hugEDhog Loc: Bear, Delaware

I know what you’re thinking fellow hoggers: Why put a manual lens on a mirrorless camera.
1. I bought body only because I could use the lenses of my 6Dmii on the EOS R with an adapter. Cutting cost.
2. I am just a hobbyist. I don’t do wedding, sports or documentaries.
Now my camera and Lensbaby are almost always inseparable except when occasion demands a fully automated gear.

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NMGal Loc: NE NM

All are nice, but the middle one is exceptional.

SMGD546

May I ask which Lensbaby this is and what f stop you were shooting at? So many Lensbaby images I have seen have so much blur, beyond bokeh. Your images are beautiful. (Not a frequent poster here, hope this is done correctly)

hugEDhog Loc: Bear, Delaware

This is the Velvet 56mm f/1.6. For the flowers I set at f2; house interior at f5.6.Thank you for your comment…Ed

SMGD546

Thank you!

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

I didn't think that at all...

In fact, there are many GOOD manual focus lenses... both vintage lenses and brand new... that work great on mirrorless.

Thanks to features like focus peaking and EVF zoom, manual focus is easier on a mirrorless than it was on most DSLRs.

Sometimes we simply don't need AF...

- Ultra wide lenses and fisheye have so much depth of field, precise focus is rarely needed.

- Specialized Tilt-Shift lenses are easily focused manually.

- Macro photography is often more easily focused manually.

- A candid street photography technique is to manually scale-focus the lens before bringing the camera up to your eye for a quick shot. A lot of AF lenses don't have a scale... or if they do it's not very accurate.

- Focus stacking... be it for macro or for landscapes or for whatever... is usually best focused manually.

When I got my Canon M5 a couple years ago I intended to use it as a "fun" street camera, maybe for a bit of travel, etc. and was trying to keep my costs low. (I have five "daily user" DSLRs for work.) Initially I outfitted it with four relatively inexpensive, manual focus/manual aperture prime lenses: 12mm f/2.8, 21mm f/1.4, 50mm f/1.1 and 90mm f/2.5 Macro (1:2). On the APS-C format camera these equate to 19mm, 34mm, 80mm and 144mm on full frame. All those lenses really impressed me with their build and image quality! They're much more solid feeling that most modern AF lenses. Metal instead of plastic, for the large part.

However, I soon found that I was not as good manual focusing as I was many years ago! I guess AF has spoiled me. Or I've gotten slower with age. And/or my eyes aren't as sharp. So I've ended up swapping out three out of four for AF lenses. I kept the 12mm because the great depth of field covers any minor focus errors I might make (and there just aren't many wide primes with AF for the Canon M-series cameras).

I replaced the 21mm with a Canon EF-M 22mm f/2 STM (when Canon put their refurbished on sale). That's a very compact "pancake" with excellent image quality. f/2 instead of f/1.4... oh well, not too big a deal on a moderately wide lens. One thing I hated with the Canon 22mm was the ridiculous "hood" they offer for it. I found a much better, good fitting, generic, metal screw-in hood on eBay for under $10. Works great, though it practically doubles the length of the lens!

I picked up a used Sigma 56mm f/1.4 DN HSM to replace the 50mm f/1.1... I hated to do that because I loved the huge aperture and high build quality of the 50mm. But f/1.4 ain't bad. And the Sigma 56mm is wonderfully well built and sharp as a tack! This was the lens I most needed to replace manual focus with AF, mostly because I found myself sometimes using the M5 alongside my DSLRs for the occasional candid portrait. The manual focus was just too slow.

That left the 90mm manual focus Macro lens. For this short telephoto I really wanted to have close-up ability, but there are no AF telephoto primes made for EF-M mount. However I already had and decided to use a Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM via an EF to EF-M adapter. That got me good usable AF and I simply added a couple EF-M mount macro extension tubes to my kit, to be able to get closer with that lens. I don't know that it'll be able to do full 1:1... but rarely need to anyway.

So I ended up keeping one manual focus lens for use on my mirrorless camera, but replacing the other three with AF lenses. This seems to be working pretty well, so far. Someone else might not need AF at all. Or they may need zooms and AF on all their lenses. It really depends upon what anyone wants to shoot and how they want to shoot it. Manual focus might be fine... Or AF might be preferable.

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

Actually mirrorless cameras are far superior to DSLR’s for manual focus lenses. Mirrorless can bring new life to those lenses. I only shoot my Lensbabies on mirrorless.

hugEDhog Loc: Bear, Delaware

Thanks Alan for that street photography tip-an almost forgotten technique because of auto focusing speed of newer models..:Ed

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

Unless you have a camera or rail that handles the focus shift automatically.

Urnst Loc: Brownsville, Texas