Like most, I've narrowed down my selection bewteen either the Canon or Nikon manual lenses for the Letus 35. I noticed that the Canon is listed as "Canon FD Mount" for the manual lenses (I believe both the old and the new FD mounts should work, as well as Canon FL lenses?). Let me know if there are any other Canon lenses that would work on this mount.

The drop-down box for the Nikon simply says that it needs to be "Nikon -Locking Mount Lens", but I'm not sure how to look up cameras like this when searching on eBay. Do the applicable Nikon lenses have some kind of designator on them to show that they will fit on the Nikon adapter of the Letus? I noticed on one of the pages on the Letus site that it showed "Nikon AI Mount" as being accepted. Are these the only types of Nikon lenses I should be looking for on eBay? Or will all Nikon lenses fit the adapter as long as they are "Locking Mount"? If so, which Nikon lenses are locking mount?

Also, If I'm not mistaken, it looks like the Canon and Nikon lenses are both rated very close with repsect to image quaility. Let me know what your preferences are and why. I have seen that the Canon FD lenses are plentiful and relatively inexpensive. Also, what size lenses are currently in your collection. I do know I need to look for lenses with at least an f-stop of 2.0 or lower due to the inherent light loss with the Letus.

Any help/advice would be very much appreciated. Thanks.

If you want the best bet, go with the Zeiss lenses.... they are manual in operation and fit this type of shooting better than the canon or nikons...

they also hold their value much better if you need to trade out focal lengths...

plus, they have better image captures........

Ray.

Could you expand on Zeiss? Are these the Nikon mounted Zeiss lenses?

I just purchased an FD S.S.C. f2.8 300mm. Took it for a test run today at the local surf beach.
It came with a 2 x extender. I'm very happy with the results, but I will need to get a mounting support for it.

While both Nikon and Canon make great lenses, be aware that there are a good number of Nikon and Canon lenses that are a poor choice when it comes to use with a 35mm DOF adapter.
Also be aware that your choices are far from being limited to just Nikon or Canon FD mount.
As Ray pointed out, Zeiss makes some outstanding glass.
As well as owning Nikon, Canon FD, Canon EOS, Pentax and others,
my main choice for work are Zeiss Contax lenses.
Purchased used, they are less expensive than the new Zeiss ZF lenses.
They also focus in the same direction as cine lenses, while the ZF lenses focus backwards like all Nikon lenses do. They come with a Contax-Yashica, or C/Y mount, but slap on a C/Y to Canon EOS mount and you can use them with any camera that has an EOS lens mount.
They are a great choice for lower budget projects that don't require renting Zeiss Super Speed PL mount lenses.

One of the best lenses I´ve had is the Kino Precision Kiron 28mm f2 for Nikon mount. This lens focuses also at the same direction as real cine lens and is sharp wide open and absolutely sharp @ 2.8 with DOF adptors. Realy good DOF for hand held work.

Cheers,
T

David,
Mind if I ask where you got the gears for your lenses? Hope I'm not hijacking the thread. Thanks!

David,
Mind if I ask where you got the gears for your lenses? Hope I'm not hijacking the thread. Thanks!

Stuart at Focus Optics.