Yesterday I had planned to go out and shoot autumn colors, but it rained all afternoon. So I decided to sit down and write instead. By the time I was done my essay was longer than I had anticipated, but I figured that I would share it in this forum anyway. It has to do with how some of us react and adapt to technological changes that carry us like an outgoing tide. We all have different reasons why we devote time to photography. We are motivated by a need to express our creativity, our intellectual interests and, at least for those who participate in NPN, our love of nature. But there also may be other seemingly minor reasons for our interest in photography. Over the last few years, one of those reasons has helped me become a better photographer (at least in my eyes) and provided me with an enormous amount of fun and satisfaction that I thought were gone for good out of photography.
I have always loved “toys”, and this has been a part of my interest in photography ever since my father gave me a WWII-vintage Leica rangefinder more than half a century ago. But I like toys that I can interact with, that challenge me in some way. I am immediately bored by toys that do everything for me and I just stand back and look. Remember those pedal-powered race cars that we used to race around the block? A far cry from the battery-powered jeeps that little boys and girls ride-on these days. Because of this mind-set, until 2009 I refused to give up on my 70’s and 80’-vintage cameras and lenses - an eclectic assortment of Minolta, Nikon and Olympus gear built-up over many years . But then Kodachrome disappeared, Ektachrome showed signs of going the same way, and quality slide processing became harder and harder to come by. Kicking and screaming, I was dragged into the digital age. And sold all of my old gear for next to nothing - a huge mistake.
The good became apparent immediately after the switch. Freedom to explore one’s ideas and visions without having to worry about cost, or about fooling around in the dark with smelly chemicals. Bytes are free, and raw processing software is reasonably priced, at least compared to film. It is also easy to learn on one’s own how to use the software, no mistake is ever irreparable, and it is easy to switch to a different platform if one so wishes, as they all work more or less in the same way, even if the quality of the results varies widely. I recently commented on my switch to Capture One. I would just add that I regret not having switched much earlier.
The ugly also became apparent soon enough, while trying to educate myself about digital photography. It is that mindless, Ford vs. Chevy, Yankees vs. Red Sox, brand attachment, that gets disgustingly vitriolic in some internet circles. I will say no more about this.
The bad took a bit longer to sink in. After a few years, I realized that autofocus digital lenses were boring me to death, and killing the joy of photography. Sharp and contrasty as they are, and corrected (to an unknown extent by either firmware or software, which I think of as cheating) for all sorts of aberrations, they are also impersonal, and they do all of the work for you. They are designed for immediate gratification. I wanted my pedal-powered bright-red Maserati back. So I bought some old manual focus lenses and started experimenting.
Lesson number one: DSLR’s and old lenses do not mix. It can be difficult to achieve good focus with the optical viewfinders of DSLR’s. I don’t know whether some DSLR’s have interchangeable focus screens, by mine (an Olympus E-5) did not, and live view was not much help either. In addition, I know that in some cases there are issues with the mirror hitting the back of the lens, especially with some Canon models and vintage retrofocus wide angle lenses. And then there is an insurmountable problem: flange distances of different mount systems are different. Because of the depth of the mirror box the possible camera-lens combinations are limited - in general you can only adapt lenses designed for a significantly longer flange distance than that of the camera (plus of course native lenses from the same manufacturer).
If you are terminally attached to your pet-dinosaur DSLR, then what comes next will probably be of little interest. But if you are willing to accept what is good about new technology (after all, I dumped film for software and never regretted that switch) then you may open yourself up to great old vistas. Mirrorless digital cameras are, in my view, the best thing that could have happened to photography. I would say that they are the best thing in photography since Leica invented the 35mm camera around 1924. Because of their very short flange distances, virtually any lens ever made can be used on mirrorless cameras, as the slack is taken up by the adapter. And because of their image magnification and focus peaking functions (both in their viewfinders and LCD’s) critical focusing of manual lenses is much easier, faster and more precise than it ever was on film cameras. Lenses from the rangefinder and SLR era were designed for the 35mm film format, however, which means that they can only work as intended on full-frame sensors. With crop sensors you will not get the mind-boggling wide-angle perspectives generated by, say, old 24mm lenses. And you will also not get the resolution, dynamic range and noise control offered by larger pixels. Attached as I was to Olympus, there is simply no way of working around these limitations of the small four-thirds sensor. I started looking at full frame mirrorless bodies, and discovered that at present there are only two options: Sony or Leica. Unless you are wealthy, it leaves you with only one option. Perhaps other manufacturers will get wholeheartedly into mirrorless technology before they go out of business - we can only hope. In my view, Sigma with its reasonably priced Foveon-sensor mirrorless bodies, and Fuji with its unreasonably-priced medium format mirrorless bodies. are the only manufacturers other than Sony and Leica that are on the right track - a story for another day.
Anyway, over the last couple of years I sold off all of my almost-new digital gear, including a few very high quality lenses, and used the proceeds to buy a couple of Sony full-frame mirrorless bodies (A7 and A7r), a few old manual focus lenses, and some good German-made Novoflex adaptors (this turns out to be crucial, Chinese knock-offs may look OK until you notice the light leaks and/or until a lens falls off). I never looked back, and never regretted the not insignificant financial hit that I took from dumping my digital lenses. Since starting on this path I have been slowly amassing a collection of vintage lenses, buying, testing, keeping what I like and selling what I don’t. I started with lenses that I loved in the film days - Olympus and Minolta - and then “discovered” (lots of others knew this before me, of course) other outstanding vintage jewels: Konicas, Fujinons, East German lenses - who would have thought? Unless, that is, you realized that Zeiss’s hometown of Jena used to be in the Soviet zone. The list goes on - Schneider, Steinheil, Meyer Optik, Angenieux. And of course the two crowning glories, Leitz and Contax (i.e., West German Zeiss).
So why have I become obsessed with old lenses? In no particular order, and this is probably a partial list:
Each lens family has its own personality. You can sample different interpretations of the art and science of optics without having to worry about the mount, as the adapter takes care of that. And prices for great lenses can be remarkably accessible, if you take your time to search and don’t mind doing a bit of work yourself (more on this below).
The image quality of the best vintage lenses is much, much better than that of middle of the road modern lenses (don’t even think about those lousy kit lenses), and I would venture that even better than really expensive modern lenses - but at a fraction of the cost, and also at a fraction of the size and weight. Which means that a good $ 300 Manfrotto carbon-fiber tripod and magnesium ball-head combination is all you will ever need. And you hardly realize that you are hiking with a tripod attached to your backpack. My philosophy is that, if a tripod ties you to your car because you have to carry it in your hands, then it is worthless.
You can focus where and when you feel like it, and visualize the depth of field in real time. Forget about focus hunting and a camera that decides what should be in focus, especially in low light.
No need to worry about focus going out of adjustment, or for that matter about anything ever going wrong - burnt motors, non-working apertures, etc. Simple means reliable.
I enjoy the mystery of finding in the mailbox packages from some remote country, sometimes covered in gorgeous old-fashioned stamps, opening them and discovering a lens that looks like it did when it left the factory fifty or more years ago. Or, most of the time, a beater that you got for a really good price but that needs a lot of work. I have learned to take apart, clean and lubricate old lenses - and this is part of the fun! And if I’m not having fun, then why am I doing this?
I have rediscovered the joy of using mostly fast primes, for their speed and optical “purity”. Having said this, there are a few old zooms, in particular West German Zeiss Vario Sonnars, that are stunning - so much so that some are becoming hard to find and quite expensive because they are cult items among videographers.
Take your time to think about your composition. I often go out with a single prime, usually a 50mm or a 35mm. I think that that is how they used to teach photography, perhaps they still do. I know that this self-imposed restriction has taught me a lot.
Above all, it is immensely satisfying and great fun. I have come to regard cameras with autofocus lenses as little more than “point and shoots”. Yes, I exaggerate a bit, but when I join fellow photographers loaded with many kilograms of bulky DSLR’s (some of them crop sensor!!) and huge AF lenses, and I am carrying my tiny full-frame Sony with a small prime attached to it, and perhaps another prime in a pocket, it feels good. It feels even better when we compare results….
I know that AF lenses are great for wildlife photography, sports, photojournalism or anything that gives you little time to think and react. But I can’t help but think of some remarkable wildlife and sports photographs captured decades ago with manual focus lenses. And of iconic photojournalism dating to, at least, the 1930’s. Robert Capa’s photos of the Spanish Civil War, of D-Day and of many other moments in WWII, are among the most powerful images ever recorded. Perhaps back then you had to be really good to make it.
So there you have it. My only goal with this long essay was to share some excitement and experiences that you may find useful, or at least amusing. If I have piqued your interest, I can tell you that I am slowly building up a collection of commentaries on, and sample images from, lenses that I have had the good fortune of getting my hands on, even if I may not have kept them all (so that I could finance the purchase of some other ones). They can be found here. The list is constantly expanding, at an approximate rate of one lens a month. These are not technical discussions, no MFT charts, no scientific measurements. They are my subjective observations, always accompanied by healthy doses of images, which is all that really counts.
Cheers!
Alberto
Posted by Jim Erhardt on October 30, 2017 at 6:58 PM
Alberto, I feel much the same way as you. Even with my newest camera body, a Canon 60D, I manually focus with live preview and manually set shutter and aperture. Of course most of my subjects sit still and give me plenty of time to compose, experiment with DOF and plane-of-focus, and try different exposure settings.
If I were to buy all new gear I think I'd look long and hard at the same path you have taken.
Thanks for posting your thoughts!
Posted by Igor Doncov on October 31, 2017 at 4:10 PM
I do agree that most of the automation in the new DSLR lenses are pretty useless for my needs in landscape photography. However, a zoom lens is awfully useful and even though primes produce better quality I wouldn't want to be restricted by their limitations. The composition is so important and having it restricted or having to give up because the lens can't produce what you're looking for is unacceptable in my mind. I would prefer an image that's not technically perfect than one that doesn't have as much to say.
Jim, I rarely use the viewfinder these days. For me using live view with the LCD tilted up makes it feel like you are using one of the old TLR Rolleis or Mamiyas., when the image showing up on the frosted glass was nothing short of magic. What I find with many, though not all, AF lenses is that the manual focus is not "direct" - there is some sort of friction clutch mechanism that to me feels a bit weird. The ones that do have direct coupling (I recall my M.Zuiko Digital Pro's, long sold) are a joy to focus.
Igor, I don't disagree with you, but that was not my point. I am lucky to have been able to get my hands on some of the superb Zeiss Vario Sonnars of decades past, and a Minolta 35-70 from the early 80's that is so good that it was also rebranded as a Leica Vario Elmar (I paid $ 40 for the Minolta, the Leicas go for $ 500, same lens built by the same people using the same glass in the same Japanese plant....). I use my zooms a lot. But if sometimes, jut for the heck of it, you go shooting with only a prime or two, it forces you to work harder, to think and learn a lot, and I have found that most of that learning then stays with you.
Discussion
3 repliesYesterday I had planned to go out and shoot autumn colors, but it rained all afternoon. So I decided to sit down and write instead. By the time I was done my essay was longer than I had anticipated, but I figured that I would share it in this forum anyway. It has to do with how some of us react and adapt to technological changes that carry us like an outgoing tide. We all have different reasons why we devote time to photography. We are motivated by a need to express our creativity, our intellectual interests and, at least for those who participate in NPN, our love of nature. But there also may be other seemingly minor reasons for our interest in photography. Over the last few years, one of those reasons has helped me become a better photographer (at least in my eyes) and provided me with an enormous amount of fun and satisfaction that I thought were gone for good out of photography.
I have always loved “toys”, and this has been a part of my interest in photography ever since my father gave me a WWII-vintage Leica rangefinder more than half a century ago. But I like toys that I can interact with, that challenge me in some way. I am immediately bored by toys that do everything for me and I just stand back and look. Remember those pedal-powered race cars that we used to race around the block? A far cry from the battery-powered jeeps that little boys and girls ride-on these days. Because of this mind-set, until 2009 I refused to give up on my 70’s and 80’-vintage cameras and lenses - an eclectic assortment of Minolta, Nikon and Olympus gear built-up over many years . But then Kodachrome disappeared, Ektachrome showed signs of going the same way, and quality slide processing became harder and harder to come by. Kicking and screaming, I was dragged into the digital age. And sold all of my old gear for next to nothing - a huge mistake.
The good became apparent immediately after the switch. Freedom to explore one’s ideas and visions without having to worry about cost, or about fooling around in the dark with smelly chemicals. Bytes are free, and raw processing software is reasonably priced, at least compared to film. It is also easy to learn on one’s own how to use the software, no mistake is ever irreparable, and it is easy to switch to a different platform if one so wishes, as they all work more or less in the same way, even if the quality of the results varies widely. I recently commented on my switch to Capture One. I would just add that I regret not having switched much earlier.
The ugly also became apparent soon enough, while trying to educate myself about digital photography. It is that mindless, Ford vs. Chevy, Yankees vs. Red Sox, brand attachment, that gets disgustingly vitriolic in some internet circles. I will say no more about this.
The bad took a bit longer to sink in. After a few years, I realized that autofocus digital lenses were boring me to death, and killing the joy of photography. Sharp and contrasty as they are, and corrected (to an unknown extent by either firmware or software, which I think of as cheating) for all sorts of aberrations, they are also impersonal, and they do all of the work for you. They are designed for immediate gratification. I wanted my pedal-powered bright-red Maserati back. So I bought some old manual focus lenses and started experimenting.
Lesson number one: DSLR’s and old lenses do not mix. It can be difficult to achieve good focus with the optical viewfinders of DSLR’s. I don’t know whether some DSLR’s have interchangeable focus screens, by mine (an Olympus E-5) did not, and live view was not much help either. In addition, I know that in some cases there are issues with the mirror hitting the back of the lens, especially with some Canon models and vintage retrofocus wide angle lenses. And then there is an insurmountable problem: flange distances of different mount systems are different. Because of the depth of the mirror box the possible camera-lens combinations are limited - in general you can only adapt lenses designed for a significantly longer flange distance than that of the camera (plus of course native lenses from the same manufacturer).
If you are terminally attached to your pet-dinosaur DSLR, then what comes next will probably be of little interest. But if you are willing to accept what is good about new technology (after all, I dumped film for software and never regretted that switch) then you may open yourself up to great old vistas. Mirrorless digital cameras are, in my view, the best thing that could have happened to photography. I would say that they are the best thing in photography since Leica invented the 35mm camera around 1924. Because of their very short flange distances, virtually any lens ever made can be used on mirrorless cameras, as the slack is taken up by the adapter. And because of their image magnification and focus peaking functions (both in their viewfinders and LCD’s) critical focusing of manual lenses is much easier, faster and more precise than it ever was on film cameras. Lenses from the rangefinder and SLR era were designed for the 35mm film format, however, which means that they can only work as intended on full-frame sensors. With crop sensors you will not get the mind-boggling wide-angle perspectives generated by, say, old 24mm lenses. And you will also not get the resolution, dynamic range and noise control offered by larger pixels. Attached as I was to Olympus, there is simply no way of working around these limitations of the small four-thirds sensor. I started looking at full frame mirrorless bodies, and discovered that at present there are only two options: Sony or Leica. Unless you are wealthy, it leaves you with only one option. Perhaps other manufacturers will get wholeheartedly into mirrorless technology before they go out of business - we can only hope. In my view, Sigma with its reasonably priced Foveon-sensor mirrorless bodies, and Fuji with its unreasonably-priced medium format mirrorless bodies. are the only manufacturers other than Sony and Leica that are on the right track - a story for another day.
Anyway, over the last couple of years I sold off all of my almost-new digital gear, including a few very high quality lenses, and used the proceeds to buy a couple of Sony full-frame mirrorless bodies (A7 and A7r), a few old manual focus lenses, and some good German-made Novoflex adaptors (this turns out to be crucial, Chinese knock-offs may look OK until you notice the light leaks and/or until a lens falls off). I never looked back, and never regretted the not insignificant financial hit that I took from dumping my digital lenses. Since starting on this path I have been slowly amassing a collection of vintage lenses, buying, testing, keeping what I like and selling what I don’t. I started with lenses that I loved in the film days - Olympus and Minolta - and then “discovered” (lots of others knew this before me, of course) other outstanding vintage jewels: Konicas, Fujinons, East German lenses - who would have thought? Unless, that is, you realized that Zeiss’s hometown of Jena used to be in the Soviet zone. The list goes on - Schneider, Steinheil, Meyer Optik, Angenieux. And of course the two crowning glories, Leitz and Contax (i.e., West German Zeiss).
So why have I become obsessed with old lenses? In no particular order, and this is probably a partial list:
Each lens family has its own personality. You can sample different interpretations of the art and science of optics without having to worry about the mount, as the adapter takes care of that. And prices for great lenses can be remarkably accessible, if you take your time to search and don’t mind doing a bit of work yourself (more on this below).
The image quality of the best vintage lenses is much, much better than that of middle of the road modern lenses (don’t even think about those lousy kit lenses), and I would venture that even better than really expensive modern lenses - but at a fraction of the cost, and also at a fraction of the size and weight. Which means that a good $ 300 Manfrotto carbon-fiber tripod and magnesium ball-head combination is all you will ever need. And you hardly realize that you are hiking with a tripod attached to your backpack. My philosophy is that, if a tripod ties you to your car because you have to carry it in your hands, then it is worthless.
You can focus where and when you feel like it, and visualize the depth of field in real time. Forget about focus hunting and a camera that decides what should be in focus, especially in low light.
No need to worry about focus going out of adjustment, or for that matter about anything ever going wrong - burnt motors, non-working apertures, etc. Simple means reliable.
I enjoy the mystery of finding in the mailbox packages from some remote country, sometimes covered in gorgeous old-fashioned stamps, opening them and discovering a lens that looks like it did when it left the factory fifty or more years ago. Or, most of the time, a beater that you got for a really good price but that needs a lot of work. I have learned to take apart, clean and lubricate old lenses - and this is part of the fun! And if I’m not having fun, then why am I doing this?
I have rediscovered the joy of using mostly fast primes, for their speed and optical “purity”. Having said this, there are a few old zooms, in particular West German Zeiss Vario Sonnars, that are stunning - so much so that some are becoming hard to find and quite expensive because they are cult items among videographers.
Take your time to think about your composition. I often go out with a single prime, usually a 50mm or a 35mm. I think that that is how they used to teach photography, perhaps they still do. I know that this self-imposed restriction has taught me a lot.
Above all, it is immensely satisfying and great fun. I have come to regard cameras with autofocus lenses as little more than “point and shoots”. Yes, I exaggerate a bit, but when I join fellow photographers loaded with many kilograms of bulky DSLR’s (some of them crop sensor!!) and huge AF lenses, and I am carrying my tiny full-frame Sony with a small prime attached to it, and perhaps another prime in a pocket, it feels good. It feels even better when we compare results….
I know that AF lenses are great for wildlife photography, sports, photojournalism or anything that gives you little time to think and react. But I can’t help but think of some remarkable wildlife and sports photographs captured decades ago with manual focus lenses. And of iconic photojournalism dating to, at least, the 1930’s. Robert Capa’s photos of the Spanish Civil War, of D-Day and of many other moments in WWII, are among the most powerful images ever recorded. Perhaps back then you had to be really good to make it.
So there you have it. My only goal with this long essay was to share some excitement and experiences that you may find useful, or at least amusing. If I have piqued your interest, I can tell you that I am slowly building up a collection of commentaries on, and sample images from, lenses that I have had the good fortune of getting my hands on, even if I may not have kept them all (so that I could finance the purchase of some other ones). They can be found here. The list is constantly expanding, at an approximate rate of one lens a month. These are not technical discussions, no MFT charts, no scientific measurements. They are my subjective observations, always accompanied by healthy doses of images, which is all that really counts.
Cheers!
Alberto
If I were to buy all new gear I think I'd look long and hard at the same path you have taken.
Thanks for posting your thoughts!
Igor, I don't disagree with you, but that was not my point. I am lucky to have been able to get my hands on some of the superb Zeiss Vario Sonnars of decades past, and a Minolta 35-70 from the early 80's that is so good that it was also rebranded as a Leica Vario Elmar (I paid $ 40 for the Minolta, the Leicas go for $ 500, same lens built by the same people using the same glass in the same Japanese plant....). I use my zooms a lot. But if sometimes, jut for the heck of it, you go shooting with only a prime or two, it forces you to work harder, to think and learn a lot, and I have found that most of that learning then stays with you.