Tamron Adaptall 2 Lens and Adapter System

My first encounter with the Tamron Adaptall 2 system of lenses and adapters was with the 80-210mm zoom lens Owen let me have for a very reasonable price. In the 1970’s there was a healthy after-market for non proprietary lenses of vastly differing quality and price. Many folk stayed with the lenses designed for their camera by the manufacturer, (I will talk about Nikon lenses in a future blog), but these were expensive to buy. Many of these lenses were outsourced to smaller manufacturers to make on behalf of the Camera company and this had the effect of allowing those manufacturers to design and build lenses of their own at a lower price.

Tamron are one of those companies that started out making third party lenses and they saw a gap in the market. Many folks want to use different camera’s for different things and would often have several camera’s from competing companies. This meant they had to buy new lenses. The other lens manufacturers were happy to keep to this and made lenses in all the popular lens mounts like the Nikon F Mount, the Canon FD mount and the Pentax M42 and K mounts. That’s a lot of glass that takes time and a lot of money to research and develop.

In the early 1970’s Tamron decided to offer one system of lenses, but use a lens mount adapter to fit the lens to your camera. They introduced the Adaptall System in 1973 and it was a stroke of genius. You could use all your Adaptall lenses on all your camera’s with the separate camera specific mount that was cheaper to make. That saving was it’s selling point; Why buy two 50mm lenses for your Pentax and Nikon camera’s when one lens will fit both?. I have Nikon and Pentax camera’s and a couple of Nikon and M42 Adaptall mounts, they have served me well. Bear in mind that this was in the days of manual focus and, as you can imagine, they sold by the ship load.

My collection of Tamron lenses includes the aforesaid 80-210mm, a 28-70 midrange zoom and a 28mm wide angle. The quality is excellent and I am very happy with them. My skills at manual focusing was forced to improve as I tended to just go with my Pentax SP500 and Helios lens, but now I could get in closer with my wide angle or sit back and go for the long lens and learn about the joys of compression. If I buy a camera with a different mount, Tamron Adaptall mounts are dirt cheap and you can often buy one with a lens on ebay as it saves private sellers from paying for two listings and two lots of postage.

Tamron improved their Adaptall System to include the SP range aimed at the serious enthusiast or the professional photographer. SP was Superior Performance and, having a 35-210mm SP lens in my collection, I have to agree with them. It's a big step up in quality from the standard Adaptall range, all metal construction with 16 elements and weighs almost 2 pounds.

 Tamron finally pulled the plug on the last Adaptall lenses in 2006 after 33 years of production. The big companies, Nikon, Canon, etc. had moved on to Auto Focus and Tamron had to build a range of Auto Focus lenses that, alas, had to use the camera’s specific mount on the lens, not the adapter we had come to love. The one exception is the Pentax K mount. You can still use Pentax’s original K mount manual focus lenses on the latest K-1 Digital Camera and it’s siblings. The Adaptall 2 range can still be used on it too. That’s not bad going for a 47 year old system of after-market lenses.

28-70mm f3.5

28mm f2.5

28mm f3.5

28-70mm f3.5 The colour rendition with this lens is superb

28mm f2.5 A fantastic wide angle prime

80-210mm f3.8

Clockwise from top right SP 35-210mm f3.5-4.2, 28-70mm f3.5,
28mm f2.5 2x teleconverter, 80-210mm f3.8

My Little Fuji

 My journey into photography had a big boost with my little Fuji Finepix A700. In my first blog I mentioned how I had bought it in 2007 to document my travels and my family. Every time my grandchildren came to visit I would grab my camera and get a couple of images. I enjoy documenting their childhood, from meeting them for the first time when they were born to sharing birthdays and seeing them at Christmas, it's a wonderful time and I cherish it.

 Documenting my travels has also preserved memories of the places I have visited and the people my wife and I met along the way. I have fond memories of an epic motorcycling adventure to the Shetland Islands with dear friends and journey's with my wife to Scotland and the Lake District in the north of England. We loved getting out and about on my bike, it was something my wife and I shared that was just for us. Having a large family means our days were centred around our children, being able to get out on the bike and have some quality time together will always be treasured.

 My little Fuji also brought out my creative side. I freely admit that most of the time I was snapping away like a tourist, but occasionally I would get a wall hanger chosen by my wife. Here are a few of them and one of my happy snaps.

Esha Ness, Shetland

Orchid on Shetland

The oddest Tourist Attraction on earth?
Bobby's Bus Shelter on the Isle of Unst, Shetland Islands
My Bke is the purple one. ;)

Our Son looking out over Ullswater
from the jetty at The Inn On The Lake, Glenridding

Sailing on Ullswater

The Sea Horse at Formby Point Nature Reserve and Beach.

Somehow clinging to life despite being hammered by storms

Pentax SP1000 and SP500 - The Budget Spotmatics

 January 2017 was a new year and a new start for me. I had decided to take photography seriously after years of being a “happy snapper” and figured I would start with the basics and made a choice to use 35mm Film. Film photography has taken a battering in the first 2 decades of the 21^st century. From being at an all time high during the late 90’s to being utterly decimated by the digital revolution in the space of 10 years was too much for a lot of companies to withstand. Many film producers went to the wall, either disappearing altogether or being absorbed into bigger companies. Agfa was one of the casualties.

I also made a choice to make life as easy as possible to start with. I needed to learn the basics of photography. Aperture, Shutter and framing. ASA or ISO is set by the film speed, it can be changed but that’s advanced level photography. I was so green I glowed like 3 Mile Island. After some searching I found a Pentax SP1000 and a Helios 44m-4 58mm lens on ebay for £20. The Pentax SP1000 and SP500 are the “Budget” Spotmatics. They don’t have the self timer of the Pentax Spotmatic so was cheaper to make and buy. The SP500 didn’t have the 1/1000th shutter speed of the SP1000, or so I thought until I discovered the difference between the SP1000 and the SP500 was the omission of the number 1000 from the shutter speed selection dial. Click it one more click past 500 and the 1/1000th shutter speed is there.

Now that I had my camera and lens I needed 35mm film. My friend and photography mentor Owen told me about Agfa Vista 200 35mm that was on sale in a local discount store here in the UK. It was being sold cheap because the retailer had bought some of the last Agfa 35mm film produced before the company ceased trading. For a novice film photographer it was too good to pass up and I bought 10 rolls.

I met Owen in Wigan Park, he talked me through the basics and we got on with it. For the most part my lack of skills was evident from the start, however I soon began to find my mojo and compositions started becoming clear. It’s amazing how the simple act of taking a photograph changes your perception of your surroundings. I hadn’t really noticed the detail in the Calderbank Fountain before, nor had I fully appreciated the majesty of the Pavilion, which is a great place for a coffee and an ice cream. We headed into town and took more photo’s around the statue of local Wigan Rugby League legend, Billy Boston. I had found the camera I bought wasn’t performing as it should and Owen kindly loaned me his ME Super to try. Now that is a camera I enjoy using. In Wigan we are lucky to have a Max Spielmann Photo Store that still develops 35mm colour film in one hour so we didn’t have long to wait to see the results.

In my first blog, “Beginnings…” I posted a couple of images from that first roll, one unedited view towards the Pavillion and the other, “Husky In The Fountain” which was saved after a lot of editing and It never fails to make me smile. Not all my images from that first roll were awful, there were a couple that I could use and to be honest I learned a lot from them. They also taught me a valuable lesson in how to by quality gear from ebay. Humble Pie was consumed.

Another foray onto ebay saw a Pentax SP500 and another Helios 44m-4 purchased and these were in much better shape. The light meter worked, the light seals on the camera were in good shape and the lens was beautifully smooth. I loaded a roll of Agfa Vista 200 into the SP500 and had a wander to Wigan Pier. Often the butt of music hall jokes, Wigan Pier was a major port on the canal network in Lancashire. It carried coal and cotton to and from Liverpool Docks, and finished goods to all points on the canal network. It’s also a great location for photography. This shoot was much more satisfying as I had gone out on my own with hand written notes in my pocket and a determination to do better. When I got the film developed at Max Spielmann I was happy to see some decent images that gave me confidence I was doing the right thing.

The initial bad experience with the SP1000 didn’t put me off and I have really enjoyed using the SP500. The rudimentary light meter is pretty accurate for a camera that was introduced in 1974 and the shutter speeds also hold up well to scrutiny. Are there better camera’s for the beginner? Yes, plenty of them, but I have found that less really does give you more as I had to learn how to choose the right aperture, shutter speed and even lens for the occasion. I am happy with my Pentax camera’s, I have learned so much from them and will enjoy them for a few more years to come.

My First Photo saved with skillful editing by Owen SP1000

Coalbrookdale Fountain SP1000

Owen. I took this on his ME Super 

The Orwell pub at Wigan Pier SP500

Wigan SP500

Billy Boston-Wigan Rugby League Legend SP500

Pentax SP500 (left) SP1000 (right)

Beginnings....

 I got my first exposure to photography back in the 1970's with the family camera, a Kodak Instamatic. It was 126 format and used flash cubes that sported 4 flash bulbs and rotated to the next bulb after you used one and advanced the film to the next frame. It was all mechanical, not an ounce of electronics and was good for holiday snaps in sunny weather.  Fast forward to the early 1980's and my brother bought a Pentax ME Super with a 50mm lens. He too had got the photography bug and still enjoys it to this day with his digital camera. This was my first encounter with 35mm film and I was fortunate enough to be allowed to borrow a friends Pentax  for a holiday in Wales with my family. I enjoyed it, but finances at that time were scarce and being able to buy my own camera was still a long way from reality.

 That was kind of how it stayed for many years. Occasionally I had cheap point and shoot film cameras that didn't exactly allow me to produce masterpieces, but still captured memories. Finally in 2007 I bought a Fuji Fine pix A700 compact digital camera, not the greatest resolution ever seen by any means, but still gave me a chance to flex the creativity I had lurking in the background. I really enjoyed using my little Fuji, I used it to to document my journeys with friends on my Motorcycle and capture memories of my Kids and Grandchildren as they grew up. Whilst not the most technically advanced nor able to capture super high resolution images, it was enough for me at that time and I still have it today.

 Life changed in 2013, I suffered my first stroke and had to park my beloved Motorcycle. It took awhile to recover, especially when I had another shortly before my required three years was due as I really wanted to ride my bike again. Not being able to ride made me very depressed. I had ridden since I was 17 and enjoyed thousands of miles on the bikes I owned over the years, but Doctors orders were I needed to find a new hobby.

 I really was at a loose end until my wife and my eldest daughter encouraged me to try to get more into photography. They knew I enjoyed it and it would give me something to help my recovery. In early 2017 after a few long chat's with close friends, I took the plunge and bought a Pentax SP1000 and a Helios 44m-4 58mm f2 lens off ebay for £20. A local discount store was selling Agfa Vista 200 at a price even my dog could afford and with encouragement from my friend Owen, we headed to the  park

 Not all stories have a happy ending, it turned out that my cheap camera and lens were cheap for a reason. The lens was old, the grease had dried and the camera needed new seals. Undaunted I chanced my arm on ebay again and this time bought a Pentax SP500 and another Helios 44m-4 for roughly the same as I paid for the SP1000 and scored a decent camera and lens. Owen also kindly sold me a Tamron 80-210mm Adaptall 2 lens and my photography journey had begun again in earnest. 

More about that later, but here are a few images from my Pentax camera's. I enjoy using them as they are as basic as you need when starting out in film photography. The SP500 has a rudimentary match needle selenium light meter that is pretty accurate to give me enough scope for getting the most of the available light. The meter on the SP1000 doesn't work, but it is still a good sunny 16's camera and I have a vintage Gossens TriSix light meter for times when I really want to sharpen my basic skills.

My First Photo - Pentax SP1000

Husky In The Fountain!

Pentax SP1000 and SP500

Barges at Wigan Pier

The Orwell at Wigan Pier