Old Lens Love - General - Facepunch Forum

Hello everyone. Since I've gotten in to digital photography and had my own DSLR I have been exposed to older elements of photography through my father. He was an art student at a university in the 80's and photography was one of his first artistic loves, so naturally he has acquired and kept lots of cameras over the years. He fell away from it in the late 80's after graduating from college and losing time that he previously spent with photography, but he did buy a Nikon film SLR before he graduated and he had only one lens with it, A 50mm f/1.8. Since I have entrenched myself in photography I began with the standard kit lens and always found myself wanting a little bit more. I remembered my dad had a bunch of old cameras and equipment but hardly ever talked about it. I coerced him into letting me borrow and use the 50 f/1.8 and since I started using it I can't stop. It was an AF lens, so it had to be manually focused on my D3100, but that was no issue. At least it had exposure metering and things of that sort. I know it was a wall of text, but I like to share the story since I always find it neat how lens mount technology hasn't changed in many years. At least in Nikon's F mount. Anyways. Post up your old lenses, photos you've taken with them, stories about them, anything of that sort. I'll start it off with the ones I've owned or currently own. First old lens: [B]AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8s[/B] [IMG]http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/companies/nikon/nikkoresources/50mmnikkor/AF_Nikkor50mmf18_MK1_A.jpg[/IMG] The lens my dad gave me. I used it for a good while until he wanted to reclaim it to get out and do some photography of his own while I went to college. Sample image from it: [URL="http://www.flickr.com/photos/millerroberts/5367622970/"][IMG]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5048/5367622970_413a276eca_z.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL="http://www.flickr.com/photos/millerroberts/5367622970/"]Untitled[/URL] by [URL="http://www.flickr.com/people/millerroberts/"]millerroberts[/URL], on Flickr Second old lens: [B]AI-S [/B][B]Nikkor 28mm f/2.8[/B] [IMG]http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/images1/28-ai-s/DSC_5128-28-ais.jpg[/IMG] Lens I bought off a friend along side a 50mm f/1.4 pre-AI lens. It's a really fun lens for daily walking around and shooting. Nice shallow DOF at close range and just an overall sharp lens. Only downside really is no exposure metering, so you can shoot only in manual mode, at least on my camera. That isn't a big deal though. Sample image from it: [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/millerroberts/6149010457/][img]http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6172/6149010457_c1d8534537_z.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/millerroberts/6149010457/]Untitled[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/millerroberts/]millerroberts[/url], on Flickr Third old lens: [B]Pre-AI Nikkor-S 50mm f/1.4 [/B][IMG]http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/companies/nikon/nikkoresources/50mmnikkor/KWeiman_NikkorS.jpg[/IMG] Bought along side the 28 f/2.8. I bought this and the other lens for $100 total, and I'm fairly certain I got a damn good deal. Again. A really fun walking around shooting. The bokeh this lens produces is absolutely creamy and smooth, but my only beef with it is that when opened wide in a high contrast environment a little bit of ghosting begins to occur. This is fairly normal for a lens with such a wide aperture, but still a bit of a nuisance. I like to stop it to 2.0 if I'm shooting quickly, and that works very well. Same issue as the 28 f/2.8 though, in that fact that it has no exposure metering on my camera because of how old it is. But for a 50 year old lens, it still looks damn fine. Sample image from it: [URL="http://www.flickr.com/photos/millerroberts/6216391699/"][IMG]http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6225/6216391699_f03d7e90bd_z.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL="http://www.flickr.com/photos/millerroberts/6216391699/"]sooc[/URL] by [URL="http://www.flickr.com/people/millerroberts/"]millerroberts[/URL], on Flickr So show off your old lenses. Tell some stories. I'm interested to know where people get their old lenses. I've definitely developed a taste for them.

I'm stacking up quite the collection of old 50mm nikon lenses, but I primarily carry a 50mm 1.8 and a 28 1.8 with me. Depending on my mood I'll use an old pancake 50, but if I think I'll be needing some fast autofocus I'll use my new one. My 28 is heavy/slow to focus, but reeeeeally crisp. [img]http://www.tumblr.com/photo/1280/9894998886/1/tumblr_lr4jssVEjb1r223xw[/img] [img]http://www.tumblr.com/photo/1280/9895089615/1/tumblr_lr4jw4GBeB1r223xw[/img] I've got a growing collection of all sorts of old cameras and lenses, maybe I'll dig through them tomorrow and list things out in full

Here's my medium format stuff, which is a fair bit more exotic than my 35mm stuff; first here's my 105mm f3.5 mamiya-sekor TLR lens. This would have to be the favourite lens that I own, When I first got it it had a sticky shutter (it's a leaf shutter lens) so after spending $90 to have someone clean all the shut off the shutter blades it ripped out insane photo after insane photo. it's roughly a 55mm FOV equiv. in full frame [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/jhaslehurst/6289398492/][img]http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6216/6289398492_98c8fba1d6.jpg[/img][/url] second is my 65mm f3.5 mamiya-sekor TLR lens for the same system, this lens is also pretty insane at what it does, giving that kind of shallow DoF at a fullframe 35mm focal length. [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/jhaslehurst/5664238525/][img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5188/5664238525_945a5e46f2_z.jpg[/img][/url] Not entirely sure on this one because I can't read Cyrillic, I'm pretty sure it's called the Moskva 110mm f/4.5. I think half the joy of this lens and it's attached camera is the 6x9 goodness, the negs come out the size of small polaroids and it scans up to something stupid like 8000x5000. The whole camera just gives off that something special for me that's hard to quantify. [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/jhaslehurst/6099796239/][img]http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6076/6099796239_9a4918e1e7_z.jpg[/img][/url]

[QUOTE=H4Z3Y;33197149]Here's my medium format stuff, which is a fair bit more exotic than my 35mm stuff; first here's my 105mm f3.5 mamiya-sekor TLR lens. This would have to be the favourite lens that I own, When I first got it it had a sticky shutter (it's a leaf shutter lens) so after spending $90 to have someone clean all the shut off the shutter blades it ripped out insane photo after insane photo. it's roughly a 55mm FOV equiv. in full frame second is my 65mm f3.5 mamiya-sekor TLR lens for the same system, this lens is also pretty insane at what it does, giving that kind of shallow DoF at a fullframe 35mm focal length. [/QUOTE] Hooray for the Mamiya TLR system and interchangeable lenses! I want a 65/55mm so bad, but the 80mm will hold me I think. Well... All my lenses are old as hell, along with my camera... [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/drewkoro/6176328824/][img]http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6158/6176328824_31c1dfeb05_m.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/drewkoro/6176328824/]Vivitar 135mm f/2.8[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/drewkoro/]drewkoro[/url], on Flickr When I have the room for it, I love using this lens, it's even got the lens hood built in. Most times I'm using my Vivitar 50mm f/1.8 kit lens, but I think 36 or so years has worn it down to retirement. Starting to check out this 55mm f/1.8 Mamiya Sekor Sx now... My favorite picture with it (that's on Flickr), I know there's more somewhere, just gotta go find em, doesn't show of the nice DOF of the 135mm... [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/drewkoro/6175793287/][img]http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6177/6175793287_7442fa06d6_m.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/drewkoro/6175793287/]Sunrise OC 4[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/drewkoro/]drewkoro[/url], on Flickr

I have an Olympus Zuiko 50mm f1.4 that can produce some pretty good results. [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/mayorcallaghan/5541677399/][img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5251/5541677399_5a5d01a51a_z.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/mayorcallaghan/5541677399/]Ok-Good[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/mayorcallaghan/]MayorCallaghan[/url], on Flickr Here's a picture I took with it mounted on my Olympus E-PL1. [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/mayorcallaghan/5728191425/][img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2288/5728191425_48eb5ecdd9_z.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/mayorcallaghan/5728191425/]Motor Scooter[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/mayorcallaghan/]MayorCallaghan[/url], on Flickr

Saw the darkroom at University today with the Union with the setting up of the new Photography Society. Rummaged around and found one of those Nikon pancake 50mm prime lenses. I've nabbed it before we've made a inventory checklist :P

[QUOTE=Pickwickian-;33215585]Saw the darkroom at University today with the Union with the setting up of the new Photography Society. Rummaged around and found one of those Nikon pancake 50mm prime lenses. I've nabbed it before we've made a inventory checklist :P[/QUOTE] Stealing D:

picked up an OM zuiko 75-150 zoom today, pretty damn good condition and only £15, charity shops seem rather good for old camera stuff if you look enough

[QUOTE=Roll_Program;33219501]Stealing D:[/QUOTE] I'll be giving it back at the end of the year. But at the moment, there's only 3 of us in the society and I'm the only one using a Nikon with the right mount, so I thought I'd put it to use.

brother picked up a 50mm carl zeiss 1.8 lens for around £3 at a car boot sale as the woman didnt have a clue

Purchased an old 50mm 2.0 Pentax k-mount for $15 at a pawn shop. Gave it to a friend

my favorite old lens is my 55mm FL 1.2 it's great on my nex (even though the focus is so soft and has so much fringing, and i suppose it's good on my AE-1P even though since it's not an FD lens i don't know how to meter properly with it.