# CCTV lenses for digital?



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 11, 2012)

Idly surfing around looking at lenses, I was reading about companies rebranding CCTV lenses, adding adapters and selling them as "ultra primes" for about a 1000% markup. It seems that you can quite easily buy CCTV lenses and C-mount adapters for about 25 quid.

Has anyone tried using CCTV lenses? They look a bit silly, and of course a proper lens would give better results I'm sure, but I thought I would give it a go. I fancied a relatively cheap toy to cheer me up a bit, and it was either that or one of the Holga lenses, and I have film Holgas.


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 11, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Idly surfing around looking at lenses, I was reading about companies rebranding CCTV lenses, adding adapters and selling them as "ultra primes" for about a 1000% markup. It seems that you can quite easily buy CCTV lenses and C-mount adapters for about 25 quid.
> 
> Has anyone tried using CCTV lenses? They look a bit silly, and of course a proper lens would give better results I'm sure, but I thought I would give it a go. I fancied a relatively cheap toy to cheer me up a bit, and it was either that or one of the Holga lenses, and I have film Holgas.


 
A lens is a lens, and they have to be spectacularly badly-made not to give useable results. People have been using C and D mount lenses (originally used on Standard-16 and Standard-8 cine cameras respectively, IIRC) with adapters on 35mm cameras for decades. It's not generally the glass that gives CCTV footage such poor resolution, it's the recording resolution. Give it a whirl!


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## editor (Jun 11, 2012)

They'll probably let you down in areas like chromatic abberration, edge to edge fidelity and the like though.


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## FridgeMagnet (Jun 11, 2012)

Some of the pictures made with the overpriced resold lenses do seem to go _very peculiar_ around the edges at big apertures. But, well, I'm not doing this expecting that it's going to be the same as a £300 job. (I have some fast micro 4/3 lenses on my Amazon wishlist if anyone's interested.)

In the interests of SCIENCE I will be sure to post up some results once the lens arrives.


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## FridgeMagnet (Jun 14, 2012)

Okay, so the one I ordered arrived today and I've been playing with it - I'm quite impressed. I got an unbranded Chinese one which was f1.4/25mm, with an adaptor to M4/3 included, for £23.90 on eBay (free P&P, from the UK).

Wide open, it gets blurry around the edges, and more closed, you get hard black vignetting instead. But it's sharp, and the colours seem fine, and the focus and aperture are smooth. (It focusses down to about 30cm.) I think it would be a good cheap lens for slightly abstract city night photography - 25mm gives it a reasonable field of view, with f1.4 you should be able to get pics at relatively high speeds, and the vignetting effect could work well. I'm going out later this evening, so I'll take it with me and try this on the way back.


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 14, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Okay, so the one I ordered arrived today and I've been playing with it - I'm quite impressed. I got an unbranded Chinese one which was f1.4/25mm, with an adaptor to M4/3 included, for £23.90 on eBay (free P&P, from the UK).
> 
> Wide open, it gets blurry around the edges, and more closed, you get hard black vignetting instead. But it's sharp, and the colours seem fine, and the focus and aperture are smooth. (It focusses down to about 30cm.) I think it would be a good cheap lens for slightly abstract city night photography - 25mm gives it a reasonable field of view, with f1.4 you should be able to get pics at relatively high speeds, and the vignetting effect could work well. I'm going out later this evening, so I'll take it with me and try this on the way back.


 
No good on an APS-C sensor though, unfortunately.


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## FridgeMagnet (Jun 14, 2012)

I'll admit I had to google that, I'm not all that familiar with digital terms... I have to say though that (posting from a pub after walking round Holborn and surrounds) that it's working pretty well for me at the moment with the Lumix G2. I can keep it on ISO800 most of the time and still get reasonable shutter speeds. If I wanted to take more action type shots, 1600 would easily bring me up past 1/100 in most cases, and 1600 is quite reasonable on the G2 - it's only when you go past that that things start looking awful.

This lens really needs a hood though. Wide open, it's really prey to issues from lights out of the frame.


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 15, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I'll admit I had to google that, I'm not all that familiar with digital terms...


 
Basically the micro 4/3rds sensor is about a third smaller than the sensor in my Pentax K100D or most of the Canon dslrs, so micro 4/3rds cameras can use CCTV lenses without too much vignetting and/or fall-off. The circle of focus is too small for larger sensors, though.



> I have to say though that (posting from a pub after walking round Holborn and surrounds) that it's working pretty well for me at the moment with the Lumix G2. I can keep it on ISO800 most of the time and still get reasonable shutter speeds. If I wanted to take more action type shots, 1600 would easily bring me up past 1/100 in most cases, and 1600 is quite reasonable on the G2 - it's only when you go past that that things start looking awful.


 
Glad to hear it's working for you. 



> This lens really needs a hood though. Wide open, it's really prey to issues from lights out of the frame.


 
Can't hurt, can it?


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## fractionMan (Jun 15, 2012)

I like the idea, but if you want a cheap prime have a look around for a pentax M 50mm f1.7 on ebay. Proper amazing optics - I got mine for a tenner and there's bound to be an 4/3 adaptor for it.

Anyway, show us the shots! 

Like VP says, it wont work on my dlsr  http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-slr-lens-discussion/164909-how-c-mount-k-mount.html


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## fractionMan (Jun 15, 2012)

3-8mm and f1.0 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PENTAX-CC...ultDomain_2&hash=item4d0227d6d1#ht_1244wt_923


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## FridgeMagnet (Jun 15, 2012)

fractionMan said:


> I like the idea, but if you want a cheap prime have a look around for a pentax M 50mm f1.7 on ebay. Proper amazing optics - I got mine for a tenner and there's bound to be an 4/3 adaptor for it.


I have tried my M42 primes on the Lumix, but the adaptor for M4/3 doubles the effective focal length, so you end up with quite an extreme sort of portrait lens with most of them.


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## fractionMan (Jun 15, 2012)

A 24 or 28 F2.8 might be good to try if you haven't already.   50mm equiv! Not super fast tho.


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## FridgeMagnet (Jun 15, 2012)

I have a 2.8/28mm one that I've tried, but it doesn't actually give very good results at 2.8 anyway (it's not an amazing lens tbh). Under those circumstances I might as well use the f3.5 kit lens really, and benefit from the autofocus and stabilisation and so on.


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## fractionMan (Jun 16, 2012)

I've been looking around for f2 28mm manual lenses and they're pretty rare and fairly expensive


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## dweller (Sep 19, 2012)

I just received a 6mm 1.4 CCTV lens from Singapore for about £17 all in.
Heavily vignettes with a fisheye centre.
Using the Opt. Ext . Zoom on the Lumix G2 you can take stills at 3mp as opposed to 12mp that are still like looking through a keyhole but quite good fun and sharp wide open (see example below).
Using the same setting the 720p video films a clean 16:9 letterbox which gives a pretty wide angle and with excellent low light performance.
I'll have to test it tomorrow.
Pleased with my cheapo purchase so far.



mm by dweller88, on Flickr


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## FridgeMagnet (Sep 19, 2012)

I forgot to say what I thought of the lens  on this thread - it's actually a lot of fun and also produces some really nice effects. Best with the camera set to 1:1 format I think (but then I like that format). And when fully open it's faster than even the 20mm/1.7 Panasonic which costs 10 times as much.


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