Yashica Lenses: Hello everyone, I always follow the questions, answers, suggestions and educated illustrations in this site and I appreciate it. My question today is: a friend gave me...

araia

Hello everyone, I always follow the questions, answers, suggestions and educated illustrations in this site and I appreciate it. My question today is: a friend gave me two Yashica lenses one long and one short. They are old film lenses. I bought an adapter and connect them to my Nikon camera. But they do not seem to work, or is it something that I have to do.
I need some help.

Thanks and God bless.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

What do you mean by "they don't seem to work"? Don't focus, don't let light in? ???
--Bob

araia wrote:

Hello everyone, I always follow the questions, answers, suggestions and educated illustrations in this site and I appreciate it. My question today is: a friend gave me two Yashica lenses one long and one short. They are old film lenses. I bought an adapter and connect them to my Nikon camera. But they do not seem to work, or is it something that I have to do.
I need some help.

Thanks and God bless.

camerapapi Loc: Miami, Fl.

"I bought an adapter and connect them to my Nikon camera. But they do not seem to work, or is it something that I have to do."

I guess that what you have to do is to buy Nikon lenses.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

You'll be so much happier if you adapt the lenses to a mirrorless camera, any brand, just get the correct adapter. Then, they'll work.

Quixdraw Loc: x

Typically old film lenses operate manually on digital cameras. You probably have to set to Manual or Aperture and if your camera allows, program the two in non CPU lenses in the setup menu. If you provide specific info on the problem, specific camera and lenses you'll likely get better answers.

ELNikkor

If you want to use them, get an old Yashica camera. If they work at all on the Nikon, they won't focus at infinity. They also won't be as sharp as Nikon lenses.

Mac Loc: Pittsburgh, Philadelphia now Hernando Co. Fl.

araia wrote:

Hello everyone, I always follow the questions, answers, suggestions and educated illustrations in this site and I appreciate it. My question today is: a friend gave me two Yashica lenses one long and one short. They are old film lenses. I bought an adapter and connect them to my Nikon camera. But they do not seem to work, or is it something that I have to do.
I need some help.

Thanks and God bless.

Can you tell more about the lenses beyond “one long and one short”? Also what model Nikon camera?

MDI Mainer

On my Sony mirrorless bodies you have to set the camera to "Release shutter without lens attached" to allow old lenses without communicating electronics with the body to function at all, even in manual mode. Otherwise the camera is totally unresponsive! A physical mount adapter is not enough. This setting is deep in the menu system. My guess is that there is an equivalent setting on contemporary Nikon models.

kymarto Loc: Portland OR and Milan Italy

The flange distance of Yashica lenses is such that they will not focus to infinity on a Nikon unless the adapter contains a corrective negative diopter, which compromises image quality.

BebuLamar

ELNikkor wrote:

If you want to use them, get an old Yashica camera. If they work at all on the Nikon, they won't focus at infinity. They also won't be as sharp as Nikon lenses.

Yashica doesn't have digital camera. I guess the OP wanted to use the lenses on a digital camera.

avflinsch Loc: Hamilton, New Jersey

kymarto wrote:

The flange distance of Yashica lenses is such that they will not focus to infinity on a Nikon unless the adapter contains a corrective negative diopter, which compromises image quality.

More correctly -
The flange distance on Nikon bodies is such that almost no (non Nikon F-mount) lenses can be adapted to them without some sort of corrective lenses before they can focus to infinity.

On the other hand - some of these older lenses will work as macro lenses on the Nikon bodies.

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

CHG_CANON wrote:

You'll be so much happier if you adapt the lenses to a mirrorless camera, any brand, just get the correct adapter. Then, they'll work.

This is very misleading information. Mirrorless camera's are NOT a cure all.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

billnikon wrote:

This is very misleading information. Mirrorless camera's are NOT a cure all.

If you want to use old film lenses onto a digital camera, especially non-electronic manual focus lenses, using a mirrorless digital rather than a DSLR is actually the best advice to adapt and use these old lenses. Sorry to read you got up full of mistakes when posting this holiday morning. If you had actual experience in this area, you wouldn't be sniping at my comments with this incorrect opinion.

BebuLamar

CHG_CANON wrote:

If you want to use old film lenses onto a digital camera, especially non-electronic manual focus lenses, using a mirrorless digital rather than a DSLR is actually the best advice to adapt and use these old lenses. Sorry to read you got up full of mistakes when posting this holiday morning. If you had actual experience in this area, you wouldn't be sniping at my comments with this incorrect opinion.

PhotoKenetic

It may seem obvious, but have you tried to shoot in manual mode? If that works, then try a semi automatic mode like aperture or shutter priority mode, but make sure you start with the lens set to the smallest aperture (highest number).