The story of old/vintage

It’s not a secret that I love vintage, you can see it in my shots styling wise, you can see it in the tinting I use in Photoshop and if you would ever visit our studio you will find several references to the “old days”. My preference is the 50-60-70’s and the more kitsch the better. Now that we got this out of the way let’s talk photography….

One of the most asked questions from photographers is “What camera should I buy” followed by “which lens should I buy” often followed (a few weeks later) by “should I start teaching workshops” or “should I go pro”.

Most of the times I will of course tell them that the best camera is the one that works the fastest, for example for street style shooting I’m in love with the FujiFilm cameras, for studio work I love the Medium format system and my Sony A99, but I know a lot of people that will tell you/me that they hate the EVF and will never get used to that (well good luck in a few years) and that they love Canon or Nikon, meaning who is right??? Well I strongly believe nobody is right, but also nobody is wrong.  If everyone loved the same thing the world would be very boring.

Take for example the Fujifilm cameras, I’m in love with the X-E1 with a silver top in the very basic vintage looking brown carrying case, I couldn’t be more happy with a camera, in the studio I just love to shoot with the Mamiya RZ-67ProII with my Leaf Credo60 back….. you see a pattern my friends…. 😀 Yep, the cameras I really love are all looking (or are) vintage, now don’t get me wrong I still love my Phase One DF body and Sony A99, but I love this for performance, their appearance doesn’t make my heart beat one beat faster.

Now as you know I always try to give a tip in blog posts like these, and this time is no exception of course.

When I started using the A99 I needed a lot of new lenses, and this is actually where my love for vintage really started to take off. Because of the EVF on the Sony it’s incredibly easy to use manual focus lenses, the EVF gives a great clear image and with the focus peaking it’s childs play to manually focus a lens. Now on Medium format cameras there are all kind of focus aids and a large viewfinder (like on the RZ67ProII) that really helps but on my Canon I never really got into manual focus lenses for the simple reason that only the focus confirmation was not really enough for me to make life so easy I could see me working with manual focus lenses on a regular basis.

At first I of course tried to get all my lenses in the quality I needed, meaning fast modern glass with of course AutoFocus systems. When I started researching however I very quickly found out that the wisest thing to do when you need to replace a lot of lenses was to go for the slightly older Minolta lenses instead of the brand new Sony/Zeiss lenses, now don’t get me wrong I LOVE the Zeiss/Sony glass A LOT and I own the 24-70 but when you need to replace a whole system it will take a big bite out of your savings account, while when you buy the Minolta lenses online you are getting great performing lenses for a fraction of the price, in fact I dare to say I bought my 135mm f2.8, 35-200mm (walk around lens), 85mm 1.4, 50mm 1.4 for less money than I would have normally spend on the 85mm Zeiss alone, but ok the lenses are second hand, but with a supplier like for example www.keh.com you can pretty safely buy second hand lenses, their EX series are literally almost like new.

Now from the past (my youth) I already knew about the quality of Minolta, Carl Zeiss, Pentax etc. and I decided to buy an AF confirmation conversion ring to mount M42 (the most popular screw mount) lenses onto my Sony A99, and this was the start of something that has almost got me addicted (well I think I am already).

Quality or fun or look
Now first let me make clear that when I buy my M42 lenses I am not doing it for the quality, when I want top notch quality I will use my Zeiss/Sony/Minolta glass designed for the Alpha bodies.

The why buy those old lenses?
Well very simple.
You ever heard about Minolta colors?
Or the character of a Carl Zeiss lens?
Some people will say that’s over rated and only nostalgic remembrances, well I can in all honestly say to you, it’s not. When you see the images shot with certain lenses you can really see some character and that’s exactly what I’m looking for at the moment.

Very cheap Petri 55mm 1.7 lens

Now when I deliver my images to clients I will often go for the most perfect image, meaning Medium format Leaf Credo60 files or Sony A99 files shot with the modern lenses, these images are as close to perfection as possible and are color correct and are….. well “as perfect as can be” now I don’t want to say “boring” but for me they actually are. In most cases the images are not really boring as boring, the light can be amazing, the styling is amazing etc, but somehow I always miss something.

Carl Zeiss Jena 135mm lens, same scene as Petri

So in my free work I will use plugins like Alien Skin Exposure, DxO filmpack etc. just to give the images their own character, and even when I use them very subtle for me the images just come to life. While using the Minolta lenses I already found that I loved the colors much more than what I got from my Zeiss 24-70 f2.8 (which is VERY good with colors if it comes to perfection), so I wanted more.

As you might already know I also love to play with things like lensflare, and let’s be real with the Zeiss 24-70 you have to do some real acrobatics to get the lensflares in the images, the lens is just too good, so when I started buying the M42 lenses I was looking for lenses where people were claiming that the lenses were very prone to lensflare, my first M42 lenses however also got me something else the colors, contrast etc. just stunned me, not because they were perfect but they were just so incredibly cool I almost didn’t want to use my tinting’s any more, in the end I did use DxO filmpack and Alien Skin Exposure but with totally different settings than I used on the “modern” lenses.

Every M42 I own has it’s own look and the fun thing is that I will now just grab a lens for the look I want, I own several 50mm for example and they all look different, with modern lenses I often find that there is no need to own 3-4 copies of a 50mm, the differences between the lenses are often only found in sharpness, corner sharpness, CA, Bokeh etc. with my M42 versions the differences are huge, I have one that is pin sharp and has a really funky bokeh, the Petri I love because it’s SO bad it’s one of my favorite lenses at the moment when I want have a lensflare look with washed out blacks but very cool (not blue but COOL) colors, and it almost lives in my bag now while other lenses often stay home because I like to travel with as little lenses as possible.

So the lenses all give me something else, a different look, a different character, different colors, different bokeh…etc. and let’s be honest they just look incredibly cool on a modern camera.

Petri lens, used for the “glow” effect of this lens.

So what’s the deeper meaning of this blog post (because you guys always want one right?) besides having a nice story to tell the real reason I wrote this is to make you realize that in the old days cameras and their lenses were VERY important for the look you got, often this is waved away by the fact that all film also looked different, however while collecting my lenses I found out that although indeed film has a VERY big impact on the look of a shot the lenses are also very important, so if you are (like me) loving perfection but also find yourself longing for something a bit more different, an image with a bit more attitude so to speak make sure to look into these M42 lenses. An added fun factor is that I now love to visit flea markets, yard sales etc, just to find these little gems and get them for prices between 5-100 dollars (depending on the lens) and that’s about the highest I will pay for a lens, and trust me for me to spend over 50 bucks it better be a real gem or something I really want, because 90% of these lenses are there just for fun, and that’s often something that will help you as a photographer progress in your development, getting the fun back.

I always tell people about my X-E1, I used a black one for a long time and it’s a great camera, but as soon as you give me a silver top with a vintage carrying case…. Well I just LOVE shooting with that one, I will make the same images, I will use it just as often, it’s just that my heart beats a few beats more when I have something more “vintage” in my hands….

Hope I triggered you guys to go out and experiment with these old lenses, and experience the surprise I got when I mounted my first M42 lens on my A99. Feel free to share your experiences.

One final tip for today.
Soon I will post a review online from the M42 convertor ring I got from these guys, but before you go out and buy a convertor ring somewhere else, make sure to check this out, prices are really nice and they deliver worldwide, plus the quality is good.