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Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
12-04-2016, 04:48 PM
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The camera can only display the aperture for lenses with electrical contacts. Anything without contacts or disconnected (like A lenses with the ring off A position) shows the F--.
The Auto/Man switch on an M42 lens switches the aperture control from just the aperture ring (Man) to the chrome pin sticking out the back of the lens (Auto). DSLRs can't press that pin so Auto is not automatic for us DSLR users. When the chrome pin isn't pressed in, the lens aperture is wide open. You can use the switch like that, to switch from wide open for focusing to f8 for shooting. It might be easier than counting clicks like I describe above, especially if your shooting aperture is a high f number.
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Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
12-04-2016, 11:23 AM
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The red square is just telling you that the camera is using that (center) focus point, and the AF system is active. The green hexagon in the status bar below tells you when the camera thinks you're in focus.
If the subject is not totally static, I have trouble managing every single thing. It's an M42 lens I can't focus wide open and shoot stopped down without an extra step. So I'll give up changing settings with every shot. I might set the aperture to f4, mode to Av and pick a reasonable fixed ISO. Then the camera will change the shutter speed automatically. I can use exposure compensation to adjust for my lighting conditions. (Remember the metering switches to center-weighted so it's not quite as smart as 77-segment matrix.) The viewfinder is slightly darker when the aperture ring is at f4 but it's not terrible. Focusing at an exact point is less precise because the lens is not wide open and you see more depth of field, but you see what you'll get in the photo - it's like permanent DOF preview. After a few test shots to get the exposure close enough, I can just concentrate on framing and focusing.
You can get a lot better with practice and familiarity with the lens. Focus practice is probably essential if you are just using the stock screen. You can get the idea here that people just throw on any old lens and are immediately great at focusing, but you have to know what to look for in the viewfinder. I like to keep the camera to my eye a lot, so I also become familiar with the lens's aperture ring. I can go up or down a full stop on a Takumar 55 by turning the ring two clicks. If I want to focus more precisely, I can turn the aperture ring to wide open, focus, then count clicks to get back to my shooting aperture.
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