Camera lens bayonet question

Question

Ok, complete noob question here.... I just got a Lumix G1 camera body but no lenses, I have 4 lenses that I received from a friend of mine with almost the same bayonet as the lumix, but just a half a millimeter larger (camera throat width is 41mm, the throat width of the lens bayonet is 41.5mm) The lenses are a Promaster 80-200mm, Five Star 75-200mm, Vivitar wide angle 28mm, and a Vivitar Macro zoom 70-300mm lens Does anyone know if or how I can use these lenses for the camera, or will I be out of luck with this problem??

Answer 1

Using older lenses (crateloads of cheap ones, or expensive specialties) on MFT or other mirrorless cameras with adapters is almost a hobby in itself.

HOWEVER, not having at least a kit lens native to your camera is NOT recommendable.

You will have no autofocus, and limited exposure automation with the common style of adapters (techart-style adapters are the exception, but they are expensive and as far as I know not available for MFT).

Especially with MFT, lenses designed for 35mm film will come in a range of focal lengths that is basically specialty use when used with MFT - the tele zooms will act like extreme telephotos (not general purpose use, using them takes much practice especially with no autofocus). The 28mm lens will be just an extremely slow normal on MFT... Also, they will not be optimal for the smaller sensor format optically (you need higher resolution because of smaller pixels :) ). Basically, you need to test and characterize the lenses very thoroughly, find out in which situations they yield a) an objectively "good" image quality, b) flawed quality that has artistic use, c) simply bad results. Often, with consumer zooms, the effort needed for that is not worth it.

If you want to do it, do test shots at a range of focal lengths and apertures (at the minimum, wide open and two stops down) with all other settings exactly the same, on a tripod (cable release of some sort highly recommended!) and with VERY precise manual focus (use focus magnifier). Compare contrast, resolution, pictorial quality in center as well as corners. Make sure you take notes and/or have some way of associating the test shots with the test conditions - a camera cannot record some of that metadata with a manual lens. You will probably put $50-$100 worth of effort into testing easily per lens.

TL;DR get a kit lens or two, test these old lenses later (adapters are not expensive) and keep those which you find useful as specialty/artistic tools.

Answer 2

Second answer, since there appears to be another question implied that calls for an unrelated answer: What good are these long focal lengths on an MFT camera?

The "extreme" would be the 70-300 at the 300mm setting. This is equivalent to a 600mm telephoto on 35mm film (omitting the discussion about DoF equivalence, that can become rather complicated depending what exactly you compare).

Try it on the moon (won't fill the frame but get you very usable size. Hint: the moon is d...n bright, spot meter it!).

Also, architecture detail.

Try airborne aircraft on a bright day. Hint: when tracking things handheld or on monopod with a long tele, keep the other eye open!

you will be surprised how much you will have to ration your light budget with this kind of telephoto - without tripod, you will need 1/1000th or faster handheld. You will want to stop down one stop at least. You will not want to go high ISO - there will be many out-of-focus things with that kind of lens, and out of focus parts and high ISO noise can make a very ugly combination quickly.

You will also find old manual zooms to be very difficult to handle: Usually, one of the control rings (or even worse, a combined push/turn "one-touch" ring) also is used as a grip. Usually, these consumer zooms don't have any facility to lock the controls. Upset them by a millimeter while handling the camera and you just ruined the picture - you will need precise, magnifier assisted focus with a 600mm equivalent lens. Also, while these lens designs usually were MEANT to keep focus (be "parfocal") when changing the focal length - FORGET ABOUT THAT when you have the lens on a high resolution DLSM with an adapter: Not only is that not precise enough, but many adapters have imprecise flange distance and will upset the parfocal balance further.

If you can, use a tripod - there are two traps here. You will need a remote release, and you will need it even more (and avoid touching the camera setup for several seconds before the shot!) if you end up with a very unbalanced camera setup on a tripod (you WILL with that combination of parts unless you can find a tripod collar that fits these lenses, or use a 15mm LWS rod setup). Also be careful, a light tripod can easily capsize, a weak head can easily give, with unbalanced setups).

The 70mm end of things would be close to the well known 135mm focal length, which many like for portraiture and people shots.