56 21 September 2019 I http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk I subscribe 0330 333 1113
Craig Morgan
● Tamron Adaptall-2
28mm f/2.5When my interest in photography
fi rst started six years ago, I bought
everything new and each lens
I bought had to have Canon’s
famous red ring. After many
pounds spent and lost on selling
and trading in for other lenses, it
fi nally feels like the contents in my
camera bag have settled down.
My lens collection is now a
modest three lenses, with two of
them purchased used and one
that doesn’t even fi t my camera!
The lens in question is the
Tamron Adaptall-2 28mm f/2.5.
Purchased in great condition
for under £40 on eBay, it is my
choice for close-up macro. I
specifi cally bought it so I couldJohn Harrison
● Zeiss Planar T* 50mm
f/1.4 ZEI’d been a great fan of the ‘nifty
fi fty’ approach to candid shooting
for a while and I loved the
versatility of my cheap Canon EF
50mm f/1.8. Then there came the
inevitable point where the picture
quality produced by this lens just
wouldn’t cut it, and it was at this
point that the weeks of research
into better-quality glass and
f1.4/1.2s began. I’d heard lots of
good things about Zeiss lenses.
Undeniably the image quality isTestbench READERS’ LENSES
Richard Sibley
● Nikon 50mm f/1.4
NIKKOR-S Auto
When I saw the Nikon 50mm f/1.4
NIKKOR-S Auto lens on the shelf
in the camera store for just £80, I
knew I had to have it. Going by the
serial number, my copy dates from
around 1967 – and it certainly
looks like a lens that is more
than 50 years old. I often wonder
where this lens has travelled and
what it has photographed? There
is always a chance it may have
taken an iconic image, or equally
that it may have been unloved in
the back of someone’s cupboard
for a few decades.use it in reverse with a suitable
adapter ring for photographing
insects. There’s nothing new
about this method of course,
but the 28mm focal length
gives me 3x magnifi cation on
my subjects.
It’s a fully manual lens so
shooting macro at a fi xed f/16
aperture while looking through
the viewfi nder is rather diffi cult,
so I fi nd myself using live view
and my camera’s tilting screen
for this technique, with focusbeing achieved by physically
moving the camera back and
forth. After owning dedicated 1:1
macro lenses, some might deem
it strange to fi nally settle for a
cheap used bare-bones lens, but
I just fi nd it more of a challenge
this way. It’s also defi nitive proof
that buying used has its perks,
can save you money against new
and as long as you look after
your used gear, you can usually
get back what you originally paid
for it if you decide to sell it on.Craig enjoys
the challenges
that come with
using a lens in
reverse for his
close-up images
of insects
Canon EOS 80D,
1/250sec at f/16,
ISO 200John wanted a
sharper 50mm
lens and picked
up a used Zeiss
Planar 50mm
f/1.4 ZE for
£375 from a
trustworthy
second-hand
retailerexcellent with tremendous
edge-to-edge sharpness, colour
reproduction and brilliant handling.
The biggest draw was the
manual-only focus mechanism.
Obviously this means the lens is
not really suited to sports/wildlife,
etc. but with proper considerationof DoF and hyperfocal distance,
great results are possible. The
point being that going for a
manual-focus lens forced me
to think much more about my
shooting than I ever had before.
Second-hand lenses can be a
bit of a minefi eld and there arecertainly many sellers online who
are maybe less than transparent
when it comes to the inner quality
of the lens. Ascertaining quality
from screen images is very diffi cult
so we tend to rely on the seller’s
judgement. There are reputable
second-hand retailers who have
good return policies to give a little
added confi dence, and it was from
one of these that I purchased my
lens. The description read along
the lines of ‘used with some
cosmetic signs of wear and some
dust inside the barrel not affecting
lens quality’. The ‘cosmetic signs
of wear’ amounted to two small
scratches. As for the dust, I© CRAIG MORGAN
© RICHARD SIBLEY