Coast and the Power of Imperfect Glass
I have the feeling that every day looks like the previous one since the pandemic hit. The options are limited because of Covid-restrictions, work, budget, different interests, … It takes a more proactive approach than usual to break the monotony. But an afternoon at the coast is always a good idea for every member of the family.
Before every trip, short or long, I have to go through the painstaking process of picking a camera and lens. I always want to take as little as possible. I ponder over these choices for hours, sometimes days. Once I’ve closed the front door behind me, I’m fine with whatever choice I made. But until then I keep changing my mind. It shouldn’t matter, my phone is good enough to capture some memories, nothing else is at stake. And still it does, I’m wondering if other photographers go through the same struggle.
In the end I decided to go for my vintage Minolta Rokkor 58mm F1.4. The adapter to put this lens on a GFX-50R costs more than I paid for the lens on eBay. The lens flares, isn’t that sharp, vignettes, is hard to focus, … it doesn’t come close to any of the native lenses. But it’s magic. I just love how it renders.
Look at the left bottom corner. When focussing further out, you sometimes get this toy camera smearing in the corners.
You can clearly see the vignetting in the corners. It can actually be solved pretty much completely in post but with vintage glass, I usually don’t try to fight the imperfections, but embrace them instead.
Yes, I did bring a second camera (X100V). But only because I know the kids sometimes like to take some snaps too. That way I’m in a picture myself every now and then.
I missed the focus a little bit here. I think this picture was shot at f2, not easy to manually focus with such a shallow depth of field. I got pretty good at it, but honestly I often don’t care if I’m a little bit off.
Look at how the grass in the top of the picture renders. I don’t know any modern lens that can do that.
I hadn’t used this lens for a while but I’m definitely going to explore it’s quirks a bit more soon.
Want to see what the rest of the family shot? Here you go …
