Rank: Administration
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Joined: 1/31/2008
Posts: 105
Points: 74
Location: Dallas, Texas
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The last year or so I have been using the HappyPageHK adapters available on Ebay (HappyPageHK is the sellers Ebay ID). 99.97% of my experience is with a Canon 1Ds Mark II which was recently sold to help fund the purchase of the digital medium format back. I decided to purchase a Canon 40D for a side project. SInce the 40D was (is) here, why not test out the C/Y lenses. Right now the only C/Y lens I have left is a Contax C/Y 100mm F2 Planar with a HappyPageHK adapter coded to 100mm and F2.
Historically this adapter has worked very well with 1Ds Mark II, but on the 40D the in-focus keeper rate has been much lower. After some repeated testing I find that the off-center AF points are pretty sloppy. Canon upgraded these points to the "cross sensitivity" and I thought they would be pretty good. Not... On the center AF point things are pretty good. Probably about the same as what I remember with the Canon 1Ds Mark II. But off-center AF points are not nearly as precise. Since the center Af point is pretty good, I'm concluding that Canon over-hyped the precision of these cross-type sensors in the outer points. As such, don't expect miracles.
Another oddity is the metering; when stopped down to F8 the images are usually 2 stops over-exposed. Wide open metering through F4 is pretty good; again, nothing any worse or better than the 1Ds Mark II. At F5.6 things get a bit wonky. The limited +/- 2 EC adjustment on the Canon 40d is pretty limiting, so it looks shooting manual is the way to go. I'm not going worry about this too much because I only needed the 40D for a couple days, so it's about 2 steps from the door.
I still believe the best way to use the manual lenses (ie Contax, Leica, Pentax, etc) is on a Canon 1Ds (I, II or III) body (or perhaps a 5D). After many years with the Canon 1Ds and 1Ds Mark II, I can say that shooting with the manual lenses simply worked out better with those bodies.
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Rank: Newbie
Groups: Member
Joined: 2/12/2008
Posts: 1
Points: 3
Location: Germany
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Hello John,
Not directly connected to the 40D, but I know you have used these adapters for the 1Ds series. I have got two adapters from happypagehk and while I like them and the fact that they are configurated for the lens, I have a problem on my 1Ds regarding the 85mm Planar : I am always getting some front focus with the chip. Any idea what this could be ?
Regards, Stefan
PS: I really enjoy reading your articles and reviews, so thank you for your time and effort making all available to us.
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Rank: Administration
Groups: Administration
Joined: 1/31/2008
Posts: 105
Points: 74
Location: Dallas, Texas
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When it comes to focus it's a range, not specific point. When we look at a 100% crop on the computer screen we can think of a specific where we wish focus was, and sometimes we get lucky and hit that exact plane. The AF will beep if focus is in that range, so sometimes you have play abit to see what part of that focus range actually will work best. I tend to back focus, so sometimes even when I think a shot is in focus, I still pull focus a bit forward.
Another thing I'm guilty of is shooting with too narrow of an aperture. Again, in front of the computer screen I'll realize that the shot should have been F4 or F5.6 instead of F2. With really fast lenses I have to force myself to stop down an extra stop or two - especially on portraits. Maybe stopping a bit will help hide the focus error.
The only AF point that's really accurate in my opinion is the center AF point. I picked up a 40D a couple weeks ago focus confirmation was a mess with it. The center AF point was 1/2 way decent, but the off axis points stunk. Just about image with the Contax 100mm F2.0 Planar was a really bad OOF. With the 1Ds2 it could be off, but never as much as with the 40D. I hate to put the blame on the 40D, but it's focus engine isn't as precise as the AF points on the 1Ds2.
I have a 5D coming in tomorrow, so I'll try 100/2 again with the 5D body. I'm hoping for much better results than the 40D. The 40D also metered very oddly - it tended to over expose by ~2 stops when the 100/2 was stopped down F5.6. The whole 40D experience was quite different from how things worked on the 1Ds2.
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