I picked up an older (serial 6021530) K mount 50mm 1.4 after reading the notes that say m42 won’t work on 5D, but the K mount will if aperture pin is cut.
I didn’t find any info on how to cut the pin, and man, that is one tough piece of steal. Of course after totally mangling it I figured out I could have just lifted it out if I removed the ring that is screwed on to the rear element housing and has the flange on it that protects the pin. Oh well.
It turned out that that piece (even with the protecting flange clipped off) needed to be left off anyway. It prevents infinity focus, at least with the adapter I’m using.
So, now the lens has pin and flange ring (and the metal washer/ring under it) removed. In this state the 5D works fine with it. I seem to be able to focus at infinity, but either due to lens or adapter, I can also focus a tiny bit past infinity, and an rare occasion this causes mirror collision.
Now to the good part. All of this is just impression, based on reviewing in Lightroom, and is not scientific. This lens takes beautiful shots. It has slightly more chromatic aberration than Canon EF 50mm 1.4 (expected from its age), but seems to have better microcontrast wide open. Color comes through a little more saturated than the Canon. On the full frame sensor, there also seems to be slightly less barrel distortion than the Canon.
I may have had a bad copy (is there such a thing?) of the new Zeiss 50mm 1.4 T* ZF, but from f/1.4 to f/2.8 I consistently get better looking results with this Asahi. The Zeiss had more loss of detail and more haze, with the contrast very hard to control with exposure. Stopped down past 2.8, the Zeiss was gorgeous, ultra crisp with smooth Zeiss neutral-to-cool tones. I sold it though because of the f/1.4 performance.
As far as wide-open out-of-focus behaviour, the Canon and Asahi are quite similar and both have smooth blur with that lovely circular bokeh. I’ve seen other complaints of the Zeiss’s OOF at wide apertures, and have to say it does have a wormish quality that bugged me. A matter of taste I guess.
Finally, on both Zeiss and Asahi, I had to find the appropriate exposure compensation as I adjusted ISO, in Av mode.
Something about like this:
ISO 100: +- 0 ev
ISO 200: -1/3 ev
ISO 400: -2/3 ev
ISO 800: -1 ev
Of course, the subject matter some times required further decrementing of the ev.
I’ll add some example shots once I pick some I’m not embarrassed to link here.
hey, i recently bought the pentax 50mm f1/4 k mount lens, and i’m having alot of trouble cutting down the aperture pin.. how did you go about it?
also, there’s a little part of the inner ring that sticks out beside the pin, as tall as the pin, does this need to be cut off as well?
thanks
I used a nail puller tool (carefully), something kind of like this:
http://www.amazon.com/Nail-Jack-Tools-Puller-11-Inch/dp/B001M8RYFS/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=hi&qid=1271970764&sr=1-4
I didn’t pull, but kind used it like a bolt cutter with a little wiggling.
I had to take off the outer flange, and a metal ring came out when that was remove (if I remember correctly) but I didn’t to do anything to the inner ring that I recall.
I am curious how the pentax 50mm f1.4 compares to the canon 50mm EF. Did you take any test shots from the two to compare? If so i’d love to see. i just picked up a pentax 50mm M F1.4 for $61 and cant afford the EF 50mm
I think there are some shots way back in my flickr stream with either of those lenses.
The Pentax is very comparable, with some limitations due to older coatings (chromatic aberration) and lack of AF.
But, it has a better build quality.