Lately I’ve been buying up a lot of cheap vintage photo lenses on eBay for my “Vintage Lenses for Video DSLRs” guide I’m currently working on. By now, I discovered some many business sellers selling vintage lenses, but one of them stood out to me much more than the others, so I wanted to share this with everyone because it might be very useful to some of you. Before I go further, I just want to make it clear that I don’t know the seller personally and not trying to promote anyone’s business, I just think it is something unique, especially if you’re based in UK and as really worth sharing.
The eBay seller eddiehouston1545 has the eBay shop called The Lens Doctors. Unlike most sellers/shops, what sell vintage lenses, Eddie who runs the shop services all of the lenses he sales. While they are not the cheapest on eBay, all of them seem to be in such a wonderful condition. From reading the listings and shop info, you can tell that Eddie knows what he’s doing and a lot of work is spent on every listing and every lens sold. While buying a serviced lens, which looks and works like new is very nice, it’s not the servicing that got my attention, but the aperture de-clicking and mount conversion of some lenses sold by Eddie.
If some of you don’t know what de-clicking is, let me explain. Most of older manual lenses have aperture adjustment on the lens, which is controlled by turning the aperture ring. Most of the rings have click stops, so there is a click with every change of aperture. Through the camera it looks pretty much the same as adjusting aperture with Canon EF lenses by turning the dial on the camera. If you adjust the aperture during the recording the image very suddenly brightens or darkens, depending on what your doing. Cine lenses on other hand have variable aperture adjustment, which means the aperture ring can be turned with the same smoothness as the focus ring, giving a very gradual aperture control, which can very useful in al lot of situations. Let’s take a scenario where you are filming something indoors at the start of the take and then go outside into the bright daylight during the take. The image will overexpose as soon as you go outside. If you are like myself, filming on DSLR with fully manual control, you will be forced to adjust either the aperture, ISO or in worst case scenario your shutter speed. Any of the changes will result in image suddenly changing in unpleasant looking steps, rather than gradually. With variable adjustment one could avoid such situation by turning the ring slowly, gradually reducing the brightness without any “steps”. I have the Samyang 35mm lens, that has smooth aperture adjustment (video version from ebay) and I do love it so much, it is such a nice way to fine-tune the aperture to your particular requirements, so the possibility of having such aperture on any vintage lens, sounds very appealing.
Eddie from The Lens Doctors sells some very cool lenses with such modification. He calls it Fluid Variable Aperture. Since I don’t think there is anyone else in UK does that professionally, I assume it takes a very skilled technician to do that. He has 30 years of experience servicing and repairing lenses, so I think he knows what he’s doing and does it really well. A massive 5 star/100% feedback proves that dealing with Eddie must be a pleasure.
Some of the de-clicked lenses that are on sale at the time of writing are:
If some of you don’t know what de-clicking is, let me explain. Most of older manual lenses have aperture adjustment on the lens, which is controlled by turning the aperture ring. Most of the rings have click stops, so there is a click with every change of aperture. Through the camera it looks pretty much the same as adjusting aperture with Canon EF lenses by turning the dial on the camera. If you adjust the aperture during the recording the image very suddenly brightens or darkens, depending on what your doing. Cine lenses on other hand have variable aperture adjustment, which means the aperture ring can be turned with the same smoothness as the focus ring, giving a very gradual aperture control, which can very useful in al lot of situations. Let’s take a scenario where you are filming something indoors at the start of the take and then go outside into the bright daylight during the take. The image will overexpose as soon as you go outside. If you are like myself, filming on DSLR with fully manual control, you will be forced to adjust either the aperture, ISO or in worst case scenario your shutter speed. Any of the changes will result in image suddenly changing in unpleasant looking steps, rather than gradually. With variable adjustment one could avoid such situation by turning the ring slowly, gradually reducing the brightness without any “steps”. I have the Samyang 35mm lens, that has smooth aperture adjustment (video version from ebay) and I do love it so much, it is such a nice way to fine-tune the aperture to your particular requirements, so the possibility of having such aperture on any vintage lens, sounds very appealing.
Eddie from The Lens Doctors sells some very cool lenses with such modification. He calls it Fluid Variable Aperture. Since I don’t think there is anyone else in UK does that professionally, I assume it takes a very skilled technician to do that. He has 30 years of experience servicing and repairing lenses, so I think he knows what he’s doing and does it really well. A massive 5 star/100% feedback proves that dealing with Eddie must be a pleasure.
Some of the de-clicked lenses that are on sale at the time of writing are:
Mayer Orestegon 29mm f/2.8. Not only this lens has the variable aperture adjustment, but it’s also converted to EF mount with electronic focus confirm chip which takes advantage of focus confirmation function on a Canon DSLR.
Tokina AT-X 24-40 f/2.8. Same features as above with loads of lens history written in the listing. Viewing Eddies listings is actually a great way to learn about the cool, rare lenses and different manufacturers. Considering that Eddie used to be a Technical Manager for Canon UK, I think he knows what he’s talking about.
Vivitar 135mm f/2.8. Again modified to Canon EF mount with a focus confirmation chip, but this one is without Variable Aperture Adjustment. According to Eddie, it’s one of the best 135mm lenses over. I already bought a few cheap 135mm lenses, would be so great to compare it to mine.
Tokina AT-X 80-200 f/2.8. Canon EF mount, lovely looking lens. A lot of people like to use Canon’s 70-200mm f/2.8 EF L lens for the video work and this lens looks like an amassing and relatively cheap alternative. That is the thing about the lenses found on thelensdoctors; they don’t seem cheap at the first instance, but when you find out more about them, they become a very tempting options. I certainly would have bought some of these lenses if I didn’t have to many already.
There is a bunch of other really cool lenses currently on sale at thelensdoctors, most converted to EF mount and some with Fluid Variable Aperture installed.
These are really worth looking at if you are looking to buy some lenses for your Canon DSLR. There are some real gems out there and in fact they worked out much cheaper than the same modern lenses.
If your like myself already have some vintage lenses, that are not in perfect condition or don’t fit your current camera, like Canon FDs that don’t Canon DSLRs, then Eddie can service, convert them to EF mount and even install the Fluid Variable Aperture, making your lenses as cool as the once he sales himself. I just picked up a Zeiss lens, that might be worth investing some money into, so I’ll contact Eddie to see how much it will cost to give it this star treatment; hopefully will give me a discount for such a nice article :D
Otherwise I will certainly keep a studying Eddies lenses for to expand my knowledge of great vintage lenses.
Thelensdoctors is one of the coolest eBay shops I’ve found so far and will definitely go to my favorites list.
These are really worth looking at if you are looking to buy some lenses for your Canon DSLR. There are some real gems out there and in fact they worked out much cheaper than the same modern lenses.
If your like myself already have some vintage lenses, that are not in perfect condition or don’t fit your current camera, like Canon FDs that don’t Canon DSLRs, then Eddie can service, convert them to EF mount and even install the Fluid Variable Aperture, making your lenses as cool as the once he sales himself. I just picked up a Zeiss lens, that might be worth investing some money into, so I’ll contact Eddie to see how much it will cost to give it this star treatment; hopefully will give me a discount for such a nice article :D
Otherwise I will certainly keep a studying Eddies lenses for to expand my knowledge of great vintage lenses.
Thelensdoctors is one of the coolest eBay shops I’ve found so far and will definitely go to my favorites list.
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