One of the main reasons I chose the Sony mirrorless camera system was that old vintage lenses were easily and cheaply adaptable. After I had paid for the camera there wasn't very much cash left over for glass. Vintage lenses solved this dilemma. Old 50mm primes like the Pentacon 50mm f1.8 cost me next to nothing, like less than £10 and perform beautifully. Plenty sharp enough and with very nice bokeh rendering. They have charm and are far less clinical than some modern lenses. Full of character.
In this post I hope to prove that vintage glass, rather than being inferior to modern lenses are often superior. Both in image quality and in their applications due to their manual nature. Being able to change aperture at will is a real bonus for Lightpainting due to the different intensities of light we use.
Here are a few shots I have created with older lenses which I hope you enjoy.
Title Image
This one was created using a 28mm Pentacon seated on some macro rings. Stopped down a little this lens is razor sharp and renders colours beautifully. It adds a stunning level of contrast and would stand shoulder to shoulder to any modern lens.
This image was created with the same 28mm Pentacon but this time without the macro rings. I used black card as a stencil for the man and the background. Once again showing beautiful rendering and resolution.
For this one I used the Helios 44-2 whose bokeh is renowned for being crazy under certain circumstances. I defocused a colourful pattern on some card for this one as I knew the bokeh would be dreamy, swapped lenses to the Pentacon 28mm for the phisiogram which I wanted razor sharp. I liked the contrast between soft and dreamy and the sharpness of the phisiogram.
I started this one off with a modern lens. My 20mm Nikon f1.8 G. I did so as I needed to fit more of Lauren in the frame and my LP room was not big enough to get far away from my subject. Vintage wide angle lenses are often far inferior to their modern counterparts. I believe technological advances in glass production have come a long was since old times. You can still get very nice vintage wide angle lenses but they are astronomically expensive which goes against my thrifty nature...and bank balance. To finish I used a 35-70mm Cosinon lens which is not the best in terms of resolution. When zoom pulling though it matters not. The central blue element was some el wire which I zoom pulled and no finer job could have been achieved with modern glass. This zoom lens cost me £20.
To finish I created this one using the Helios 44-2 on the macro rings. I shot this wide open at f1.8. Even at F1.8 the center of the image is razor sharp but rapidly falls off to the corners with dreamy, soft bokeh. This was the image I had in my head before starting and in my opinion not possible with any other lens regardless of age and price. It was some wire wool, which under a macro lens I think looks similar to computer generated images of synapses in the brain. I bought this lens and a Super Takomar 135mm f3.5 for £25 the pair. Absolute bargain.
I hope you enjoyed this little write up and that it has given food for thought on vintage lenses. You don't need to spend the earth on glass to make pretty pictures. The person behind the camera is far more important and the character of old glass is far more interesting that modern, more expensive lenses.
All shot during a single long exposure in complete darkness.
If this post or any of my others raise any questions please feel free to drop me a line as I'm always happy to help.
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