Why
Vintage Lenses
?
While it’s fairly easy to make the logical connection between nature photography and planting trees, using vintage lenses might not be such an obvious part of the formula.
There are several reasons for choosing vintage lenses:
sustainability,
character,
the experience,
value, and
a void of valuable information.
Sustainability.
Buying used instead of new contributes to a larger movement that would result in fewer new lenses being made, which means fewer resources that would be used in the construction of those lenses.
Modern, autofocus lenses aren’t just made with glass, metal, and plastic, but also electronic components. These materials are mined, processed, manufactured, assembled, and shipped from all over the world.
Every step of this process takes its toll on the environment, only for most new lenses to sit on someone’s shelf, or worse: in their closet.
Sure. Old lenses had an environmental cost, too, but their price has long been paid. That is, of course, with the exception of shipping to and from used buyers, like me, which has an infinitesimally small impact compared to the full production and distribution process of a new lens.
Buying new things today directly results in more new things being manufactured tomorrow, perpetuating the destructive cycle of needless production, consumption, and waste.
Am I vilifying anyone for buying new lenses? Not necessarily. I buy new things, too. It’s not practical, much less reasonable, to buy absolutely everything used. But we should all try to be more conscious of the environmental effects of our buying decisions, and to buy less new stuff that we really don’t need.
Character.
Aesthetics is a massive branch of philosophy that muses on the very nature of beauty and art, on which photography is just one tiny twig.
It’s in the character of vintage lenses where I find they provide immense aesthetic value over modern alternatives.
In the pursuit of technical perfection, instantaneous autofocus, and excessive resolutions, most modern lenses don’t have much at all in the way of character. While there are limitless ideas of subjective perfection, technical (objective) perfection all but necessitates convergence to a singular point.
On the other hand, pretty much all vintage lenses have loads of character, especially in the form of their bokeh characteristics and natural vignetting. Even ‘undesirable’ traits like aberrations and field curvature give vintage lenses a much more unique and, in my opinion, desirable aesthetic than modern lenses.
Like nature, the beauty of a vintage lens lies in its oftentimes chaotic imperfections.
The Experience.
Shooting with a vintage lens is a rewarding experience. Period.
This is largely because you’re physically focusing the lens yourself. You are more actively engaging in the photographic process. When you nail the focus, all the credit goes to you. Well done.
Sure: modern, mirrorless lenses with autofocus have focus rings, too, but they are generally pretty awful to focus manually. This is largely because they are focus-by-wire, which means there’s no direct, mechanical process happening when you turn the focus ring. (This is why there are no hard stops on a mirrorless focus ring, allowing the ring to turn indefinitely in either direction.) Instead, the lens digitally reads your input with the focus ring, then moves the elements of the lens somewhat accordingly. It’s usually a rather joyless experience.
In contrast, most vintage lens focus rings have weight, drag, and feedback that can be quite satisfying, making the whole process of taking a photo that much more of an involved and gratifying experience.
Plus, focusing manually forces you to slow down. This means an extra moment or two to subconsciously consider the frame before taking a photo, which almost always results in a better final image than if you were just mashing the shutter and putting your faith in autofocus.
And let’s be honest, we can all stand to slow down.
Value.
With few exceptions, vintage lenses are far cheaper than their modern equivalents, yet deliver results that are comparable, if not arguably superior due to their character.
We are all conditioned by media and advertising to have a certain mental picture of what societal norms are, and that picture includes buying what you want - new - no matter the ‘new’ debt you might accrue. (It’s the 21st century; can we all stop pretending we aren’t in debt?)
In my life experience, buying used always had this air of stigma around it. When I recommend buying used to most people - whether they be friends, acquaintances, colleagues, or students - they usually recoil at the notion, citing some baseless fear of receiving abused, inoperable junk.
This fear is no doubt a result of the used car salesman archetype in media, selling lemons whose issues are just out of reach of carefully-worded warranties.
As-is. No returns. No refunds.
These experiences have been real for some people, of course. But, like most things, the hypothetical fear is much more prevalent than the real experience.
Plus, sites like Ebay have extensive buyer-guarantee policies, so as long as you’re actually reading the description of the lens or camera listing and looking at the pictures, you have little-to-nothing to actually worry about.
Do I have a perfect history of buying used? Of course not. But I’ve definitely lost way more money buying new than used. And for what? Most of what you’re paying for is the smell of fresh plastic.
Finally, a massive benefit of buying used, but especially buying items that have fully or mostly depreciated in value, is that you aren’t always losing money. If you buy an average condition lens for the average value that it’s going for on the used market, you could hypothetically sell that lens a few months or even years later for the same amount that you paid for it. This practically means you were able to use a lens for a while, for free.
The used market ebbs and flows, of course. So, there is the possibility that a lens could depreciate while you own it. It’s just as likely, however, for a lens to appreciate in value during your ownership. Indeed, I’ve unintentionally made a profit on a number of vintage lenses just because their value went up while I owned a copy.
Compare that to buying new, in which you can guarantee that you’ll lose money, and it’s just a matter of how much.
There’s an old adage: we all drive a used car. This is true, of course, and the logic extends to lenses, too.
A Void of Information.
As someone who has been especially fascinated by vintage lenses for some time, I have found that there aren’t many good resources out there to learn about most of the lenses that pique my interest.
The sites that do mention these lenses rarely show actual images taken with them and are more focused on the generic specs. If they do have sample images, they are almost always boring sharpness and vignetting tests, which makes no sense to me.
So, in creating this site, I’m setting out first and foremost to actually *use* these lenses to capture nature, exhibit the results, and write about my use experiences in a way that would be practically beneficial to others like me.
Thank you for reading.