Shiny New Gear: Is It Worth It?
How retro lenses are shifting my thoughts about camera stuff, and how you can get started using retro lenses yourself.
Last week I sold thousands of dollars of camera equipment. Some of it was nearly brand new, and it included some amazing modern lenses, a nearly-new camera, and some accessories I wasn’t using.
I had been wanting to get rid of the stuff for a while, but something kept holding me back. I bought each lens for a specific reason, and each one is a marvel of engineering and technology.
One of them, an amazingly small and light macro, was one I didn’t want to let go of. It was so clinically perfect that I swore up and down I “needed” it for the best macros.
Until I started using this lens:
This is an old, old lens. It’s older than I am (and I’m nearly 50), and when I found it, it was dusty and had some dirt in the focus mechanism. I could hear the grains of sand move around every time I focused.
It’s the Nikon Nicro-NIKKOR 55mm f/3.5 Micro - a “macro” lens that has no electronic contacts and no autofocus.
I love it. You can get a great-condition used one for under $100. I’ve seen them for under $50.
Using this lens is a sublime experience.
It slows me down. It makes me think.
This lens? It doesn’t hold a candle to the modern macro lens I sold. The modern lens has lighting-fast autofocus, custom buttons on the side, a focus limiter, weather sealing and 1:1 macro reproduction.
This Nikon lens, on the other hand? The edges are a little blurry when the aperture is wide-open. It’s not super easy to focus and can’t even do 1:1 macro work. It can only do two things: change aperture and change focus.
But the more I use it, the more I WANT to use it. It also doesn’t have the “weight” of being a $1000 plus lens!
Here are a few shots with the old Nikon. I think they are pretty awesome:
NOT BAD for a lens older than I am!
For years now I’ve been buying too much gear. I thought I “needed” so much of it. A specific camera for a unique situation, and enough lenses to cover anything I could think of.
In doing all of this, I’d buy new and get the best quality stuff I could get.
Sometimes, this is good. A photographer should choose the right tools for the right job, and often we think the best lens is the one that costs the most, has weather sealing, perfect corners, quick autofocus, and custom buttons on the side.
Sometimes this stuff is needed and allows the photographer to solve a specific problem.
But way too often we are just doing what the marketing people want us to do: emptying our wallets into their accounts. Every time I opened my camera gear cabinet, there was a growing angel on my shoulder whispering to me: “do you really need all of this?”
I don’t.
Letting go of a lot of my gear isn’t only going to help me pay the bills, it’s also “freeing” in a way that feels good.
Here is a kick-ass quote my amazing wife, Casey, sent me recently:
“Clutter isn’t just the stuff in your closet. It’s anything that gets between you and the life you want to be living.” - Peter Walsh
This quote rings true for me. I don’t want to live under the weight of all these expensive bags of gear.
So now my daily camera bag has five light and small retro lenses from the 50s, 60s and 70s.
I’m creating images I love with them, and I’m using them all the time. Collectively, all of these lenses can be purchased used for under $400, and they include my favorite focal lengths (24mm, 35mm, 50mm, 135mm and the macro I talked about earlier).
This lens, the Minolta 50mm f/1.4 was my father’s lens. It’s pure inspiration fuel for my soul.
Every time I use it, there’s a little burst of joy inside of me, knowing he once took family photos with it many decades ago.
This lens has incredible character to it, and creates amazing art for me. It’s terribly flawed by modern standards, and I LOVE THAT.
Here is a video I made using that lens - an ode to my father:
NOW IT’S YOUR TURN!
If you want to start using a retro lens, how do you get started?
First, find the lenses you want to use with your modern camera. Sites like KEH and MPB have some fantastic options. eBay has a ton of retro lenses, and many local camera stores are full of them!
Once you have a lens chosen, you’ll need a camera mount converter.
For my father’s 50mm lens, which is a Minolta MC mount lens, I needed to find a converter to use on my my modern cameras, the Fujifilm X-H2 and Nikon Zf. I just did a quick search for “Minolta MC mount to Fuji X-Mount converter” for the Fuji, and put in “Z Mount” when looking for the converter for the Nikon.
From here, I chose something cheap. The top hit on Amazon from “Fotasy” was the one I chose, and it’s worked fantastic so far. (Like almost anything in the hobby space, you can go cheap, or you can spend a lot more… depending on your needs, sometimes going cheap works!)
Once you get the converter, just mount your lens on to it, then screw it on your camera like you normally would.
That’s ALMOST all there is to it!
Many modern cameras have image stabilization built into the body and in order for the stabilization to work correctly, you have to tell the body what focal length you are using with that old retro lens.
So for my father’s 50mm lens, I go into my Fujifilm menu under “mount adapter settings” and input my retro lens specifications:
As you can see, you have multiple lenses you can program into your camera body.
The “catch” is that you need to remember to change this setting every time you use a different retro lens (newer lens communicate information automatically to the body).
Once you’ve got the lens focal length dialed in, you can start shooting!
The main challenge with these lenses is focusing. Some cameras don’t have a ton of resolution in their viewfinders, so finding critical focus can be tough. That’s where the manual focus assist can come in handy. Different cameras have vastly different ways of dealing with this, so you should look up your specific camera on how to do this.
However, once you get the focusing assist mode you want to use (if you use one at all), you can get out and start shooting with confidence.
My advice is to embrace the flaws and imperfections inherent in that old glass.
This example is from my dad’s old Minolta 50mm f/1.4 lens, and I love it:
It’s totally flawed in the best of ways. In a stream of modern lenses creating technically perfect results, throwing some craziness in the mix is a lot of fun, and for me, at least, visually pleasing.
So what are you waiting for? GET OUT THERE AND TAKE PHOTOS! Share them with me if you want. I’d love to see them!
Are you wanting an ADVENTURE?
My buddy Jeremy and I are taking a group of photographers out West to check out that part of Nebraska. We’re going to visit Chimney Rock, Toadstool, Scott’s Bluff Monument, Carhenge and more. It’s going to be an epic adventure, and if you’re in the area, you should check it out!
It’s going to be from May 31 - June 2, and it’s going to be a blast.
Click the link to the website, which has all the nitty-gritty details:
If you found this article helpful, it would be an honor if you shared it with others. And if you have questions, just ask!