Sony A7Rii: How to setup vintage lenses (manual focus)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 มี.ค. 2019
- #Photography #vintage #manual #sony #a7 #guide
How to use Sony A7rii with vintage lenses for stills with absolutely NO modern features like auto focus, vibration reduction, metering, CPU contacts or simple EXIF information. How to set up the A7Rii so that it accepts a lens it cannot see. How to use focus peek and magnification to aid the process of manual focus. Using Nikon Nikkor lenses as example, but can be used for any kind of "manual" vintage lens, as long as you have a lens brand specific adapter to go between the Sony camera body and your vintage lens.
finally, a video that actually meets what I was looking for. Even for A7ii (not R), it was useful to get my head around to use my Zuiko lenses on the camera. thanks
Thank you Jonatas - good the video was useful!
This was exactly what I needed; thank you for the clear and precise information. I’ll be using this when I attach my old Minolta lenses to a new Sony mirrorless.
Thank you - much appreciated!
Thank you. I bought A7II for use with vintage lenses. This little guide is perfect!
Glad it was helpful! John Larsen - hmmm - do we share nationality (Danish)?
@@frederikboving Javist - det gør vi da :-)
Ha-ha! Super :-D Håber du er glad for dit Sony kamera, jeg bruger det mest til video må jeg indrømme!
@@frederikboving Jeg gør ikke meget i video. Har tidligere haft Nikon D700 og et par andre Nikon DSLR. Har stadig et par SLR. Gik over Sony DX1R til Lumix G9 og G80. MFT er et rigtig godt system, men til vintage optik er fullframe bedst, så det blev Sony. Jeg er meget interesseret i gammel optik - har en del Nikon AI, en del Leica M og LTM og noget M42. Foreløbig har jeg gode resultater - synes jeg da selv :-)
Nu følger jeg dig på TH-cam. God fornøjelse med dine projekter.
Hej John, jeg er også glad for vintage optik, og jeg er ved at "gå baglæns" i min udvikling, sådan forstået at jeg er gået fra D750 til D700 og nu har bestilt et D4. Der er altså noget med de der gamle DSLR beton kameraer jeg ikke kan stå for, både i brug og i resultater. Og jeg har også fuji APS-C, men synes jeg kan mærke at sensoren ikke får meget lys og derfor bliver stresset op i høje ISO værdier meget hurtigt (= støj). Så jeg er nok til klassisk FF.
Look at the silver color metal ring by the aperture number. Find the black dot. The shooting aperture is set by turning the number ring underneath it for the opening under that black dot. That black dot is also the mounting indicator. Align that indicator to that of the camera body to mount the lens withouot guess work, This is the Nikon system that has been in use without change since 1959.
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Thanks. Very simple and clear
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Great video👍🏼I recently bought a K&H Concept adapter for my Sony A7rii so I could mount a Canon Fd 50mm 3.5 macro and “scan” old slides and negatives and it works great, and was like 30USD!
Thanks for sharing! :-D
You are so clear ! Thaank you so much
Thank you very much for your kind words!
Good video. Thanks for taking the time.
Thank you! Very kind.
Thank you so much, very usefull tutorial!!
Glad it was helpful! 🤗🙏🏻
Gracias por la explicación clara y precisa, ayuda mucho con los menús de Sony. Yo soy usuario de Canon y también ahora con Sony 7Rll .
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Very nice tutorial! I have Yashica contax lenses! Can't wait to test! 😊
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great information, thank you.
Thank you!
just subscribed thanks for the info
As nikon shooter and a big fan of vintage glass, i recommend taking a look at vivitar series 1 lenses, I stumbled upon 70-210 2.8,after a month or so, I got the 28-105 2.8 loving both on my slrs and D610....
Looking for the 90mm 2.5 mac series 1 (made by Tokina) and got the nickname (Bokina)...
Thank you for sharing this 🙏🏻
Thank you!
Thank you 🙂
Great video - just what the doctor ordered
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Good Job Interesting.
Glad you enjoyed it
would love if they left eye/face detect enabled during manual focus mode, so that when you hit zoom, it goes right to the eye or face. feels like the software is there, it would be a free feature for sony to add.
Agreed, it would be an easy fix and also a very useful one.
I am using the same camera with a K&F Concept Contax cy adaptor with a Carl Zeiss 35-85mm zoom lens. perfect infinity & beautiful colors & sharpness.. one reminder, since this mf lens, make sure setup with focus magnifying peaking. fast & easy focus....
Thank you for sharing!
I did not quite catch this. Despite having no electrical contact, is the camera able to automatically calculate the exposure? Or you have to set iso and shutter speed yourself?
Hi, it will meter. But obviously it cannot control the aperture as there is no communication with the lens, so the camera can only use ISO and shutter speed to obtain correct exposure, even when you put it in auto mode.
@@frederikboving thanks
bought 2 Sony A37 cameras for my nieces some years apart!theyre discontinued for a while so they can only use them as long they are working!heard nightmare stories about sending your Sony camera to repairs!1 guy with a nice A9 had to wait 1½ months before it came back and was offered no rental camera while it was gone, so he had to borrow a friends camera or else he wouldnt earn anything!another told me that his A7 was send to repairs and got lost when they asked where it was after repairs!it was send, fixed and somehow got lost on the return to the shop it was handed in to!3 months till I get the Olympus OM-D E10iii body only!then putting 2 Samyang lenses on it!Samyang 10mm t3.1 and the 85mm t1.5 for super shallow depth of field!!!
Thank you for sharing 🙏🏻
Hi, very interesting video, does it works with the a7 riii? I could not find in the menu the release w/o lens. Thanks for your help.
I don't have a a7riiii but it should work yes. Sony seldom changes the menu system so I would expect to find the setting roughly in the same area of the menu.
What is role of metering modes (multi, spot, center weighted) in vintage manual lens? Or it is only for autofocus lenses?
Hi, the metering mode determines how the camera reads and measures the light. Center weighted for example gives more weight to the center than the corners. Spot metering only uses a single point in the frame to determine the amount of light only. Multi or 3D looks more holistically at the scene. It is not only for auto focus lenses when we are talking mirrorless cameras, as the mirrorless camera looks at the sensor readings real time to determine the amount of light. Most photographers I know leave the metering mode in multi/3D/matrix, where the camera looks at the entire scene to determine the amount of light. Some portrait photographers prefer center weighted, as the subject is typically in the center of the frame, and it makes more sense to meter the scene based on the center (the face) than the corners. Hope this helps. All the best!
Where do you show how you set up each button. And if you reassign the use of a button, for instance C2 on my Sony a7III is focus area. What is the "command dial" you are using to fine tune the focus?
Hi Barbara: you setup the buttons in the second menu (custom settings), sub menu 7, where the second last menu is "Custom Key Settings". I change focus simply by turning the focus ring on the lens - the peaking highlights shows how the focus plane walks back and forth.
Thanks. Can you set the steady shot focal length to 57mm, for example?
No, not that precise. The options are 55mm and 60mm. But you can get close. In the wide end (starting 8mm) you can select precisely, but as the focal length increases, the steps increases as well.
@@frederikboving Thanks. I guess it doesn't need to be exact for the in-camera IS. The Peaking Level looks very cool for the manual focusing.
@@gregoryluna535 Agreed, I think a value close to the actual focal length will suffice. YES, I agree on the peaking highlights - it is one of the nice things about ML that you can get that in your viewfinder! All the best!
Which you prefer and works better to aquire focus, the white dot on Nikon or the focus peaking on Sony?
If we are comparing Sony mirrorless to Nikon DSLR, then I find that manual focus on a mirrorless is so much easier with focus peaking. I shoot with manual lenses on both Sony and Fuji mirrorless, and it is so easy to follow how the focal plane walks back and forward when you turn the focus ring. Hope this was an answer to your question. I unfortunately have no experience with manual focus on Nikon mirrorless if that was your question.
There is a black dot on the silver ring on the Nikon lenses align it with the dot on the dumb adapter after mounting to camera. You will find the dot at around 2 o’clock position on the adapter once it’s mounted on the camera body.
This applies to most dumb adapters for different camera makes when fitting a Nikon lens.
Hi Phil, thanks for the tip! It took me a while to find the black dot on the Nikkor lens, but it is the dot where you read the aperture, right? On my Nikkor 50mm 1.4D the "silver ring" is actually black and the "black dot" is white (!) but on my 135mm 2.8 it is exactly as you describe it! Thanks again!
i cant use magnifier to check focus using a7iii. it gives me an error: "this operation not avaible as follows focus mode manual focus" . also steadyshot seems disabled to me
That is odd. I know that you get a similar message if you try to shoot bracketed and have JPG+RAW switched on at the same time (it can only do bracketing with JPGs). So some setting hinders the camera from enabling focus magnification, but I cannot figure out why that is. Maybe try to select auto focus and see if that helps?
Have the same problem now with vintage canon fe lenses and with other modern but adapted lenses!
Isn't the steady shot settings for movies only?
Here is the answer from ChatGPT: "On the Sony A7R II camera, the SteadyShot feature is available for both photos and movies. SteadyShot is Sony's proprietary image stabilization technology, which helps reduce camera shake and blur caused by hand movements during shooting. When it comes to movies, the SteadyShot feature can be particularly useful for achieving smoother and more stable footage, especially when shooting handheld or in situations where a tripod is not available or practical. However, SteadyShot can also be used for still photography to minimize the effects of camera shake and produce sharper images."
I have a question. When switching from one manual focus lens to the next, must we go through the setup process that you demonstrated each time we switch manual focusing lenses?
I'm afraid so. The Sony camera does not have the ability to store a list of pre-defined lenses, as you may know from Nikon. Also, even though you have told the camera which focal length the lens has (for the benefit of getting the vibrations reduction right), the camera does not in the EXIF information store the chosen focal length. So for both aperture and focal length you'll get no values in the EXIF unfortunately.
@@frederikboving Thank you so much for your reply. I really appreciate it! So, the Nikon manual lenses are still quite useful on a Sony camera, but lens changing will be a little slower. I can live with that minor limitation. Thanks again!
@@chesslover8829 Thank you CL! If you ever get tired of Sony, you are most welcome in the Nikon community! All the best!
Good video, very clear, thank you. It is a pity that Sony doesn’t have the option to save several lenses with an indication of the minimal aperture, name of the lens, focal length. Olympus does have it and it is fantastic for the metadata sorting. Sony is not good for menu systems for some reason. On the other hand, it seems to be probably the best system for vintage lenses…
Thank you Stefan! Yes, it is probably because Sony has not back catalogue of vintage lenses like Nikon that they do not want to implement a solution to give you just some EXIF data when shooting with oldies that are goldies. But on the other hand, the Nikon solution does not allow you to choose a 125mm lens because Nikon has never made a 125mm prime, so I guess it works both ways :-D
@@frederikboving So true. I use a 75mm lens as well, and it just can’t be programmed on Nikon 😀 Olympus has the best system, letting you even name the lens. However, that’s a 2x crop factor which often ruins the fun with some fast vintage lenses. Have a great day
where is the option to crop in for focus? can't find it to bind it
2nd main menu, the one with the gear wheel, 7th sub (!) menu hereunder, select item "custom key settings". Here I have selected custom buttons 1 as "focus magnifier", so I can zoom in when I press C1 + use the center of the command wheel to zoom in (press several times to toggle between different levels of zooming). Hope this helps!
Nice video but what about metering? how to manual meter with non-cpu lenses?
okarakoo Hi, sorry, not an expert on manual metering. I leave the metering to the Sony mirror less body to figure out (takes a few seconds if the light changes a lot). If I am not happy with the metering, I make a note of the aperture iso and shutter speed, switch to
manual mode, set the same values and then change one of them simply trial and error until I am happy with the result. Alternatively I use exposure bracketing if I have a motive with both very dark and very light parts at the same time. Did this help? Or have I not understood your question?
@@frederikboving thanks for the quick reply. Bit of a bummer, I was hoping that manual metering was somewhat possible
@okarakoo. When using an old manual focus lens on a Sony A7 you can use Manual mode or Aperture mode.
I suggest use manual Lens in Aperture priority mode. Auto Exposure works Really good .
the focus peaking feature is good. I am switching from a canon body. If I followed your instruction, and I still want to adjust the exposure on the fly, is that possible?. Because in the canon aps-c body which I used to own, after setting the right focus and aperture I want (manually) I could easily use the top dial to adjust shutter speed and thus adjust the exposure, on the fly.
Hi Rod, you can control the aperture on the front command dial and the shutter speed using the rear command dial. The latter you'll find just to the left of the exposure compensation dial. This is said assuming that you have selected "M" for manual on the mode dial. I have a little playlist here: th-cam.com/play/PLPjooVCTLG92RmSB6dn-YP3W83yLVF7Os.html where you can also find instructions on how to shoot in manual mode. Hope this helps!
@@frederikboving i am glad that there is also a dial that i can use on the sony to adjust shutter speed on the fly. thank you very much. I have about a dozen vintage lenses that I am excited to try on the sony
@@rodels.3745 Thanks Rod - good luck with the Sony and vintage lenses; I find that all the focus aid that the ML gives us (zooming in & focus peaking highlights) are a great help! All the best!
I think there is actually the dot for mount the lens, maybe the dot on silver ring
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How fast is the nifty fifty???
The one I use in the video is 1.8 - but was that the question? You can also get a 1.4 from Nikon - I have a video about it here: th-cam.com/video/L2a4XSPuSnU/w-d-xo.html
Do you still have the A7Rii ?
Yep. Use it most for video, but it is still with me. My highest resolution camera still.
@@frederikboving is it quick to use for photo with vintage lens? Like Konica AR or Leica lenses? Pictures quality is pretty much top notch, right?
@@michaelc4917 I think ML cameras in general are a great help when it comes to vintage lenses, because they support manual focus with focus peaking highlights and the ability to zoom in also in the EVF. The picture quality is good, but I have not been blown away by the 42MP or so, actually, it is one of my biggest disappointments when it comes to camera gear: how little difference high res does. I know I am a bit alone with this point of view, but to me high res is only relevant if you want to crop a lot, otherwise it is just more disk space usage, slower post processing software and so on. So I generally shoot with 24MP cameras. And I mostly use the A7ii for videos, as the auto focus is some of the best I have ever used. Hope this helps - or at least makes you more informed and more confused at the same time!