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Friday, October 9, 2015

Legacy Lenses and the "Prime Shooting Style"

I'm having great luck using my ancient Canon FL series lenses on my E-M10. They offer a subtle difference in color and tonality that we don't see with modern lenses. The only drawback with m43s is that even my WA Canon primes are effectively normal lenses or longer.

I'm using focus peaking, and I shoot with the lens stopped down all the time even during framing and focusing. I get confused by having an open/close ring on the lens, and an open/close ring on the Fotasy adapter.

With these 'all manual' lenses I have the viewfinder set to automatically brighten to accommodate the stopped down state of the lens.

These lenses are fun to use and offer unique image qualities I don't think I'd get with the Zuiko lenses.

I'm also experimenting with 'one body', 'one lens' shooting as a result of using these lenses. I select one lens, attach it to the camera and, taking just that I go out and find some way to make that body/lens combination work to make a good photo. . . somehow. If I encounter something I simply CAN'T shoot with the gear I have, I come back another day, with a different lens. I think of this as a 'layered' approach to photography.

I enjoy this sort of shooting so much, I'm thinking of getting a couple of modern Zuiko primes to see how I like shooting wide in this way.

Below, a few examples of what my Canon FL lenses can do. Click on any to enlarge:

































Above, taken with Canon FL 50mm f/1.8
To the left, taken with Canon FL 100mm f/3.5












To the right, and below, taken with Canon FL 50mm f/1.8
















1 comment:

  1. I also use old Manual Focus lenses, Takumar (M42 screw mount Pentax).
    From your pictures in this article, I especially like the toolbox picture !
    And, you blog is interesting.
    PS: It's true that some retired people have time for photography. :)
    It's a healthy hobby to stay active and happy.

    ReplyDelete