In about a year of buying up around 100 vintage lenses on eBay, I discovered so many business sellers selling vintage lenses, but one of them stood out to me much more than the others, so I wanted to share this with everyone because it might be very useful to some of you. Before I go further, I just want to make it clear that I’m not trying to promote anyone’s business, although I did email the original article I’ve posted some time ago on
BudgetFilmmaker.co.uk to Eddie. He was very grateful, but nothing more than that. I just think it is something unique, especially if you’re based in UK and is really worth sharing. If you’re in US, then
ducloslenses.com if the the best place for a service I’ll tell you about.
So there eBay shop I wanted to tell you about is called The Lens Doctor by eBay seller
eddiehouston1545. Unlike most sellers/shops, what sell vintage lenses, Eddie who runs the shop services all of the lenses he sales. While they are not the cheapest on eBay, all of them seem to be in such a wonderful condition. From reading the listings and shop info, you can tell that Eddie knows what he’s doing and a lot of work is spent on every listing and every lens sold. While buying a serviced lens, which looks and works like new is very nice, it’s not the servicing that got my attention, but the aperture de-clicking and mount conversion of some lenses sold by Eddie.
If some of you don’t know what de-clicking is, let me explain. Most of older manual lenses have aperture adjustment on the lens, which is controlled by turning the aperture ring. Most of the rings have click stops, so there is a click with every change of aperture. Through the camera it looks pretty much the same as adjusting aperture with Canon EF lenses by turning the dial on the camera. If you adjust the aperture during the recording the image very suddenly brightens or darkens, depending on what your doing. Cine lenses on other hand have variable aperture adjustment, which means the aperture ring can be turned with the same smoothness as the focus ring, giving a very gradual aperture control, which can very useful in al lot of situations. Let’s take a scenario where you are filming something indoors at the start of the take and then go outside into the bright daylight during the take. The image will overexpose as soon as you go outside. If you are like myself, filming on DSLR with fully manual control, you will be forced to adjust either the aperture, ISO or in worst case scenario your shutter speed. Any of the changes will result in image suddenly changing in unpleasant looking steps, rather than gradually. With variable adjustment one could avoid such situation by turning the ring slowly, gradually reducing the brightness without any “steps”. I have the Samyang 35mm lens, that has smooth aperture adjustment (
Samyang 35mm Cine Lens) and I do love it so much, it is such a nice way to fine-tune the aperture to your particular requirements, so the possibility of having such aperture on any vintage lens, sounds very appealing.Eddie from
The Lens Doctor sells some very cool lenses with such modification. He calls it Fluid Variable Aperture. Since I don’t think there is anyone else in UK does that professionally, I assume it takes a very skilled technician to do that. He has 30 years of experience servicing and repairing lenses, so I think he knows what he’s doing and does it really well. A massive 5 star/100% feedback proves that dealing with Eddie must be a pleasure.Some of the de-clicked lenses that are on sale at the time of writing are:
VIVITAR 35mm F/1.9. Not only this lens has the variable aperture adjustment, but it’s also converted to EF mount with electronic focus confirm chip which takes advantage of focus confirmation function on a Canon DSLR.
YASHICA ML 24mm F/2.8. Same features as above with loads of lens history written in the listing. Viewing Eddies listings is actually a great way to learn about the cool, rare lenses and different manufacturers. Considering that Eddie used to be a Technical Manager for Canon UK, I think he knows what he’s talking about.
There is a bunch of other really cool lenses currently on sale at thelensdoctor, most converted to EF mount and some with Fluid Variable Aperture installed.
These are really worth looking at if you are looking to buy some lenses for your Canon DSLR. There are some real gems out there and in fact they work out much cheaper than the same modern lenses.
If your like myself already have some vintage lenses, that are not in perfect condition or don’t fit your current camera, like Canon FDs that don’t fit on modern Canon DSLRs, then Eddie can service, convert them to EF mount and even install the Fluid Variable Aperture, making your lenses as cool as the ones he sales himself.
Otherwise I will certainly keep a studying Eddies lenses for to expand my knowledge of great vintage lenses.
Thelensdoctors is one of the coolest eBay shops I’ve found so far and will definitely go to my favorites list.
I try my best to make this website a great resource people interested in vintage lenses for video use, so I hope you’ve enjoyed this post and it will help you save some money on your future lens investments. I’ve joined the ebay partnership program to help me run this website and fund my monthly lens giveaways, so if you found this post useful and would like to help me produce more similar content, please use the links in this post if you’re planning to buy one of these lenses or use this link if you want to buy anything else on eBay. You will not be spending a penny more using these links, while still helping me as I will get a small percentage from any purchase or successful bid you make. A win-win solution for everyone!
Related
VIVITAR 35mm F/1.9. Not only this lens has the variable aperture adjustment, but it’s also converted to EF mount with electronic focus confirm chip which takes advantage of focus confirmation function on a Canon DSLR.
YASHICA ML 24mm F/2.8. Same features as above with loads of lens history written in the listing. Viewing Eddies listings is actually a great way to learn about the cool, rare lenses and different manufacturers. Considering that Eddie used to be a Technical Manager for Canon UK, I think he knows what he’s talking about.
