I thought that maybe this would interest anyone with old 35mm camera gear packed away.
There's a camera spec called Micro Four Thirds [MFT] with a reduced distance from the rear of the interchangeable lens to the camera's sensor. While there are inexpensive adapters to use a 35mm lens with most digital cameras using interchangeable lens systems, so far my research suggests MFT may be the most popular choice. MFT cameras are also popular for shooting documentary video BTW.
Using a 35mm lens is not without controversy -- there are plenty of people that feel that the older lenses are just not as high a quality as what's being produced today, there are people that feel that using a lens designed for another format just doesn't work well, and there are people who feel that cheap lens adapters are junk, that you need to spend a few hundred dollars rather than less than $20. Regardless, the fact remains that you can use your old collection of 35mm lenses, or pick them up on Ebay or wherever, and save a LOT of money.
Olympus camera bodies seem to be very popular for folks that want to use 35mm lenses. They have models that sell for prices that aren't terribly expensive new, & there are lots of deals on used & refurbished cameras, starting at around $100. Their Pen series also has a retro look that appeals to many of us who shot 35mm back in the day, and with metering & anti-shake in the camera body, they work well set to aperture priority with 35mm lenses. Of course auto-focus won't work, & in low light you have to focus with the lens wide open, then set the lens opening if you want. If you're going to consider buying a used or refurbished camera, note that they have the rough equivalent of a car or truck's odometer, recording the number of pictures taken rather than the miles traveled. Google for how to get that reading for whatever make/model you're considering, as well as the life expectancy so that number will mean something to you.
One thing to watch for with the cheapest lens adapters is that design & quality could sometimes be better -- pretty much something to expect whenever you buy solely based on price. OTOH there's not much you can do wrong when you're talking about a machined tube of metal. The one I bought has 2 pieces -- the tube itself & the 35mm lens mount -- held together with 3 small screws, a slight bit larger than those used for eyeglass hinges. There are rare reports of them coming loose & the lens falling off. I took the screws out, applied a dab of Locktite, & put them back in... it took just a few minutes [because I had to shake the tube of Locktite :) ] & should prevent them from ever coming loose on their own [that's what Locktite does].
The cheapest lens adapters [maybe the expensive ones too] are a very slight bit shorter than they should be [mine is off by ~0.20 mm]. If you subtract the standard MFT mount to sensor distance from the mount to film distance for your 35mm lens, you'll get the ideal length of the adapter, but these adapters are intentionally a bit short to guarantee all lens will focus to infinity. The side effect is that when you focus, infinity is just a bit short of infinity on the lens [though I have read a report that if you take a picture of the moon, it's far enough away that you can use full-on infinity :) ]
Lastly there's a bit of controversy concerning the both the nature of cheap adapters & 35mm lenses... The MFT sensor is smaller than a frame of 35mm film -- that means your picture will be cropped from a 35mm frame, and it means that under ideal conditions you'll get extra light in the area of the sensor, with more extra light if/when it passes through the lens at an angle, e.g. a light source or flare etc. at the edge of the field of view. There's some debate whether than extra light means or does anything, & there's debate on whether the nature of a cheap adapter, as an empty tube, allows any extra light to bounce around, eventually winding up causing some reflection on the rear of the lens.
I tinker with stuff, so I couldn't resist trying a bit of a mod. I took 3 strips of black craft foam paper 5, 10, & 17mm wide, gluing them round the inner circumference of the adapter tube, so it looks like a series of steps reducing the inner diameter. The camera body has a series of bright contacts where the MFT lens would connect to the camera's electronics, & I thought those might well reflect light back towards the lens -- I made a washer out of laminated cardboard with a inner diameter that would just block those contacts but nothing more, & glued that to the inside bottom of the adapter. Then as an experiment I made another washer with a rectangular cutout the size of the sensor, that fit into the mounting ring at the bottom of the adapter -- if it reduced the amount of light reaching the sensor the camera's metering would show that, & since it was a separate piece I could easily remove it. After painting everything that I had added flat black, I tested it & got positive results. But that's me & I like to fool with stuff -- lots of people report pretty much the same results using a much simpler lens hood. And on the opposite extreme, people have posted more impressive results adding a washer with a smaller inner diameter to the rear of the lens itself, but it's a matter of trial & error before you find the best diameter for the cutout.
Long story short, at the end of the day & all those other cliches, I'm thrilled that I got my hands on a camera setup that I couldn't afford in any way otherwise, & I'm thrilled that I can put old camera gear I've been storing to use.
