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Infinity focus on my 50/1.4G

Anonymous Mon 22 Jul 2024 19:04:08 No.4340330 View View Reply Original Report

Quoted By: >>4340334 >>4340362 >>4340435

Hey /p/,
I just got my hands on a great deal second hand Nikkor 50mm 1.4G in top shape, adapted it via FTZ II to my Zf body.
Everything works fine, AF is spot on, but I can't get it to focus to infinity, even manually it stops at like 30 feet. Of course stopping down kinda gets to an acceptable focus but thats not really great for night shoots.
Youtube/google sucks and theres no answers telling me if it could be the adapter and I am missing something or if there's something wrong with the lens that coudl be fixable. Any experiences/ideas? Cheers.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 22 Jul 2024 19:11:43 No.4340334 Report

Quoted By: >>4340341

>>4340330
I know it's fixable. It happened on a lens I had. You'd need to disassemble the lens and figure out how to re-calibrate the infinity focus point. Or you can probably take it to a shop to have it done.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 22 Jul 2024 19:27:55 No.4340341 Report

Quoted By: >>4340345 >>4340378

>>4340334
I'm not afraid of dissasembly. It's the assembly that usually gets me. Anyway, any idea what to look for inside? This seems easy to follow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flOjvxknw90, but theres nothing related to my issue. I think.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 22 Jul 2024 19:34:54 No.4340345 Report

Quoted By: >>4340378 >>4340512

>>4340341
>Anyway, any idea what to look for inside?
No I don't, I never fixed mine. The lens was very cheap so I just bought another copy rather than putting in the effort. I imagine there are some bolts that tighten down to produce the hard stops. You'll need to find them, loosen them up and re-calibrate it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJEmMy2wkQE

Not the same lens, but I imagine that the process is overall similar.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 22 Jul 2024 20:29:40 No.4340362 Report

Quoted By: >>4340378

>>4340330
>no answers telling me if it could be the adapter and I am missing something or if there's something wrong with the lens

Yes, there's something wrong with the lens. It's probably been dropped. It's not the adapter.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 22 Jul 2024 21:20:15 No.4340378 Report

Quoted By: >>4340415 >>4340420

>>4340345
I think I am a genius. I followed this video >>4340341, got to the same stage of dissasembly, fucked around for a bit figuring out how the mechanism works, giving up because there was nothing to adjust from this side of the lens, rebuilt it again, now it works fine and focuses to infinity with no issues whatsoever. Fuck whatever mojo there is.
>>4340362 could technically be right - there's no dings or whatnots, the lens is in absolutely pristine condition. But maybe there was something that's gone wrong inside and me just reassembling it worked.

Anyway thanks guys lol.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 22 Jul 2024 22:42:54 No.4340412 Report

Quoted By: >>4340623

I bought one of these and disassembled/reassembled it twice to try to see if I could fix the back focusing issue with phase detect autofocus. I couldn't. D3400 doesn't have AF fine tuning, so no dice for me. At the very least, I was able to clear out the dust that managed to work itself in between the front and rear lens elements. I didn't see anything obvious that would influence focusing other than a thin spacer on the mount. But even with that removing/adding thickness didn't seem to work for me. I did note that the focusing helix POM parts were worn. Didn't seem like a great design.
Were you able to track down a technical manual for the lens? I wasn't able to find one online. And of course N*kon won't make them easily available.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 22 Jul 2024 22:46:19 No.4340415 Report

Quoted By: >>4340623

>>4340378
cool I'm glad you got it working, maybe something inside the lens was over-tightened or whatever. Either way, I'm glad you got it working. Be sure to test it though. I once also had a lens that could focus past infinity and it fucked up my close focus. So just run it through it's paces and make sure everything is good.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 22 Jul 2024 22:48:58 No.4340420 Report

Quoted By: >>4340623

>>4340378
Lenses dropped on carpet still decenter or break. Do this test:

Stop down to f8
Focus on something that would be at “infinity” like a streetlight
Shoot it in the center
Move your camera to frame it so its in each corner

If just one corner or side is WAY worse sell the lens. Most lenses will have one corner or side that’s a little worse especially wide open. You’re looking for unbelievably fucked up even at f8. Also try focusing on a pinpoint LED in a dark room, and them defocus and see if it flares to one side. If it has a huge flare to one side when defocused sell your lens.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 22 Jul 2024 23:02:39 No.4340435 Report

Quoted By: >>4340442 >>4340623

>>4340330
Adaptor problem, The flange distance is not correct.
This same issue happens with a lot of converted m42 lens.

cANON !!5Dz+C7v45HK

cANON !!5Dz+C7v45HK Mon 22 Jul 2024 23:09:40 No.4340442 Report

Quoted By: >>4340512 >>4340560 >>4340623

>>4340435
It's a OEM adapter, that's not the issue unless it came defective out of the factory.

cANON

cANON Tue 23 Jul 2024 02:59:45 No.4340512 Report

Quoted By: >>4340560

>>4340442
>unless it came defective out of the factory
Not impossible for a Nikon.

>>4340345
>I imagine that the process is overall similar
No, the process is not similar.
Ultrasonics don't have hard stops because the manufacturers save money by not calibrating them.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 23 Jul 2024 05:21:41 No.4340560 Report

Quoted By: >>4340566 >>4340623

>>4340442
The adapter is fine retards

>>4340512
AF lenses don't have hard stops because autofocus needs to be able to hunt past infinity to confirm it and there needs to be extra slop past that for lens geometry changing with temperature. Intsead of calibrating mechanical stops they have to calibrate the digital distance scale. No money saved, it's just to make the lens work right.

Lenses with hard stops do need periodically recalibrated but that happens out of warranty, why would they care?

cANON

cANON Tue 23 Jul 2024 05:31:49 No.4340566 Report

Quoted By: >>4340574

>>4340560
>they have to calibrate the digital distance scale
Automatically; focus stop calibration requires a human or much more expensive manufacturing equipment.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 23 Jul 2024 05:47:07 No.4340574 Report

Quoted By: >>4340581 >>4340623

>>4340566
A hard stop is incompatible with autofocus working and can't adapt to temperature shifts.

>old tech is worse
>No, it's a conspiracy!
Thinking like this is going to be recognized as a mental disorder someday. Threat recognition system stuck running on such high alert that it thinks an improvement in lens design is an industry wide conspiracy to charge the same for less value. No, the electronics in an AF lens are worth far more and calibrating a mechanical lens would be fully automated anyways. If anyone is charging you more for hard stops they're actually the one ripping you off. A lens can be automatically calibrated just by running autofocus against distance targets. Easily automated these days.

cANON

cANON Tue 23 Jul 2024 06:00:47 No.4340581 Report

Quoted By: >>4340585

>>4340574
>A hard stop is incompatible with autofocus working
Only CDAF.

>charge the same for less value
I didn't claim that.

>A lens can be automatically calibrated just by running autofocus against distance targets. Easily automated these days.
That's what I said, providing it doesn't have hard focus stops.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 23 Jul 2024 06:03:38 No.4340585 Report

Quoted By: >>4340586 >>4340605

>>4340581
You must admit it's not to save money.
It's so autofocus works, and it costs more money to make an electronic lens than have an electronic machine secure and align focus scales on many mechanical lenses without any electronic components.

Pre-CDAF autofocus lenses still had their infinity stop significantly past infinity. To allow for temperature variations and hunting past infinity to return to it.

cANON

cANON Tue 23 Jul 2024 06:07:59 No.4340586 Report

Quoted By: >>4340587

>>4340585
>Pre-CDAF autofocus lenses still had their infinity stop significantly past infinity
Have you ever held a Pre-USM Canon or AF(-D) Nikon?

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 23 Jul 2024 06:09:03 No.4340587 Report

Quoted By: >>4340722

>>4340586
Have you never used minolta/pentax brandho

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 23 Jul 2024 06:57:06 No.4340605 Report

Quoted By:

>>4340585
>Pre-CDAF autofocus lenses still had their infinity stop significantly past infinity

The real reason is for infrared photography

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 23 Jul 2024 07:34:42 No.4340623 Report

Quoted By:

>>4340415
It can focus a small bit past the infinity (feels like a milimeter on the focus ring), but the close focus (0.45m) looks right to me too. I think I won't worry anymore, it does what I need it to do and I guess the AF is happier if it can confirm the infinity focus like >>4340560 and >>4340574 said.

>>4340412
Nope. I just watched the video I posted and then found another one from a russki dude who seems to completely take it apart. Hard to say why he does what he does cause I don't really understand russian anymore, but maybe it could help you anyway - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l56kNUO_mds

>>4340420
I think it's fine. Tried a few shots with my phone as a light source in the corners and I didn't notice anything that I would consider bad.

>>4340435
No
>>4340442
Yeah the adapter is not at fault

cANON

cANON Tue 23 Jul 2024 14:48:21 No.4340722 Report

Quoted By: >>4340746

>>4340587
I own a couple Minolta lenses.
What's your point?

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 23 Jul 2024 15:24:27 No.4340746 Report

Quoted By: >>4340757

>>4340722
Owning /=/ using gearfag

cANON

cANON Tue 23 Jul 2024 15:32:33 No.4340757 Report

Quoted By:

>>4340746
I haven't gotten around to setting the memory card up yet.

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Infinity focus on my 50/1.4G