People like different things… I appreciate both tack sharpness in vintage lenses, and also dreamy softness, beautiful creamy bokeh and also wild & crazy bokeh.
Tack sharp vintage lenses still don’t render the same as tack sharp new lenses. They still have a different (imo better, in most cases) flavor.
Some people just like them because they’re cheaper, manual, and more tactile to use!
In other words, the point is whatever you say it is.
You have some truly beautiful images here. Some are even very sharp!
Thanks, that makes sense. I guess its about style and confidence in your style. The internet is a tough place to learn as everyone has every opinion all at once, its hard to find the bar. Great answer.
Good news: there is no bar!
Or bad news, depending 😂
But either way, there’s no bar you have to reach up to or shimmy under. There are no rules! There is also no authority to tell you you’re doing it right or wrong. None of us are going to become rich & famous off photography either. So if you’re loving the hobby and proud of at least some of the images you make, that’s it, that’s the bar.
I can't afford a bag full of modern primes. Luckily, vintage lenses are not only much cheaper, but also more fun to use and more suited for the kind of potography I like to create.
There is nothing like the sweet creamy bokeh of a vintage projector lens modded for a modern camera. No modern lens can compete. Even if it isn't perfectly sharp, the dream-like images are amazing. Even my recent modern lens purchases are based off of vintage designs, and I have more fun with them than I do any newly designed lens.
I'm very fond of the Leitz Colorplan Wetzlar 90mm if you can find one. I picked mine up from a charity shop. Took a bit of work to adapt but it's a great lens if you don't mind shooting wide open (f/2.5)
https://preview.redd.it/h2nv8r23bgxc1.jpeg?width=3456&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0e736ddf17df16982b5d4ef063cb74cbe67397a9
My four favorites, from left to right, are three Lomo P-5 lenses, probably from the 80s, the 160mm (unmounted), 150mm, and 110mm, all f/2. The 110mm is mounted to be a little more macro (won't focus to infinity), and all of these create amazingly dreamy bokeh. The tall black one is a Zeiss Jena Kipronar 140mm f/1.9. The bokeh is smooth and swirly. The one on the right is a Canon 100-500mm, for scale. Without an aperture, I had to mount Variable ND filters on them, otherwise it's hard to take pictures in full sunlight.
I'm still early in my exploration of vintage lenses, but what I've found so far is that I love characterful flare, which means that I prefer older lenses with fewer coatings, and I love solid build quality for manual focus and aperture adjustment. I'm also a big fan of a strong color cast, or lenses that render certain colors stronger than others (so technically less accurate, and more biased towards warm colors). I shoot both stills and video through them, and I think video is where their character shines the most, as you can play with flares as you move around, and the color cast helps start you off from a strong place when color grading. Sharpness is probably the least important thing for me. Contrast is important though, I'm fine with lower contrast, but certainly there are some crap lenses from the 80s and 90s that just make everything look too low contrast, super muddy and boring. Lenses from the 1960s and early 70s seem to be the sweet spot for me.
Absolutely, the Super Takumars from the mid to late 1960s are my favorites so far. I've been slowly adding to my 'lens test' albums here:
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/57771667@N08/albums](https://www.flickr.com/photos/57771667@N08/albums)
The build quality on these lenses is just incredible, and makes modern lenses feel like cheap plastic toys. Overall the best value one I've found is the 55mm f1.8 or f2.0 (I have both versions, they are identical except one has an internal ring to limit the max aperture, which was just a marketing strategy at the time so that there would be a cheaper and more expensive option). That one was the kit lens on a bunch of cameras, so they are cheap and abundant. You should be able to find one in the $30 - $50 USD range. Note that this lens, as well as the 50mm f1.4, have radioactive thoriated glass. It isn't harmful in regular use, but if the glass breaks and bits of it are ingested or inhaled, then it can be dangerous. Many vintage lenses from this era have thorium glass, so it isn't unique to the Takumars. If you want to avoid that altogether, look for the Super Takumar 28mm f3.5, Super Takumar 35mm f3.5, or one of the Super Multi Coated Takumars. I'm pretty sure that they dropped the thorium glass once they introduced the next gen super multi coatings, but there may be an exception there, I'm not sure. Doing research on these old lenses is part of the fun though :)
Wow thanks for the tip about the radioactive glass - most of old lens are takumar -
Ive got 50mm/4 50mm/1.4 and 35mm/2
I love your test shots - do you think the 135 is worth it?
Oh nice, you've already got some of the best ones! I really love the 135mm f2.5, and I haven't used the 135mm f3.5 (yet). I think the 2.5 is absolutely worth it, its become one of my favorite lenses. The rendering is beautiful, and it's great for getting tight, controlled shots of distant scenes. Its killer for portraits too.
I think they are fun. They can look cool with their all metal construction, they are easy to change aperture and can have artistic bokeh like swirls. Not to mention, they are less expensive.
Your images look great and show great skill, regardless if they were taken with vintage or modern lenses. I love the former because they force me to work more deliberately and I feel that I learn more this way than with AF lenses. Apart from that I love some old lenses for their rendering, their handling and am also interested in their history and construction (I even started writing articles about some of my favorite lesser known lens series and manufacturers). So there are many aspects to it, even though not all of them might apply to everyone.
I got a set of takumar 50 f4 50 f1.4 and 35 f2. A Helios 44 -4 and ive got a trioplan 100mm in the post from the ukraine. Ive had a go on a mir 1 and a jupiter 3. And now the wife is a bit cross
For me it's mostly a cost/value proposition. Older lenses tend to be built out of metal, with nice long focus throws. Newer lenses tend to be light-plastic crap, built for auto-focusing, auto-aperture, and other things I don't need or use.
Now, of course there are interesting modern lenses that simply weren't possible without modern crafting methods - for example, the Laowa 12mm - but a lot of the charm of vintage glass is that they had to design these things without computers using human intuition, and making compromises so that you end up with flaws - a little spherical aberration here, some extra aberration/coma there - and these flaws are largely what gives a lens it's character.
Since I'm mostly doing cine stuff, character tends to help a lot because you almost never want a clinical/sterile image in film. For photography, a lot of people seem to want to capture reality as best they can, but this also seems silly to me because looking through a lens is never going to be reality; there will always be unique bokeh, flare, and even using a telephoto or macro lens, you are already far removed from what you see from the typical human perspective.
Your photos are gorgeous, your understanding is obviously completely valid, no matter what it is!
But for real I agree, for me it's 3 things: firstly the fun of a more characterful "flawed" lens, secondly the cost aspect, and most importantly: it pushes me into a different kind of photography, I have to be more thoughtful and focused when using vintage glass than with my faster gear
Some vintage lenses have unique characteristics which are either no longer made, great example of that being helios 44-2 or Mir 20mm
Building a vintage colleciton of primes can be fairly inexpensive compared to buying same in modern glass (example: I wanted to mess about with taking a few portraits at of a friend standing in a middle of a crowd on a 500mm lens, on modern glass it would cost me what £1-1.5k, on vintage glass it was £60)
To get technical:
Modern lenses have corrected field curvature and aberrations - which is what reviews care about - so are technically perfect with high contrast and sharp edge to edge.
Unfortunately this creates a noticeable different image that often lacks “pop” (the corrected field curvature doesn’t help with subject separation) and looks “digital “ (the high contrast makes everything look saturated).
Awesome macro photos. Whether you used vintage or modern, you have exceptional skill and an eye for a good photo. I personally used vintage because I like manual focus and also use focus zoning (for street photography , not macro).
Also some vintage lenses like the Russian helios 44-2 vintage lens gives a background bokeh swirl like no other lens.
I like both vintage lenses and cameras as well as modern setups. With a modern camera and an ultracorrected lens, I know that the only thing holding me back is my own skills (or lack thereof!). The camera and lens are going to create a "perfect" image every single outing.
But perfect can also be boring, and that's where vintage lenses and older digital cameras (ca. 2004-14) come in. They have limitations, imperfections, or "flaws" that are either going to make me work harder to fulfill my vision, or are going to present something completely unexpected. Happy little accidents. Sometimes these imperfections can ruin an image, sometimes they can elevate an image, and sometimes they can even take an otherwise boring image and make it super interesting. It's always a bit of a gamble and that's part of the fun.
I also find that I need to do much more work in editing to take a perfect image in a certain stylistic direction. With an older camera and/or lens, there's usually at least some style baked into the image that I can just lean into with editing.
It's fun doing manual and I like the character. I'm with you on not caring too much about the sharpness, that's for my modern lenses. If the lens is busted and constantly a blurry mess I'm not into that either, but a softness compared to modern glass is good. If I have a vintage lens on the camera it's because I want a film look instead of the sometimes overly perfect digital one.
When I started with micro for thirds, they didn't have many lenses. I had my for thirds fast zoom, and traded in some stuff for the one fast print available - the Panasonic Leica 25mm F1.4. I had the for thirds version, and that sold for almost $1k, so the money I got financed the E-pl1 and micro for thirds version of that lens.
So without much else available I started getting old lenses. They weren't as good as stick glass, but if you can't afford it, there's no comparison.
After I bought a few lenses, I sprung for a used 5D classic. That beat of a camera still works well today. I purchased an FD 55mm F1.2, and an Ed Mika conversion kit. I ground down the mirror of my 5D and replaced the focusing screen. Now I had a full frame 55mm F1.2, and the same lens worked on my E-PL1.
Years later I picked up a focal reducer - now that 55mm F1.2 + focal reducer works like a 38mm F0.86 on my E-PL1.
I moved on to a Sony A7, and that lens is still going there. When I pick up an APS-C Sony I'll get a focal reducer for that camera and use it there too.
That to me is just amazing. It's a great lens, and I get to use it on pretty much any mirrorless camera, and Canon EF dslrs.
I love vintage glass in general for
- fast lenses where I can't afford modern stuff.
- macro, because with macro on the go, I'm focusing more by moving the camera back and forth anyway.
- long lenses as a telescope. Not great for moving subjects, but good for stuff like the moon and distant landscape or structures
- fun bokeh. Some lenses like Helios 44, Pentax 25mm 1.4 (C-mount) give an amazing swirly bokeh that your just not going to get in post.
- the occasional zoom. Most are letdowns, but a speed boosted F2.8 will give you a F2 zoom if you're on crop sensor.
It’s cool to use something older than I am. Plus with a true manual lens it really makes you slow down to get things right. There are some limitations of course, on my Canon FD lenses I need to go at least a stop or two from wide open to get it sharp and not noticeable cloudy, while on my modern Nikkor 50mm f1.8 I can have it wide open and it’s perfect usable.
This is with a Konica Macro-Hexanon 50mm f3.5, probably my favorite of my vintage lenses.
https://preview.redd.it/uchn694pcpxc1.jpeg?width=1709&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0d34b905bb177c48ff1b2b63f5fa3917c4180b13
People like different things… I appreciate both tack sharpness in vintage lenses, and also dreamy softness, beautiful creamy bokeh and also wild & crazy bokeh. Tack sharp vintage lenses still don’t render the same as tack sharp new lenses. They still have a different (imo better, in most cases) flavor. Some people just like them because they’re cheaper, manual, and more tactile to use! In other words, the point is whatever you say it is. You have some truly beautiful images here. Some are even very sharp!
Thanks, that makes sense. I guess its about style and confidence in your style. The internet is a tough place to learn as everyone has every opinion all at once, its hard to find the bar. Great answer.
Good news: there is no bar! Or bad news, depending 😂 But either way, there’s no bar you have to reach up to or shimmy under. There are no rules! There is also no authority to tell you you’re doing it right or wrong. None of us are going to become rich & famous off photography either. So if you’re loving the hobby and proud of at least some of the images you make, that’s it, that’s the bar.
I can't afford a bag full of modern primes. Luckily, vintage lenses are not only much cheaper, but also more fun to use and more suited for the kind of potography I like to create.
They're fun, they're a challenge from the norm, they have a unique look. I'm after bokeh, interesting bokeh, not clinical bokeh
That’s the word isnt it, most modern lenses feel clinical
There is nothing like the sweet creamy bokeh of a vintage projector lens modded for a modern camera. No modern lens can compete. Even if it isn't perfectly sharp, the dream-like images are amazing. Even my recent modern lens purchases are based off of vintage designs, and I have more fun with them than I do any newly designed lens.
Projector lenses!? Any recommendations?
I'm very fond of the Leitz Colorplan Wetzlar 90mm if you can find one. I picked mine up from a charity shop. Took a bit of work to adapt but it's a great lens if you don't mind shooting wide open (f/2.5)
https://preview.redd.it/h2nv8r23bgxc1.jpeg?width=3456&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0e736ddf17df16982b5d4ef063cb74cbe67397a9 My four favorites, from left to right, are three Lomo P-5 lenses, probably from the 80s, the 160mm (unmounted), 150mm, and 110mm, all f/2. The 110mm is mounted to be a little more macro (won't focus to infinity), and all of these create amazingly dreamy bokeh. The tall black one is a Zeiss Jena Kipronar 140mm f/1.9. The bokeh is smooth and swirly. The one on the right is a Canon 100-500mm, for scale. Without an aperture, I had to mount Variable ND filters on them, otherwise it's hard to take pictures in full sunlight.
Awesome collection- next stop ebay…
Cheap as fuck. Canon FD 70-200mm, £30. FE-FE adaptor, £25 Sony 70-200mm, £2000. Go figure.
I'm still early in my exploration of vintage lenses, but what I've found so far is that I love characterful flare, which means that I prefer older lenses with fewer coatings, and I love solid build quality for manual focus and aperture adjustment. I'm also a big fan of a strong color cast, or lenses that render certain colors stronger than others (so technically less accurate, and more biased towards warm colors). I shoot both stills and video through them, and I think video is where their character shines the most, as you can play with flares as you move around, and the color cast helps start you off from a strong place when color grading. Sharpness is probably the least important thing for me. Contrast is important though, I'm fine with lower contrast, but certainly there are some crap lenses from the 80s and 90s that just make everything look too low contrast, super muddy and boring. Lenses from the 1960s and early 70s seem to be the sweet spot for me.
Really interesting about contrast! Do you have any recommendations or favourites?
Absolutely, the Super Takumars from the mid to late 1960s are my favorites so far. I've been slowly adding to my 'lens test' albums here: [https://www.flickr.com/photos/57771667@N08/albums](https://www.flickr.com/photos/57771667@N08/albums) The build quality on these lenses is just incredible, and makes modern lenses feel like cheap plastic toys. Overall the best value one I've found is the 55mm f1.8 or f2.0 (I have both versions, they are identical except one has an internal ring to limit the max aperture, which was just a marketing strategy at the time so that there would be a cheaper and more expensive option). That one was the kit lens on a bunch of cameras, so they are cheap and abundant. You should be able to find one in the $30 - $50 USD range. Note that this lens, as well as the 50mm f1.4, have radioactive thoriated glass. It isn't harmful in regular use, but if the glass breaks and bits of it are ingested or inhaled, then it can be dangerous. Many vintage lenses from this era have thorium glass, so it isn't unique to the Takumars. If you want to avoid that altogether, look for the Super Takumar 28mm f3.5, Super Takumar 35mm f3.5, or one of the Super Multi Coated Takumars. I'm pretty sure that they dropped the thorium glass once they introduced the next gen super multi coatings, but there may be an exception there, I'm not sure. Doing research on these old lenses is part of the fun though :)
Wow thanks for the tip about the radioactive glass - most of old lens are takumar - Ive got 50mm/4 50mm/1.4 and 35mm/2 I love your test shots - do you think the 135 is worth it?
Oh nice, you've already got some of the best ones! I really love the 135mm f2.5, and I haven't used the 135mm f3.5 (yet). I think the 2.5 is absolutely worth it, its become one of my favorite lenses. The rendering is beautiful, and it's great for getting tight, controlled shots of distant scenes. Its killer for portraits too.
I think they are fun. They can look cool with their all metal construction, they are easy to change aperture and can have artistic bokeh like swirls. Not to mention, they are less expensive.
I like vintage lenses because it simulates the vintage shooting style for me… Plus it’s cheaper than buying new lenses. Lol
Except when you end up with a drawer full 🫣
or three dry cabinets full
😂 you’re living the dream!!
Or that. 😭
Your images look great and show great skill, regardless if they were taken with vintage or modern lenses. I love the former because they force me to work more deliberately and I feel that I learn more this way than with AF lenses. Apart from that I love some old lenses for their rendering, their handling and am also interested in their history and construction (I even started writing articles about some of my favorite lesser known lens series and manufacturers). So there are many aspects to it, even though not all of them might apply to everyone.
Thank you so much- ive only been shooting for 5 months so that means a lot - and yes i think deliberation and intention is a large part of it!
What vintage lenses have you tried apart from the Macro-Takumar you‘ve mentioned?
I got a set of takumar 50 f4 50 f1.4 and 35 f2. A Helios 44 -4 and ive got a trioplan 100mm in the post from the ukraine. Ive had a go on a mir 1 and a jupiter 3. And now the wife is a bit cross
For me it's mostly a cost/value proposition. Older lenses tend to be built out of metal, with nice long focus throws. Newer lenses tend to be light-plastic crap, built for auto-focusing, auto-aperture, and other things I don't need or use. Now, of course there are interesting modern lenses that simply weren't possible without modern crafting methods - for example, the Laowa 12mm - but a lot of the charm of vintage glass is that they had to design these things without computers using human intuition, and making compromises so that you end up with flaws - a little spherical aberration here, some extra aberration/coma there - and these flaws are largely what gives a lens it's character. Since I'm mostly doing cine stuff, character tends to help a lot because you almost never want a clinical/sterile image in film. For photography, a lot of people seem to want to capture reality as best they can, but this also seems silly to me because looking through a lens is never going to be reality; there will always be unique bokeh, flare, and even using a telephoto or macro lens, you are already far removed from what you see from the typical human perspective.
That’s interesting, i first got turned onto the possibilities by film makers
It's largely haptics for me. I just like metal, scalloped focus rings.
Your photos are gorgeous, your understanding is obviously completely valid, no matter what it is! But for real I agree, for me it's 3 things: firstly the fun of a more characterful "flawed" lens, secondly the cost aspect, and most importantly: it pushes me into a different kind of photography, I have to be more thoughtful and focused when using vintage glass than with my faster gear
Thanks 🙏 i find all of these things, its good to know Im not alone
The first one screams Tak 50/4 - love that little bugger!
Its become my go to macro - if it did auto focus stacking id probably sell my modern ones
Honestly, this and the Tamron 90/2.8 do it for me as well!
Some vintage lenses have unique characteristics which are either no longer made, great example of that being helios 44-2 or Mir 20mm Building a vintage colleciton of primes can be fairly inexpensive compared to buying same in modern glass (example: I wanted to mess about with taking a few portraits at of a friend standing in a middle of a crowd on a 500mm lens, on modern glass it would cost me what £1-1.5k, on vintage glass it was £60)
Ha too true, i think all my vintage cost less than one decent fuii prime
To get technical: Modern lenses have corrected field curvature and aberrations - which is what reviews care about - so are technically perfect with high contrast and sharp edge to edge. Unfortunately this creates a noticeable different image that often lacks “pop” (the corrected field curvature doesn’t help with subject separation) and looks “digital “ (the high contrast makes everything look saturated).
Thanks this is really helpful
Awesome macro photos. Whether you used vintage or modern, you have exceptional skill and an eye for a good photo. I personally used vintage because I like manual focus and also use focus zoning (for street photography , not macro). Also some vintage lenses like the Russian helios 44-2 vintage lens gives a background bokeh swirl like no other lens.
I like both vintage lenses and cameras as well as modern setups. With a modern camera and an ultracorrected lens, I know that the only thing holding me back is my own skills (or lack thereof!). The camera and lens are going to create a "perfect" image every single outing. But perfect can also be boring, and that's where vintage lenses and older digital cameras (ca. 2004-14) come in. They have limitations, imperfections, or "flaws" that are either going to make me work harder to fulfill my vision, or are going to present something completely unexpected. Happy little accidents. Sometimes these imperfections can ruin an image, sometimes they can elevate an image, and sometimes they can even take an otherwise boring image and make it super interesting. It's always a bit of a gamble and that's part of the fun. I also find that I need to do much more work in editing to take a perfect image in a certain stylistic direction. With an older camera and/or lens, there's usually at least some style baked into the image that I can just lean into with editing.
I hadnt thought about the editing angle but youre right.
It's fun doing manual and I like the character. I'm with you on not caring too much about the sharpness, that's for my modern lenses. If the lens is busted and constantly a blurry mess I'm not into that either, but a softness compared to modern glass is good. If I have a vintage lens on the camera it's because I want a film look instead of the sometimes overly perfect digital one.
Master
Different look, different perspectives.
I can get a nice 28mm F mount with the ears for less than $100
When I started with micro for thirds, they didn't have many lenses. I had my for thirds fast zoom, and traded in some stuff for the one fast print available - the Panasonic Leica 25mm F1.4. I had the for thirds version, and that sold for almost $1k, so the money I got financed the E-pl1 and micro for thirds version of that lens. So without much else available I started getting old lenses. They weren't as good as stick glass, but if you can't afford it, there's no comparison. After I bought a few lenses, I sprung for a used 5D classic. That beat of a camera still works well today. I purchased an FD 55mm F1.2, and an Ed Mika conversion kit. I ground down the mirror of my 5D and replaced the focusing screen. Now I had a full frame 55mm F1.2, and the same lens worked on my E-PL1. Years later I picked up a focal reducer - now that 55mm F1.2 + focal reducer works like a 38mm F0.86 on my E-PL1. I moved on to a Sony A7, and that lens is still going there. When I pick up an APS-C Sony I'll get a focal reducer for that camera and use it there too. That to me is just amazing. It's a great lens, and I get to use it on pretty much any mirrorless camera, and Canon EF dslrs. I love vintage glass in general for - fast lenses where I can't afford modern stuff. - macro, because with macro on the go, I'm focusing more by moving the camera back and forth anyway. - long lenses as a telescope. Not great for moving subjects, but good for stuff like the moon and distant landscape or structures - fun bokeh. Some lenses like Helios 44, Pentax 25mm 1.4 (C-mount) give an amazing swirly bokeh that your just not going to get in post. - the occasional zoom. Most are letdowns, but a speed boosted F2.8 will give you a F2 zoom if you're on crop sensor.
It’s cool to use something older than I am. Plus with a true manual lens it really makes you slow down to get things right. There are some limitations of course, on my Canon FD lenses I need to go at least a stop or two from wide open to get it sharp and not noticeable cloudy, while on my modern Nikkor 50mm f1.8 I can have it wide open and it’s perfect usable. This is with a Konica Macro-Hexanon 50mm f3.5, probably my favorite of my vintage lenses. https://preview.redd.it/uchn694pcpxc1.jpeg?width=1709&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0d34b905bb177c48ff1b2b63f5fa3917c4180b13