Limitations of Using Legacy Lenses

Last Friday afternoon, while photographing my great-niece performing during a technical rehearsal of The Nutcracker ballet in Kalamazoo, Michigan, I sadly ran up against the limitations of using legacy lenses with my mirrorless Fuji XT-2 camera. I own five different vintage or ‘legacy’ lenses for this 24 MP APS-C camera, along with two different adapters. Don’t get me wrong. It’s great that mirrorless cameras like this Fuji allow you to use legacy glass. With the camera’s 1.5x conversion factor, my Nikkor 200mm f4 lens, used wide open for the rehearsal, becomes a 300mm lens that only cost me $49. The Nikon Series E 100mm lens I used, again at its widest aperture of f/2.8, cost me only $30. 

Under daylight skies using conservative ISOs up to 400, they both perform wonderfully when stopped down to f/5.6 or so. I came up shooting with manual lenses and am still fortunate enough to be able to see through them well enough to produce a sharp image. On the other hand, under low-light conditions, like this tech rehearsal, and having to resort to high ISOs up to 5000 to stop the action of little girls twirling in circles under harsh stage lighting, I find my images, while sharp, look way too noisy for my liking. I don’t see them being enlarged to billboard size by any means. The resolving power of these older lenses, shot wide open, just doesn’t cut it.

In days of yore, while shooting film for newspaper reproduction, I was thrilled to be able to push black-and-white Tri-X 400 film to 1600 ASA. I shot many a cold late-night football game this way, using a manual-focus 300mm f/ 2.8 Nikkor that I traded a perfectly good Hasselblad 500 CM for. After every game, I was happy to get two or three sharp ‘keepers’ out of a roll of 36 exposures. Although my F3 allowed it, I wouldn’t have dreamed of shooting up to 6400 ASA. 

Despite these limitations, I present the images below. My XT-2 has been surpassed a few times over. I suspect the XT-5, with its 40 MP sensor, would do a better job under the same conditions. Who knows? If Fuji would like to send me one, I’ll be happy to try it out.

Together with the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra and the Kalamazoo Children’s Chorus, the Ballet Arts Ensemble put on a fabulous rendition of The Nutcracker. My great-niece was terrific. I only wish her older sister could have joined her on stage. Next year, perhaps.

My Legacy Lenses

• Nikkor 200mm F/4, sold from 1981 to 1996
• Nikon Series E 100mm f/2.8, produced between 1979 and 1985
• Nikkor 50mm non-AI f/1.4
• Nikkor 35mm f/2.8 non-AI perspective control shift lens
• Helios 44-2 58mm f/2 produced in the USSR (lots of creamy bokeh goodness when shot wide open)

My Adapters

• Fotodiox Nikon Nikkor F Mount G-Type D/SLR Lens to Fujifilm Fuji X-Series Mirrorless Camera Body, with Long-Throw De-Clicked Aperture Control
• Fotodiox M42 to FX

By the way, I never learned what bokeh meant until I left newspapers. When you’re printing on newspaper rag, the look of an image, beyond it being newsworthy and tack sharp, was of little consequence.