28 21 September 2019 I http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk I subscribe 0330 333 1113
V I N TAG E L E N S E S
Dennis
Grailich
Instagram @dennisgrailichBorn in the analogue
age in northern
Germany, Dennis
Grailich is a psychologist by profession
and an enthusiast photographer‘I STARTED to use vintage lenses about a year and a half ago.
I like the retro look and I used to do a lot of post-processing
with filters to achieve it. But I wanted to get out of that –
which is why I decided to go for vintage lenses.
‘The first lens I bought was a Helios 44-2, which is a
58mm f/2. It only cost me $30 but I quickly got some good
shots with swirly bokeh. I then got the Jupiter 11: a 135mm
f/4 Soviet lens, all metal and glass. F/4 isn’t that wide if you
want bokeh, but the sharpness is incredible. I could see the
tiniest hair on my son’s cheek when I zoomed into the image.
‘I bought the Olympus OM Zuiko 28mm f/3.5 and, more
recently, the Super-Takumar 55mm f/1.8. If I had to keep
one lens, it would be the latter. It doesn’t have the swirly
bokeh of the Helios 44-2, but in terms of colour rendition,
sharpness and contrast, it’s one of the best.
‘Vintage lenses have the sort of characteristics that were
once seen as defects. Modern lenses don’t have such defects- and you can’t reproduce them without post-processing.
But since I switched to vintage lenses I rarely use Photoshop,
perhaps only for small contrast adjustments.
‘You can find very decent vintage lenses for about $20 if
you’re lucky, but you have to know what to look for. It doesn’t
always need to be in excellent condition; you should pay
attention to fungus, although this is common, and avoid
deeper scratches on the rear element. The lenses I’ve found
easiest have the M42 mount; I just bought an M42-to-EOS
adapter for $1 on eBay.
‘The only downside I’ve
found with vintage lenses
is that you can’t see
which lens or aperture
you’ve used within the
EXIF data, but I can
recognise which is which
from their character.’
Benjamin
Dupont
Instagram @benbdphotoBenjamin is a self-
taught French
photographer based in
Bangkok, who owns more than 20 vintage
lenses and uses them on his Canon EOS 6DSwirly bokeh aboundsCanon EOS 6D, Helios 44-2 58mm f/2, 1/2500sec, ISO 400
The Jupiter 135mm
f/4 is one of many
lenses Dominik
uses on his travels
Sony A7R II, Jupiter-37A
135mm f/3.5Dennis favours the
M-E and Summicron
50mm f/2 lens
Leica M9, Summicron
50mm f/2, 1/1500sec
at f/3.4, ISO 250© DENNIS GRAILICH
© BENJAMIN DUPONT
The Leica Summicron 50mm f/2 on Dennis’s Leica M-E
The Jupiter 9
partnered with Ben’s
Canon EOS 6D DSLR‘I BOUGHT my first real camera when I was ten – a
Minolta X-300. Somewhere around 2000 I bought a
Nikon F80 and then the Nikon D1, before buying the
D2x, D3 and the D4 that I use today.
‘At the same time when I bought the D1, I found some
great deals on really good medium-format cameras and
lenses: two nearly mint Rolleiflexes for less than e10 0
each, and an East German Pentacon Six, which had a
wonderful “zebra” Carl Zeiss Jena Biometar 2.8/80 on
it. When I was longing for a macro lens for my digital
Nikon bodies, I stumbled over a Russian-made adapter
for those Pentacon lenses to the Nikon F mount. I added
some (back then) cheap distance rings to the Biometar
lens – and suddenly I had a wonderful macro lens.
‘The lens that gets most use on my Nikon D4 is the
Carl Zeiss Jena DDR Sonnar 2.8/180. At 1.1kg it’s really
heavy, and the depth of field wide open is razorblade-
thin, so focusing is an issue. But when you get it, it nails
it – even wide open at f/2.8. Shooting in black & white,
you don’t have to worry about your background – the
wonderful bokeh will take care of that. Shooting in
colour, you get a great tonality that is not flat but
pastel-like. It’s such a great lens for portraits, and
taught me that I like lenses that add some character.
‘Some people try to add that in Lightroom when
shooting with modern lenses, but I’m lazy, so I add those
effects by choosing a vintage lens. That’s why a modern
Leica Summicron-M 50mm f/2 only stayed on my Leica
M-E for a few months. I sold it and found a 1955
collapsible Summicron 50mm f/2 in mint condition in
a local camera shop for a fraction of the price of the
current-generation one and I’m much happier with
the results. This is the one lens that does it all for me
on a Leica, be it on digital or on my film M7.
‘And for those days when I want lot of character,
I use the 1939 Summar 2/50 with its swirly bokeh from
my Leica IIIf and have some fun. Most of the time I try
to avoid lens flare, which can be an issue with those
single-coated lenses. Although one day I really wanted
some flare in my pictures I found that it was harder to
provoke flare than to avoid it!’