Cosina, working under its Voightländer brand, has just announced a new pair of adapters that will let you put Nikon F and Pentax K lenses onto a Micro Four Thirds camera.
This means, for instance, that if you are a Nikon shooter and have built up a collection of lenses, then the in-stores-soon Olympus EP-1 will be the perfect DSLR companion, as you can just throw your lenses onto the front.
There are some limitations, though. You’ll be stuck using lenses with aperture rings, as the only connection between lens and camera is a mechanical one. This annoyingly rules all of the Nikon G-type DX lenses which are designed for smaller sensors, meaning that you’ll end up with relatively “long” glass on a M4/3 cam. A very wide 24mm lens will be turned into a “normal” 48mm, for example.
These come in at ¥19,800 each, or a shade over $210. For a widget that instantly turns a new camera into a new camera system, that’s cheap.
Perhaps Leica has finally realized that its lenses are where the real action is. The M8 rangefinder might be a beautifully engineered tool, but it looks rather spartan next to other, much cheaper, digital cameras. And we don’t mean spartan in the good way, either — in the film days Leicas performed as well as any other 35mm camera as they all used the same film. Now, with low-light sensors, uncannily good autofocus and exposure meters that out-guess a human 99% of the time, the almost all-manual M looks like an expensive metal box.
The lenses, though, are magical. And now you can use them on the DMC-G1 and DMC-GH1, Panasonic’s Micro Four Thirds “DSLR” with a pair of adapters which marry up the cameras to Leica’s R and M lenses. If you’re paying attention, you’ll realize that these lenses are manual focus, and that both the G1 and GH1 lack an optical viewfinder. On of the things that makes the M-series cameras so easy to focus is the split image rangefinder. With these cameras, though, you’ll need to rely on a magnified section in the middle of the LCD screen to judge if you have things sharp. Good luck with that.
Panasonic has not yet announced a price for these Lumix adapters, but you can be pretty sure they’ll cost more than Voigtländer’s $200 offering which does the same thing for any Micro Four Thirds camera. You’ll also have to watch out for compatibility issues, as some lenses won’t work with these adapters.
When most of us talk digital cameras, we talk megapixels, ISO, image noise, shot-per-second speed and image processing. We’re tech geeks. But really, none of that stuff matters as much as your camera’s lens.
The lens is, after all, your camera’s eyeball—the image sensor or film can only record what comes in through the lens. It’s what defines the picture’s perspective, clarity and way more.
Lenses are actually a really complicated thing to talk about—if your job was to steer photons through tunnels of stretched glass, people would call you complicated too—so we’re gonna try to keep it to field basics, you should know to get around, rather than dive into the crazy physics and mathematical ratios and stuff.
Lens Terminology Before we get into the basic lens types, you should know the two major numbers you’re looking at you when you talk about lenses: Focal length and aperture.
Focal length is the distance between the optical center of the lens and the point where it focuses the light coming into the lens (when a shot is in focus, that’s the image sensor or film). The diagram above, from Cambridge In Colour shows, very simply, what focal length refers to, and how it affects your pitchas. Here’s another pretty excellent, easy to understand explanation, with pictures showing the results of using different focal lengths on the same shot.
Practically, what you need to know is that focal length measured in millimeters, and that’s where you get, say, an 18-55mm lens, a 400mm telephoto or a 28-560mm lens found in a super-zoom camera. (You probably know this, but when you see “20x zoom lens,” the spec refers to the ratio of the longest focal length to the shortest—so 560 divided by 28.) Basically, the longer the focal length, the more magnified or “zoomed in” your photo can be.
Aperture is the other major spec on a lens, and something you deal with most on DSLRS. The aperture is the hole that actually lets the light into the camera, and you make can make it bigger or smaller. The size of the hole is expressed in terms of F-stops, or as you might see a lot F/2.8 or F2.8 or F8 or F11 or whatever.
The bigger the F number, the smaller the aperture, or hole. The smaller the number, the bigger the hole, which means the more light it lets in. The reason that’s good is that means you can shoot with a faster shutter speed, so you don’t get blurry photos, or when you’re shooting in low light, since more light can get through, which means you’re not forced to choose between shooting dark, blurry things or excessively grainy photos as you crank up the ISO (light sensitivity) to compensate for the lack of light. So, when someone’s talking about a “fast” lens, they’re talking about one with a big aperture, like F/1.8—easy to remember, you can shoot with faster shutter speeds with less light.
With a big aperture, you also have a shallower depth of field—subjects in focus are sharp, but everything around it is soft and blurry. A tighter aperture (higher F-stop number) lets you focus more at once, as you can see in the diagram above combined from Wikipedia. There’s more on depth of field here. Overall, we’re staying on the easy-to-swallow side, but if you’ve really got a hankering for F-stop knowledge, here’s a crazy detailed explanation.
Lens Types Having fun yet? There are a few basic types of lenses, and of course, a whole bunch of specialized ones beyond that, like macro or tilt lenses. But here are the basics.
A normal lens is one with a perspective that looks a lot the perspective of the human eye. With a 35mm or full-frame camera, that’s about a 50mm lens, though it varies depending on the size of the film or image sensor. For instance, this 35mm Nikon lens is for their DX cameras, DX meaning it has a sensor that’s not “full” (equal to 35mm film). When that lens is attached to a DX camera, it’s the equivalent to a 50mm lens on a full-frame camera—making it normal.
A wide-angle lens is, most basically, one with a focal length that’s way shorter than a normal lens (which, again, varies depending on the size of the film or sensor). Wide angles are useful for take wide shots—-panoramas, or just trying to squeeze a huge group of people in a single picture without being 10 light years away. You can also do neato distortion tricks—a fisheye is just a crazy kind of wide-angle lens. Example Image: Ekilby/Flickr
A telephoto lens is one with a really long focal length (like 400mm). Since they’re designed like telescopes, they are physically more compact than their focal lengths, but they can still get pretty damn massive. They’re good for shooting stuff far, far away. Example Image Shiny Things/Flickr
A prime lens is just one with a fixed focal length—you can’t zoom in or out—and typically they produce sharper pictures than all-but-the-priciest zoom lenses. Any of the above lens types can be prime lenses, or zoom, below. This fisheye is a prime lens.
A zoom lens is one you can adjust the focal length on—zoom in and out—so you can shoot a variety of stuff with a single lens. The aperture tends to vary based on the focal length, unless you get a really pricey zoom lens that’s also “fast.”
Lens Brands and Compatibility But, even looking at one company at a time, lenses are complicated and sticky. Take Canon, for instance. They’ve got a million different kinds of lens mounts (where the camera and lens fit together) for their single-lens reflex cameras, depending on how far back in time you go. Currently they’ve got two major kinds of lens mounts: EF (electro-focus because the focusing motor action is built into the lens) and and EF-S. The latter is for their entry-level to mid-range DSLRs only, because it’s made for their smaller (not full-frame, i.e., not 35mm equivalent) image sensors. Standard EF lenses will work on cameras with an EF-S mount, but EF-S lenses won’t work on cameras with a regular EF mount. And before that, there was the FD mount, which totally doesn’t work on DSLRs without an adapter.
Nikon isn’t quite as bad as here—they’ve had the same F-mount for over 40 years, so all their lenses with physically fit on the camera, but with their DSLRs, you’ve gotta watch out for their FX lenses (full-frame lenses like for the D700) vs. their DX lenses (like Canon, meant for their cameras with smaller APS-C sensors). When used on full-frame cameras, DX lenses will block out the corners of the picture since they’re supposed to cover a smaller image area. But overall, with Nikon you have the advantage of being able to use older lenses in a way you can’t with Canon gear. Ken Rockwell has a comprehensive tome about Nikon lenses and types for more.
The High Cost of Optics Okay, great. Here’s a real question: Why are lenses so goddamned expensive? Well, as Steve Heiner, Nikon SLR-division technical marketing manager, told us, “You’re paying for materials and the process of creating the lens,” which, as you might guess, improves image quality. Faster apertures—which require larger glass elements in pro zoom lenses—heavier materials like metal, for durability, and touches like a nano-crystal coating that minimizes reflections for low-light shooting are things that make lenses cost hundreds or thousands or dollars. As a rep from Canon told us, there’s no real getting cheaper over time, like most other mechanical components. Precision optical glass just doesn’t work that way.
Materials are also what separate crummy lenses from good ones, which is why cheap lenses in cellphones suck—they’ve gotta be cheap, really tiny and really light and well, you can’t change physics—and why even cheap DSLR lenses aren’t as good as expensive-as-hell ones. Update: Daniel pointed out this pretty excellent video showing how lenses are made, which shines more light on why they’re so damn pricey:
At the same time, there is a lot of progress in lens tech happening—look at all the ultra wide-angle lenses popping up in point-and-shoots now. Canon says that’s cause you’ve got smaller image sensors (which as we noted above, changes the relation of the focal length), more aspherical lens elements (which are cheaper to make), a new kind of ultra high refractive index aspherical optical glass (uhhhh, don’t ask me) and the miniaturization of mechanical parts like AF motors.
There’s a lot we had to leave out, like chromatic aberration and lens flare, but we hope we gave you a pretty good starting point to learn about lenses. Real camera pros, feel free to leave more in the comments.
Still something you still wanna know? Send any questions about lenses, upskirts, or crazy weird Japanese photographers who swarm cosplayers to tips@gizmodo.com, with “Giz Explains” in the subject line. Also, thanks to Nikon for the lens diagrams!
One of the biggest issues with camera phones is the rigidity of the lens. In some cases (like the Nokia 5610), you can get a mechanical zoom or macro, but that’s about it. Well, here’s some good news for the iPhone and G1 photographers.
I found a great feature on Gadget Venue that discusses magnetic camera phone lenses! Seriously, this is huge for photo enthusiasts like myself. Choose from wide-angle, fish-eye and telephoto lenses. The best part is that you can get this incredible upgrade for under $20.
You can save your money and try using some binoculars, but I wouldn’t recommend it. How do I know? You’ll have to come back later and find out the rest of the story.
Whether your camera is brand new or an aging holdover, you want to accessorize it, but you don’t want to pay. By now, you know the Dealzmodo Hack drill: Paying is for suckers.
For decades, photographers have engineered little tricks to get the most out of their cameras, and most of them have carried just fine over the digital divide. Here are a few, with some newer additions collected by our friends at Lifehacker.
Build your own stabilizer out of string Shooting long exposures without something to prop your camera on is a pain in the ass, not to mention a blurry mess. So is carrying a tripod. This video shows how to build a pretty effective foot-looping camera stabilizer out of some string, a bolt and a washer. The results are surprisingly good.
Build your own L-bracket, for serious stability, vertical mounting If you’re doing portrait photography, or have a dumpy old tripod that can’t accommodate vertically oriented cameras, you can build a sturdy L-bracket for about $30. It’s a bit more involved than the piece-o-string stabilizer, but it’s also a lot better, and much cheaper than something you’d pick up at Wolf.
The “David Pogue Special”: Use a lamp as a tripod To round out the camera-steadying tools, here’s what I call the David Pogue Special, and it’s great: Many lampshade mounts share a diameter and thread size with the tripod mount screw on the bottom of your camcorder, point-and-shoot or DSLR, providing quick and dirty stabilization in a bind.
Scrounge up household flash diffusers Shooting with flash indoors is often necessary, but can wash out your subjects, making them look sheet-white, greasy and demon-eyed. With a diffuser, the light is softened and the photos are dramatically improved. Commercial flash hoods and diffusers cost money, but aren’t much more effective than what you can make yourself. A coffee filter held in front of a flash, a translucent film canister with a notch cut into it, a simple piece of A4 paper or even a piece of matte Scotch tape over the flash lens will measurably improve your drunk party photography.
Calibrate color temperature with free flooring samples Shooting a piece of paper, gray notecard or painted wall can give you OK white balance calibration, but this guy has a better idea: snag some free floor laminate samples and built a proper calibration board.
Make flash deflection umbrellas from actual umbrellas If you really want to go pro-hobo, you can repurpose old umbrellas into flash-directing photography umbrellas. After all, there are always plenty lying around. Here’s how you do it. If you’re feeling lazy, you can even get away with just an old sheet and some tape.
Build still-life photography studio for free(ish) Ever wonder how that creepy old photographer got such a soft, vivid, dreamy picture of you and your prom date all those years ago? This is how. The project doesn’t call for much more than large pieces of paper and tape—relying on indirect sunlight for the adequate lighting—but the results are impressive. It is just a small-scale testbed though, so you’ll be limited to shooting Lego models, action figures and the like, but what else were you going to shoot anyway?
Snap magazine-style portraits, beautiful macros with a homemade ringlight Flickr user jedrek has written out a detailed how-to guide for converting your external flash into a ringlighting rig, mostly using kitchen wares. If you’ve never heard of ringlighting, have a look at this. The technique is usually reserved for professional photographers, because real ringflashes are comically expensive. This one costs a few bucks.
Foam-fit an old bag to hold your gear If you’re packing a DSLR with lenses and accessories, carrying a full-fledged camera bag is usually ideal, but they’re expensive and tend to draw attention to your cargo. With some foam, cardboard and a ratty old military-surplus bag, you can put together a stylish, stealthy and highly-functional camera bag that won’t make you feel like a snap-happy father of four.
Dealzmodo Hacks are intended to help you sustain your crippling gadget addiction through tighter times. If you come across any on your own that are particularly useful, send it to our tips line (Subject: Dealzmodo Hack). Check back every other Thursday for free DIY tricks to breathe new life into hardware that you already own.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
Cosina, working under its Voightländer brand, has just announced a new pair of adapters that will let you put Nikon F and Pentax K lenses onto a Micro Four Thirds camera.
When most of us 
Lenses are actually a really complicated thing to talk about—if your job was to steer photons through tunnels of stretched glass, people would call you complicated too—so we’re gonna try to keep it to field basics, you should know to get around, rather than dive into the crazy physics and mathematical ratios and stuff.
With a big aperture, you also have a shallower depth of field—subjects in focus are sharp, but everything around it is soft and blurry. A tighter aperture (higher F-stop number) lets you focus more at once, as you can see in the diagram above 
A 
A 
Okay, great. Here’s a real question: Why are lenses so goddamned expensive? Well, as Steve Heiner, Nikon SLR-division technical marketing manager, told us, “You’re paying for materials and the process of creating the lens,” which, as you might guess, improves image quality. Faster apertures—which require larger glass elements in pro zoom lenses—heavier materials like metal, for durability, and touches like a nano-crystal coating that minimizes reflections for low-light shooting are things that make lenses cost hundreds or thousands or dollars. As a rep from Canon told us, there’s no real getting cheaper over time, like most other mechanical components. Precision optical glass just doesn’t work that way.
Whether your camera is brand new or an aging holdover, you want to accessorize it, but you don’t want to pay. By now, you know the Dealzmodo Hack drill: Paying is for suckers.
Build your own stabilizer out of string
Build your own L-bracket, for serious stability, vertical mounting
The “David Pogue Special”: Use a lamp as a tripod
Scrounge up household flash diffusers
Calibrate color temperature with free flooring samples
Make flash deflection umbrellas from actual umbrellas
Build still-life photography studio for free(ish)
Snap magazine-style portraits, beautiful macros with a homemade ringlight
Foam-fit an old bag to hold your gear