

[joelsmith]

I'm extremely jealous of your yardsale/flea market prospects. The best I can hope for in my area is a point-and-shoot from the '90s/'00s amidst a sea of old clothing.

[PotatoTomato-pq]

I like repairing vintage lenses (was working in repair shop for digital camera and lenses), so I take my chances and buy them very cheaply ("for parts"), repair them, play with them and - sell them (adding 20ish euros to original price), thats my stress-relief method from busy job. If the lens is unusual, weird and/or rare, i'll keep it to myself (i dont consider myself a collector). The plan is - once I retire (in some 20-25 years), i'll have more than enough skills to offer my services and earn some nice beer money

[anarkyster]

I just wanted to say that finding your channel has been a godsend for me. Thank you Mathieu!

[gustavobroglio]

One time a friend of mine gave me a Telemegor 400mm f5.5 from Meyer Optick Goerlitz. The mont was a Exakta heavy lens mount, at the time I couldn't find a adapter. So I bought a m42 to eos adapter and epoxied this to the lens, respecting the focal flange distance. In f8 this lens was absolutely magnificent! Very sharp and with beautiful contrast!

[kyleparks]

Cleaning vintage lenses seems super simple but I've fallen into a few pitfalls I didn't see coming, all of which are worse for longer lenses with larger elements:
1. Always always always make a witness mark before unscrewing a helicoid or your lens may never focus to infinity again.
2. Be very careful with the screw rings that hold glass elements in place. These (and the threads they sit in) are usually made of much softer materials than the tools used to unscrew them. They're very easy to strip and/or mar the threads so they won't unscrew.
3. Don't open lenses in humid environments. This is especially important for larger elements/chambers. If the lens element seats tightly, it will create a seal as you drop it in, compressing the air. If there's even a little humidity in the air it will fog up the inside of lens and make even the slightest cleaning residues super visible.

[RobertBates]

I've been collecting vintage lenses and cameras for a few years, but so far only from online sources here in Russia. I really should check out some antique shops sometime.

[cmalc]

The portrait at exactly 7:22 made me catch my breath. It's one of the greatest photographs of any kind I've ever seen.

[garyc]

The only problem I have found with cheap lenses is, that, after people start to make videos about them, the prices start to escalate.

[k-ozdragon]

Buying lenses with haze or fungus can be a huge mistake. I bought a bunch of vintage lenses with these issues after watching all these videos where the blemishes just wash right off - but this was definitely *not* the case for me. All of the glass had been etched, or the remaining haze simply would not come off. I tried everything from solvents to polish. Sometimes this stuff is absolutely stuck on there, and no amount of elbow grease is going to remove it. I wouldn't say this is the case for all lenses, but in my experience, it is more common for there to be permanent damage than not. Just pay a little bit extra for lenses in good shape.

[willcarter]

Ive found that very little can substitute the expensive gear when it comes to sports photography; or other action. However most other forms of photography can get by with - and even be enhanced by - vintage glass. I love taking timelapses with various vintage lenses because I can get interesting flares throughout the day as the sun moves around the lens. Portrait photography is often enhanced by unusual bokeh. A.I. photo editing software can imitate clean/clear bokeh pretty well, but unusual bokeh is still beyond the capabilities of computational photography; for now. I find that unusual bokeh will make me stop scrolling on social media and try to figure out why I'm attracted to a photo. I don't always notice the bokeh consciously at first. It's more of a subconscious reaction that makes my brain go "wow, that photo is amazing!"
I love my auto chinon 55mm because of it's blooming soft look. It makes portraits feel soft and warm and inviting.

[Haarpify]

Do you recall what focal length you used for the portrait at 7:31? Thank you for all the tips

[NickGranville]

I bought a Zeiss 135mm for cheap from a market in England, cause it had a stuck aperture (stuck wide open). I figured one day I’ll fix but actually I really like it stuck. Now I don’t have the think about aperture. It has one option and I just focus on taking the image. It’s one of my favourite lenses

[SinaFarhat]

Thanks for the info!
I have two vintage m42 lensea with stuck apertures, i will look into how i can get them into a working state!

[robbiemer]

Good tips for any used lens buying, vintage or not.
My bigger concern with fungus is that I do not want to worry about my other lenses getting "infected" (colonized? ).
I am not sure how much of a real problem that is, honestly, but it *seems* possible so I have avoided those lenses.
I do not get too concerned about scratches unless they are very extreme. My experience has shown me that I can still make good photos with scratched lenses and spend less on those than I would on pristine examples. If the scratches are very bad it gives me a bit more concern about how badly the lens was treated in other ways.
Finally, for both camera bodies and lenses I look closely at the condition of screw heads. If the slots are damaged I usually pass. Damage like that shows me that somebody tried to "service" or fix something who at best didn't have the correct tools. And probably didn't know as much as they thought they did.
Thank you for the tips!

[usmalibu]

Excellent video! Thank you so much for creating such amazing video contents!!! God Bless You! Please keep feeding up with your amazing videos!

[SweetLouPhotography]

Dude that lighter fluid tip is wild, never heard that one. Thanks for always being a treasure trove of knowledge. Hope you've been well!!

[amermeleitor]

- I sold all my FD lenses, the FD mount is a problematic mess

- I'm slowly selling some other lenses and replacing them with new chinese manual lenses. I'm only keeping the special ones, even some old cheapo zooms but that give me an special result that cannot be obtained from new lenses or editing. Or the ones that is a pleasure to use.

- For now I kept fewer mounts, the mess with all kind of adapters is crazy. I only keep M42, Nikon F, Minolta, Pentax K, a pair of Adaptall, and Kiev 60 / Pentacon 6

- I'll sell the Pentax and Adaptall ones, just to keep the collection small. Even maybe selling the Nikon ones.

[rjern]

got 1 vintage lens but it had fungus in between one of the glued elements, no idea how to clean it

[quiteenough]

Sadly, it's sometimes pretty hard to find even common adapters in Russia. I was even struggling to find stepping rings for my filter.

Upd. And we simply don't have yard sales, and flee markets are usually have much more high price tags than "Avito" (kind of Russian Craigslist), so I was able to buy there fully working Kiev-4a (except of auto lever) for $20, while market prices was $40 and more. Antique shops are option, but there's not that many in my city and cameras there are usually totally waster and overpriced, but sometimes you may be lucky. And the main thing, we don't have those years of good Western or/and Japanese equipment in sale, mainly soviet cameras and lenses and the quality control was abysmal so it kind of like a lottery.