Have SLR lenses always had click stops on their aperture?

gone · Feb 1, 2022

I put a Leica R lens on my Nikon SLR w/ a Leitax adapter (much nicer than the Chinese copies) and decided on a whim to leave the ball bearing out for the click stops. That was 2 years ago, and I still can't decide if it's a good idea or a bad one. At first it feels odd. but after a few pics it seems natural, and having a camera w/ AE helps.

This got me to thinking, have SLR and possibly RF lenses always had click stops? The only time I remember seeing this was on Olde Folders and LF cameras.

wiltw · Feb 1, 2022

The only lenses I have encountered (in photography now for 60 years) without click stops for apertures are large format lenses.
The benefit of the click stop is repeatability of aperture setting...always in the click stop gets you same aperture.

For a long time, apertures with intermediate settings could be set in between click stops.

AgX · Feb 1, 2022

Not in the meaning of the OP and sure not intended to be clickless, but for instance the Helios 44 could be set stepless if one succeeded to read the stand of the aperture operating ring.

MarkS · Feb 1, 2022

The only 35mm camera I can think of that did not have click stops was the Zeiss Icarex SLR with a 50/1.8 Ultron lens.
A friend had one when we were in high school; that was 50 years ago now so my memory may be accurate.

jimjm · Feb 2, 2022

I haven't come across any SLR lenses without click-stops yet, but there may have been some made in older mounts like Exakta, especially with all the 3rd-party lenses made for that mount over the years.
As far as RF lenses, my 100mm/3.5 Canon LTM lens from 1955 has no click-stops, and Nikon made a 13.5cm lens for their RF mount in 1950.

wiltw · Feb 2, 2022

And for SLRs, lenses were 'preset' which allowed the photographer to pre-select an aperture, leave the iris open for focusing, and then quickly close the aperture for shootings with a separate control which was Open or Closed. The click would hold the setting of the lens for repeatability. So the clickless setting may have disappeared for SLR lenses which were preset apertures.
Perhaps what also caused discontinuance of clickless lenes was the advent of in-camera metering...easier to design exposure systems with a finite (click) number of aperture positions.

reddesert · Feb 2, 2022

Most (all?) Russian rangefinder lenses that I have encountered don't have click stops, and I have a Canon RF lens that doesn't either.

Medium format lenses that are mounted "lens in shutter" (I mean a construction that is more like a LF lens with cells screwed into shutter, than like a series of nesting barrels like a 35mm lens) sometimes don't have click stops. A Mamiya TLR lens I just examined doesn't have them.

Nitroplait · Feb 2, 2022

Many RF lenses didn't have it. From the top of my head Elmar 50/3.5 and Summar 50/2. My Schneider large formal doesn't. Many lenses with compur shutter as those on early Rolleicords did not have click stops - I don't recall if my Contaflex had it. Today some lenses have the option of disabling click stops for the sake of video recording - but mostly on lenses intended for mirrorless.

MattKing · Feb 2, 2022

Clickless apertures are commonly found on cine lenses. So if the lenses involved shared design histories with the movie world ....

lantau · Feb 2, 2022

The lenses for my Contax 2 RF don't have click stops, either. Not the 1938-40 models, nor the post war 40s, Zeiss Jena one.

Huss · Feb 2, 2022

Many current M mount lenses made by 3rd party manufacturers do not have click stops. My 7A 50 1.1 does not.

RalphLambrecht · Feb 2, 2022

wiltw said:
The only lenses I have encountered (in photography now for 60 years) without click stops for apertures are large format lenses.
The benefit of the click stop is repeatability of aperture setting...always in the click stop gets you same aperture.

For a long time, apertures with intermediate settings could be set in between click stops.

+1

Sirius Glass · Feb 2, 2022

Still photography has always had click stops on SLRs, not so on range finders and some TLRs.

abruzzi · Feb 2, 2022

reddesert said:
Most (all?) Russian rangefinder lenses that I have encountered don't have click stops, and I have a Canon RF lens that doesn't either.

Not quite all. When I bought a Kiev IIR, it came with a Jupiter 8 that had a clickless aperture. The first few days were annoying becuase the way I carried the camera, my hand would always move the aperture, so no set-and-forget. I looked it up and found that the Jupiter 8m was identical but with click stops, so when I got to St. Petersburg, I found a camera shop with a excellent condition 8m that I could buy, and that's been the main 50 on the camera since. I think the Helios 103 also had clicks, but I can't remember for certain.

gone · Feb 2, 2022

The consensus seems to be that few SLR lenses were clickless, while many RF lenses had clicks. The pre sets I've owned work fine once you get used to them. I'm trying to figure out why the SLR lenses have the clicks and ball bearings in them? Yes, they may keep the lens aperture from being accidentally stopped down, but that's true of the RF lenses too.

Maybe it's because this lens is used in stop down metering mode, so you can tell by the viewfinder almost exactly where the aperture is. That's why I left the bearing out, it just didn't seem to be needed. But on a camera w/o AE, if you had a clickless lens on it you would have no idea where the aperture was set to w/o looking at the lens, or by twisting the aperture all the way to one direction to know where wide open was, then counting the clicks in the other direction. Totally unrealistic.

Alan Edward Klein · Feb 2, 2022

I love click stops. My Mamiya RB67 lenses click at half stops, great for bracketing. You don't even have to look at the lens to do it. Unfortunately, the shutter is only in full stops.

Alan Edward Klein · Feb 2, 2022

They're also helpful when adding filters. First you;re all set up without a filter. Then you screw one on and say OK I need two stops. So click click and you have two stops of additional exposure. Again you don't even have to look.

wiltw · Feb 2, 2022

momus said:
The consensus seems to be that few SLR lenses were clickless, while many RF lenses had clicks. The pre sets I've owned work fine once you get used to them. I'm trying to figure out why the SLR lenses have the clicks and ball bearings in them? Yes, they may keep the lens aperture from being accidentally stopped down, but that's true of the RF lenses too.

Maybe it's because this lens is used in stop down metering mode, so you can tell by the viewfinder almost exactly where the aperture is. That's why I left the bearing out, it just didn't seem to be needed. But on a camera w/o AE, if you had a clickless lens on it you would have no idea where the aperture was set to w/o looking at the lens, or by twisting the aperture all the way to one direction to know where wide open was, then counting the clicks in the other direction. Totally unrealistic.

Early SLR lenses did not have automatic stopdown to shooting aperture so.you preset the aperture ring to some value with click to hold that setting...then you rotated a ring (or pressed a button) to change from wide open aperture for focus to the preselected shooting aperture to take the shot, then you rotated the ring back (or pressed a button) to open iris to wide open so you could focus again.
SLR lenses were changed to automatic diaphram stopdown long before TTL metering came along.

grahamp · Feb 3, 2022

The Voigtlander Bessamatic I had once had non-clickstop lenses. The shutter was stepped, and the aperture tied to the match needle selenium meter. On the other hand the Vito B that I still have has clickstops on the aperture, which is typical of fixed lens cameras.

Have SLR lenses always had click stops on their aperture?

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