Calling all gear heads, especially Canon fanboys, this review is for you. If you’re a photo geek and have spent any time on eBay, you know that “old glass” is experiencing renewed attention. Spikes in pricing are nothing new, especially in the film photography world, but with the advent of cheaply made, easily acquired lens adapters, it is now possible to get just about any old lens to work on your fancy pants digital camera. These old lenses are valued for their “look",” and if you want to read between the lines of the spin doctors, you could deduce that this means any unique quality that one cannot find on today’s optical offerings. I love the character of old lenses as much as the next dweeb, and have had wonderful results mounting some stellar Leica glass onto my Canon 6D. That’s right, I said Leica, so sue me.
In the interest of proving that you don’t need a bundle of cash to have fun with old lenses, I will focus this review on what is currently my “go to” lens, a Canon FD 50mm f1.8 lens. Pretty sure this was the standard lens that came with a Canon AE-1 when you bought one from Andre Agassi’s older brother, back in the day. My copy was obtained from a friend who found the camera and lens in the back of their closet. Maybe I could use it, they thought. Though I already had an AE-1 of my own, I graciously took it off their hands anyway. Figuring I might be able to play with the extra lens without any real consequences, I wondered to myself…”what would happen if…?” What if I dropped the lens on the ground? What if I smashed the lens with a hammer? If I scratched the front and back elements with course sandpaper? Yes, purists, I did all of these. And then bought a cheap adapter from Amazon to attach the abused lens to my digital camera. Viola! Unpredictable results. Unrepeatable photos. I dare you to try to recreate the photos I’ve been making with this gem. Follow my method, but know, your results may vary.
On to the real world usage. The lens has an aperture range from a wide open, bokeh wet dream of 1.8, all the way to f/16. However, I never use it on any setting other than wide open. It provides creamy, shallow depth of field, with a sweet spot of focus that would make a Lensbaby cry for its mommy. It also creates fuzzy areas of blasted out highlights that make shooting into the sun a hazed out misadventure. I usually shoot with a rubber lens hood to bring down the intrusive effects of the flared out haze from light sources. Even I have my limits for how much visual schmutz I can deal with. And even though I am a self-appointed film evangelist, I appreciate the ability to shoot with this lens on my digital camera, considering I have about ten frames of deletable photos for every one keeper. I find that setting the lens at the minimum focus point and then leaning in and out until something is in focus seems to work well. Not exactly “spray and pray” more like “creep and peep.”
As far as resulting images are concerned, please keep in mind that the raw images will most likely require some post-production work in Lightroom (my software of choice, not a paid endorsement…yet…ahem…) Especially to wrench some contrast out of the raw captures. No, that’s not cheating. Use your tools, be it a hammer or the clarity slider. I find nature subjects render best using this lens, but I bet you could probably do some cool night street shooting, especially with your ISO setting cranked up to 25600, or whatever the ungodly low light setting is nowadays.
I hope you are inspired to take a hammer to one of your extra lenses and give this approach a try. Or snag the cheapest lens you can find one eBay and give it a go. What have you got to lose, except reliability, predictability, perfection, and taking boring photos that look like everyone else’s?