Using manual lens...no picture

Spoot

So I grabbed a manual lens my dad had, clicks in and I can see through the eyepiece...no error message but when I take a photo it just appears all black. Any clues?

bruto

With a manual lens you get no metering, so you must set the aperture and shutter speed completely manually. Since there's no meter, you need either an external meter, or to guess, with the histogram as your post-shot meter.

If the lens is an "automatic" manual lens, you should see a good image through the eyepiece, and when you adjust the aperture, it will not show a change, changing to your set aperture only when you shoot. If it's a completely manual lens, such as a T-mount, the view will change when you set the lens aperture.

For starters to see if it's working, set the camera to manual, and on a sunny day, set the lens's aperture to about F11 and the shutter speed to the reciprocal of the ISO chosen. So, for example, at ISO 200, set aperture to F11 and shutter speed to 1/200 or so. This should come up with a visible, if not perfectly exposed, picture. If it does not, keep a record of what happens, and look at the display histogram to check what's going on, and try posting here again.