Originally posted by stevebrot Would you care to share what changed your mind?
I can give you an entire story. My first dSLR was the ist DS and 50mm M series f1.4 my first decent lens. My best shots with it came in Av mode with one hand on the focus ring and the other on the shutter. This offered the least distractions for me to immerse myself in the shot. I really liked the depth of field work but had a hard time with how shallow f1.4 is wide open.
Frustrated by the manual mode requiring the green button I wanted a way to shoot Av around f2.8. I tried the hole method but ended up filling it back in with JB weld
because I didn't like the less confident snap onto the body. I really thought hard about modifying the body to not engage the stop down lever... I settled on modifying the lens instead as it only cost $50 on eBay.
I tried the Takumar 50 but disliked the yellowing and couldn't find a reasonably priced 8 element version that wasn't worn out. My viewpoint was further reinforced by the fact that every Takumar lens is missing this stop down lever anyway. I don't shoot film and I know people who have/do will disagree with my approach, but is has helped me capture better shots and it works well for me in practice.
Majority of my work beyond f4 I am shooting at infinity anyway. This opened up an entire new realm of disassembling lenses and adjusting the infinity stop as most are off as well. The avatar pic is from a cheapo zoom that had cemented separation. I have since learned and fixed a prime with this issue using mineral oil instead of cement.
Anyway, this forum is great for information and I have learned quite a bit in the past years. Cheers!