Legacy glass, discuss.

RaglanSurf

RaglanSurf

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What do folk on here regard as 'legacy glass'?
 
Probably pre-AF, and lenses that are predominantly metal in construction.
 
Manual focus, manual aperture and older than me. :D
 
Something you might be left in a will?

Being more serious I tend to think of any lens from a pre digital, pre AF camera systems such as:

Nikon AI/S, Canon FD, Olympus OM, Pentax K & M42, Rollei SL, Minolta MC/MD............ And the list could go on ,
 
Takumar and SMC Pentax-M, are there any other kinds?
 
Jao said:
Being more serious I tend to think of any lens from a pre digital, pre AF camera systems such as:

Nikon AI/S, Canon FD, Olympus OM, Pentax K & M42, Rollei SL, Minolta MC/MD............ And the list could go on ,
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:agree:

With the caveat that it might also include cameras with fixed lenses such as YashMats, rangefinders, etc.
 
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If we're just talking lenses, then I'd say any lens that has no camera currently in production with that lens' native mount - so L39 was legacy until the Bessa's came back into production. Probably none of the k-mount lenses are, though the changes to the metering might make a case for the pre-A variants. If you can only take a pic with a second hand camera or an adapter, then it's legacy in my book.
 
steveo_mcg said:
So no Legacy Nikon Glass?
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I don't know the full details of the Nikon lens mounts, but if you can still use it without adapters on a current Nikon body, then it's merely discontinued and not yet legacy in my mind! :)
I know it's splitting hairs, but most definitions of something like "legacy" are going to need some sort of fudge/arbitrary definition at some point!
 
So is it just a generic term for any old tat lens? A bit like vintage? I had somehow associated it with classic manual focus lenses for a bygone era.
 
Cuchulainn said:
If we're just talking lenses, then I'd say any lens that has no camera currently in production with that lens' native mount - so L39 was legacy until the Bessa's came back into production. Probably none of the k-mount lenses are, though the changes to the metering might make a case for the pre-A variants. If you can only take a pic with a second hand camera or an adapter, then it's legacy in my book.
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Yes, legacy glass is obviously an ambiguous term amongst us lot, but taking the question more seriously, the term must surely be referring to lenses of a generation or so prior to the camera to which it is to be applied. So I think a M42 lens would be legacy glass for my Pentax MX, but not for a Spotmatic. L39 is legacy for a Leica M. Contax G and Mamiya 6 lenses can never be legacy, by my definition, as (if) they only work for the relevant cameras.

Not sure how the term would apply to LF lenses, but my definition might work?
 
Cuchulainn said:
I don't know the full details of the Nikon lens mounts, but if you can still use it without adapters on a current Nikon body, then it's merely discontinued and not yet legacy in my mind! :)
I know it's splitting hairs, but most definitions of something like "legacy" are going to need some sort of fudge/arbitrary definition at some point!
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Thats a fairly Computing orentated definition I'd say. Legacy hardware like floppy disks and Pentium processors, not really sure it applies here.
 
Pre AF IMO. I have no intention of going down the legacy lens route (although I could, being a Nikon user as far as SLRs go) but if I did want to go that way, I would go the whole hog and get a period body to mount it on. MF on AF bodies isn't as easy as on MF ones and these days, I need that extra help!

The definition of legacy in photography is probably as contentious as the term classic as applied to cars (OR cameras! Canon 5DC, anyone?)
 
I'd probably go for defining a legacy lens as one that has been replaced (not necessarily superceded) by a later version, or one whose maker is no longer in business. That covers large format I think as well. That would include my OM lenses (which don't fit any currently made camera without an adapter) and my Symmar 150mm (which still fits modern LF cameras, but has been replaced by a later lens (more than once)).

Usually there is an added condition - that the lens ought to be usuable. I have one lens in Exakta fit that I wouldn't use from choice. It meets my basic definition, but I'd hardly call it legacy.
 
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There's certainley some interesting views here about what is and isn't 'legacy' glass.

StephenM said:
I have one lens in Exakta fit that I wouldn't use from choice. It meets the my basic definition, but I'd hardly call it legacy.
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I'm more likely to agree with StephenM that just coz it's old doesn't make it legacy.
 
Probably my two non Ai Nikkors that are older than me because they only get used with one camera & my M42 lenses. Especially thinking of a 30mm Pentacon that has a preset aperture & isn't the nicest thing to use in the world. Still, it was only £5 to buy.

The Nikkor AI & AIS (mostly) & the Zuiko's that I have may be out of production but they are too recent to me to have that tag. They also see to much regular use.
 
Legacy OED definition

"anything handed down from the past, as from an ancestor or predecessor"
 
Steve Smith said:
Large format lenses are still being made.


Steve.
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I know. It was the first part of the "or" that was intended to include LF lenses. Since you can fit any large format lens ever made to a new camera in the same way as any new LF lens, using any definition that required a legacy lens to be unattachable without an adapter would exclude every LF lens from ever being legacy (until LF cameras are no longer made). Hence the first part, specifying that the lens had been replaced in the maker's range by a newer version. Rephrasing with no "ors" my definition boils down to "any lens no longer being made" with the rider "and is actually worth using".
 
Don't forget of course that some of these lenses (eg Nikon AI-S) are still available brand spanking new!

Personally I hate the term legacy as an adjective, but then I feel the same about most Americanisms.
 
I still think my definition of legacy lenses as relative to the camera is right. My Pentax-M lenses are not legacy lenses for my Pentax MX, but would be for a K3 (or even a MZ-S that takes autofocus lenses). Oh, and the primes certainly pass the "OK lens" test, too!
 
ChrisR said:
I still think my definition of legacy lenses as relative to the camera is right. My Pentax-M lenses are not legacy lenses for my Pentax MX
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In that case, the body and lenses form part of a legacy system ;)

I think it's likely the term has been borrowed from computing - legacy code is software that is written for systems no longer manufactured and for which manufacturer support is no longer available (the guy that wrote and understands it has left the company being a common example for software developed in-house).

It's named legacy because the people charged with running them have inherited them from their predecessors as developers and technology managers.

Legacy doesn't necessarily relate to age, though usually it will be older systems that are required to be maintained because they still work ("if it ain't broke don't fix it") or because they contain data or logic that is too costly to migrate to newer systems, commonly because the costs of certifying modern replacements is prohibitive compared to the additional benefits they might bring. NASA has and had a bunch of such systems, especially when it was still flying the Space Shuttle with hardware certified in the 1970s.

There's a close relationship to the terms 'unsupported' and the somewhat more pejorative word 'obsolete'. My Canon FD lenses are legacy lenses from a legacy system (Canon don't provide support or parts for them any more). Things get a little hazier when you consider that parts and repairs for some of the earlier EF lenses are no longer available, although the EOS system they are designed for is still actively supported by Canon.
 
Although it has flaws for the technically minded, I like to use:- "film lenses" and "digital lenses" as a difference....Anyone tried a top digi zoom lens on a film camera?
 
I reckon my Zeiss Contax/Yashica mount lenses are legacy... :)
How about my Helios and Industar M42 mounts?
 
Musicman said:
I think it's likely the term has been borrowed from computing - legacy code is software that is written for systems no longer manufactured and for which manufacturer support is no longer available (the guy that wrote and understands it has left the company being a common example for software developed in-house).
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I work in financial services and the term is used to refer to the products that are no longer sold to new business but still have customers investing in them, such as pension products which have been replaced in the current market place. Quite often this coincides with the products being supported on obselete technology, such as old mainframes - that's the problem with implementing product support on a mainframe 30 years ago and never updating it because the project would be too big and expensive, until you reach the point where the people who wrote the system are retiring and there's no one left who knows how it works. :rolleyes:

At my last place there was a concerted effort to rename that business from the "legacy book" to the "heritage book" as the former sounds a bit as though you're lumbered with supporting those products. Which you are in many cases because of the need to support the systems that host the business, if you see what I mean.

Anyway, while I might hesitate before referring to my legacy lenses, I'd hold off calling them my heritage lenses altogether. :)
 
Musicman said:
There's a close relationship to the terms 'unsupported' and the somewhat more pejorative word 'obsolete'. My Canon FD lenses are legacy lenses from a legacy system (Canon don't provide support or parts for them any more). Things get a little hazier when you consider that parts and repairs for some of the earlier EF lenses are no longer available, although the EOS system they are designed for is still actively supported by Canon.
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I thinks this really sums up the term 'legacy' as its is used in common parlance today with reference to older system lenses.

Both Canon, when it moved from FD to EOS and Olympus, when they moved from OM mount to the first generation E series cameras, used the term 'Legacy Free' in their respective marketing. The advertising jocks spin on the fact that none of your old lenses would fit their new cameras. It was an attempt to make a virtue of having to buy all new kit!
 
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Jao said:
I thinks this really sums up the term 'legacy' as its is used in common parlance today with reference to older system lenses.

Both Canon, when it moved from FD to EOS and Olympus, when they moved from OM mount to the first generation E series cameras, used the term 'Legacy Free' in their respective marketing. The advertising jocks spin on the fact that none of your old lenses would fit their new cameras. It was an attempt to make a virtue of having to buy all new kit!
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And I wonder why my uncle was so annoyed when the EF system came out: he brought a Canon A1 in ~1981, and at the time time Canon had an advertising line which basically said that new Canon lenses would always be available for the system... 6 years later they switched over to the EF mount and within a few years no new FD lenses were available! He's still annoyed about that to this day.
 
... and I remember now that the lens mount change was why I got my Pentax ME (that I still have) to replace my Electro Spotmatic, when Pentax said, no more screw-mount lenses!
 
Any lens that has been superseded by it's manufacturer or that isn't made any more.
 
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