CONFLICT
VINTAGE / MODERN: A Study of Lenses
CONFLICT: Vintage vs. Modern An Introduction; It is a well-known fact that beauty does not equate to a state of perfection, yet society is somehow programmed to believe that the closer you are to perfection, the closer you are to achieving a higher degree of beauty as well. The same can certainly be said for cameras and camera lenses. As technology constantly develops and products are being developed in the thousands every single day, the world of photography keeps on advancing - with every piece of new equipment being advertised as ‘more powerful’, ‘more HD’ etc. However, I personally fail to see the appeal of ‘better’ equipment, especially when most photographs these days are the same generically produced content that generally serve to feed people’s social media followers. Throughout history, millions of beautiful, well-loved photographs have been produced, with the same equipment we now deem ‘old’ and ‘lousy’. For my related personal study, I therefore decided to both study and experiment a little myself, looking into the idea of vintage camera equipment and how they serve as a critique of society’s perceptions of beauty. The perceived notion of vintage equipment often subjects them to being referred to as ‘less than’ and ‘worse than’ or perhaps most frustratingly ‘cheaper than’ modern equipment. Somehow the correlation between something old and used, and perhaps less costly, registers in society as being of a lower standard. In my opinion, beauty and preferences are always subjective and the general
judgment that newer photography equipment is superior to older photography equipment is one that should be seriously reconsidered. Whilst in the initial development for this study, I considered a variety of different vintage equipment, including film and camera bodies, I decided instead to put to the test my collection of vintage lenses. Instead of studying someone else’s research, I decided to do some of my own. In order to make this RPS as personal as possible, I wanted to be able to draw my own conclusions without external judgement, and prove my point with concrete photographic, honest evidence. I have come to own a few vintage lenses, stemming from a hobby of experimenting with obscure lenses that produced images with intended flaws. As a generally pessimistic person, photography is actually something I use to remind myself of the beauty of the world. Even more significantly, the use of vintage lenses has allowed me to create unique photographs that have little imperfections that actually help to make the images more interesting. I am a fan of ‘Lomo’-style photos and photographs that possess slightly more neon or unnatural colours as I like them to have element of looking slightly surreal. In my eyes, the ‘surreal’ nature allows me to put realistic images in a otherworldly context, that triggers deeper thinking as one diverges into ideas such as possibilities or makes comparisons to the actual reality we’re in. This is something I definitely picked up whilst experimenting with the different lenses in my earlier project. The genre of Neo-Noir drove me to create a somewhat distorted picture of reality, one that reflected a different era from current time. Instead of using research from another photographer, I wanted to make this RPS more personal and give more of my own input. I think the words that come to mind when I mention the word vintage are often ‘second-
hand’, ‘cheap’ and perhaps ‘lousy’. Quality and vintage items are generally incongruent and all of us know that generally, the ‘best’ lenses on the market are often the most expensive ones, right? Wrong. The best lenses are the lenses that allow you to produce the photo that you want, that you are proud of, exactly how you want it. I have chosen to divulge into the details of four specific ‘vintage’ lenses and what exactly makes them so special. The lenses all possess special qualities that I value in the photos they produce, and I use each lens for a very specific reason. Many of the lenses I possess were actually produced during conflicts - during the space race, during the soviet union - and they allow me to feel a personal relation to a part of history. I love the fact that the lenses, to this day, even remain a source of conflict amongst both photographers and viewers of their work: does something have to stem from perfection to be beautiful?
WINTER WONDERLAND
ASAHI PENTAX SUPERTAKUMAR Beer? Perhaps something rather amusing about this lens is the fact that every time I mention it people just think of the alcohol brand ‘Asahi’. However, this is perhaps my favourite lens of all time. The lenses were produced from the 1950s to the 1970s and what first drew me to it was the unique 55mm focal length. I use it for my personal favourite form of photography, portraiture photography, and it delivers beautifully.
‘Flaw’ Generally, the criticism of this lens is the fact that the lens sometimes causes chromatic aberration. Chromatic aberration is also known as ‘Colour-fringing’ and it occurs when ‘colours are incorrectly refracted (bent) by the lens, resulting in a mismatch at the focal point where the colours do not combine as they should’. Chromatic aberration has led to some of my photos having coloured outlines around subjects. If you search up chromatic aberration online, most suggestions lead you to solutions on how to fix it. Chromatic aberration may not always help when you want to produce smooth, ‘clean’ photographs, as they produce a colour distortion that can be distasteful to some. However, I personally found that chromatic aberration has actually enhanced one type of photography for myself: snow.
The Beauty of Chromatic Aberration In the Winter of 2017-2018, I had the opportunity to capture the landscape of snow on 2 occasions, once in December and once in January. In December, I used only the Pentax lens, and in January, I decided to try using a Zeiss 22mm lens. Disregarding the difference in focal length, I was surprised to find that according to viewers of the images, the photographs taken by the Pentax lens were far more popular than those taken with the much-more-expensive Zeiss lens. The reason why? According to my friends, the ones taken with the Pentax looked more ‘magical’ which I later found out was due to the chromatic aberration of the snow, causing it to have a slightly purple hue along the outlines of both the snow and the bokeh. These made the snow look more tangible, bringing about a mild 3-D effect as if one was in the same location as the image.


The Zeiss Lens produced a very clean image, that was in my opinion, very cinematic and crisp. However, the accuracy of the photo, whilst making it feel extremely realistic, lacked the fantastical nature the photos captured with the Pentax lens were able to deliver. Whilst the image may look sharp and accurate, I much prefer the latter.
2018/01 - Zeiss Distagon 2.8/21
ZEISS DISTAGON 2.8/21 VS ASAHI PENTAX SUPER-TAKUMAR 55mm
2018/01 - Asahi Pentax Super-Takumar 55mm If you look closely enough, you will see that the snow has little purple/turquoise outlines caused by chromatic aberration of the lens. This makes each individual snowflake far more visible and as a result, the snowfall is seemingly ‘clearer’ and more 3-D to the viewer. This is what gives the photograph the element of ‘magic’ that makes it far more entrancing.
FOLIAGE
HELIOS 44-2 58mm f/2 The War This lens has been made since the early 1970s and comes from Ukraine’s Arsenal Factory. The lenses were produced for SLR cameras under the companies KMZ, MMZ and Jupiter. The Helios lenses, specifically Helios-44 were once one of the most mass produced lenses in the world. Many people compare the lenses’ double-gauss design to that of the East German Carl Zeiss Jena Biotar 58mm f/2 lens.
‘Swirly Bokeh’ What bought me over when I was looking at a variety of lenses, was the ‘swirly bokeh’ the lens was famous for. When I first began taking a bigger interest in portraiture, I became interested in lenses that created bokehs, admiring the way they were able to enhance the subject through the blurring of the background. I experimented with a couple of lenses, the Canon 50mm, the Pentax I mentioned before and even the Sigma 35mm - supposedly one of the most famous lenses for producing beautiful bokehs. Yet, nothing compared to the fascinating, unusual bokeh of the Helios lens. Many complaints that surround this lens include the manual aperture and the fact that the two rings, the primary and secondary rings, are complicated to use. In my opinion, as a true fan of manual control (you should control the camera not let it control you), this is actually one of the big advantages of the lens (and other vintage lenses). With this lens, I find that I can have nearly full control over the outcome of my photos. Some people don’t like the lens due to spherical aberration, which is caused by an increased refraction in light rays. The lens also lacks the crisp sharpness of more ‘HD’ lenses. But is that really necessary?
A Whirlwind In Autumn, I was thrilled to be able to shoot pictures of some of my friends before the weather became too chilly. What a blessing the lens was! A style I love to take my phots in is one where the subjects look like they are in a somewhat mystical world, and the Helios produced softtextured photographs that were definitely the most vintage-looking ones I managed to capture. The swirly bokeh that some people find distracting and abnormal performed well and did the one thing I aimed to achieve: movement. Not only did it make the blurred out background more unique, the slight twisting and turning of the bokeh revealed the movement of both the light and shapes, but also helped to create a sort of circular frame that brought more attention to the subject in the middle, working together to enhance the subject, not separate it.
I am aware that a 35 mm lens is bound to bokeh less than a 58mm lens. However, this lens does do do slightly. If you look carefully, the bokeh is rather uneven and I personally find that with the foliage, the small, uneven circles make the image rather awkward. In my opinion, the bokeh actually makes the model stand out rather a w k w a rd l y f ro m h e r background.
2018/03 - Zeiss Distagon 1.4/35
ZEISS DISTAGON 1.4/35 VS HELIOS 44-2 58mm
2018/03 - Helios 44-2 58mm The swirly bokeh on the Helios 44-2 is perfect for creating an ‘immersive’ image. The bokeh is not only smooth, but the swirling nature makes the bokeh almost form a spiralling motion around the model, which acts as a means of enhancing the focus (the model) through the background. To me, this gives the model and the environment around her more synchrony.
REMINISCENCE
INDUSTAR-69 28mm f/2.8 The Chaika The Industar-69 was a soviet lens made for the half-frame Chaika camera. Produced from the late 60’s to the early 70’s, the lens was produced with the Chaika cameras. They were designed during the era of the space race and the term Chaika, meaning seagull, was actually the first Russian female cosmonaut, Valentia Vladimirovna Tereshkova’s call sign, who’s fight occured in 1963, two years before the first Chaika camera launched in the market. The Chaika cameras are still popular today amongst lovers of the ‘Lomo’ culture.
‘Lomo’ I was absolutely terrified when I first got my hands on this lens. Unlike the other vintage lenses where everything was manual and I had total control, this lens had no stops on the aperture rings which meant too much control, or rather, two recklessly spinning rings and a very confused photographer. Apparently, this is common as many of these lenses are very worn and old, and they literally can’t be held down. A ‘pancake lens’ it is a very small lens which was very useful because not only was it easy to carry around in my pocket due to its small size, it was very light and did not add too much weight to my camera. Although one requires finger tip accuracy to control it, it can produce a variety of interesting effects in photos. It’s a very retro-style lens that, in true ‘lomo’ style, does not produce super-accurate, crisp images. Instead, the photos are far from sharp and the colours are often very flat. It can be hard to shoot accurate photos, but it is definitely the best lens to shoot artistic photos on. What I find is that the centre is often sharp yet many other parts of the image are slightly blurry with low contrast between shades. Yet, with this lens I love the fact that the images often look less than realistic. I think of photography as an art and rather than looking at something from the generic, clear, up-front, in-your-face perspective, I enjoy the lens’ faithfulness in allowing me to remain an onlooker, looking at the images as an observer. I always find that the images taken by the Industar-69 give off a mysterious air. The flatness and low contrast in particular, allow me to look upon the photographs as if they are paintings, paying close attention to the colours and the lighting. I know many people these days don’t seem to be fans of this ‘Lomo’ effect, yet when handled properly, this lens produces artworks that are reminiscent of the ‘Lomo’ feel, whilst still appealing to those who prefer a more ‘realistic’ vibe.
The Sigma 35mm is a beautiful portraiture lens, one that blurs the background very smoothly, and produces very vivid and clean images. However, if you look closely at the specific element of the model’s hair, you will notice a big difference in both photos. Here, the hair is sharp, each strand is clearly captures and there is a very clean-cut feel to the image.
2018/02 - Sigma 35mm f/1.4
SIGMA 35mm VS INDUSTAR-69 28mm
2018/02 - Industar-69 28mm f/2.8 Very unlike the Sigma, the pancake lens produces texture throughout the photo. In this image, again focusing on the hair, the lens gives it a somewhat blurry and generally outof-focus effect that makes the hair seem to have movement. This gives the shot more of a dreamy and mysterious feel, perhaps a more ‘vintage’ one.
FAIRYTALE FANTASY
INDUSTAR-61 L/D 55mm f/2.8 FED The most fascinating part of these lenses is always the history behind them. Like I mentioned before, the lenses really tie in with my main topic of conflict due to the nature of their backgrounds. The Industar-61 lenses in particular, were produced in the FED factory in Kharkov, Ukraine in 1991. The factory was actually named after Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinksy, founder of the Soviet secret police; a memorial in his name emerging from the Children's labour commune’s small workshops, a colony dedicated to the rehabilitation of the youth. The factory’s director, Anton Semyonovich Makarenko, a man often accredited for the rising popularity of the Leica cameras in Russia. A series of his work, captioned 'Taken with the Leica camera using cinema film’, in the popular Novyi LEF magazine, reflected his strong desire to emphasise the revolutionary format of his photography.In 1932, managing director A.S. Bronevoy decided to produce copies of the Leica Cameras. The factory had its ups and downs, definitely finding itself repeatedly in the middle of conflict - in 1934 Makarenko was fired and the factory put under control of the NKVD and in 1941, German forces destroyed the factory, leaving production stagnant until it reopened in 1946.
Radioactive Choosing to purchase this lens was actually a rather amusing process for me. For one, I had been constantly warned against buying it for a rather unusual reason: it was ‘radioactive’. The ‘L’ in L/D for this lens stands for ‘lanthanum’, which is the lens’ coating. Upon doing more research, I discovered that for the purpose of producing highly refractive glasses, some radioactive elements are added to specialty optical glasses. On online forums, people seem unwilling to buy an old lens that is considered to be dangerous or ‘hot’ to some, yet from the knowledge I gained, it is far more likely that our current, modern habits of constant cell-phone usage are far more likely to affect us than the little radiation left behind in the lenses.
A Flare For Focus Perhaps a combination of the desire to imitate a Leica lens, or the highly refractive glass coating; I find the lens’ two unusual features are its rather extreme flare and odd vignetting. Both of which, are arguably debatable qualities, ones that are likely to make the lens be deemed ‘unprofessional’. With this camera, flare makes up a good proportion of my photos. Yet, the flare is actually remarkable. The dispersion of light when pointed directly at the source actually provides a beautiful natural prism, often around the sides of my photos, that act as a very nice
and unusual frame for subjects. Another ‘issue’ people have is the focus of the camera. Perhaps as it was modelled after Leicas, famous for their vignettes, there is some falloff in the images, which varies at different F-stops. The rangefinder, however, is not as evenly circular as the Leica cameras, but the graduation between softer sides and a sharp, focused centre is a lot harsher. Personally, I find them perfect for taking portraiture or photos of individual objects, because the contrasts allows me to draw the viewer’s attention much more easily towards the subject I desire, making the photo perhaps more eye-catching and the intention and representation of the image far more obvious.
The Sigma 50mm got s o m e fl a i r , b u t i t captured an even, toneddown flare. You only see some streams of light coming in the corners of the lens, and in the photo it appears as a few rays of white light. This doesn’t add much to the photo on the left, and the flare only acts, in my opinion, to soften the image slightly.
2018/02 - Sigma 50mm f/1.4
SIGMA 50mm f/1.4 DG HSM ART LENS VS INDUSTAR-61 L/D 55mm
 
2018/02 - Industar-61 L/D 55mm f/2.8 A lot of people thought this image was photoshopped or that I had used a prism of mirror. In reality, it was just the lens of the Industar-61 that naturally created this unusual, intense flare that seems to mimic a prism. With the lens, I was able to u s e t h e fl a r e t o somewhat frame the model whilst adding an air of magic to the image.
Conclusion Perhaps the biggest takeaway from this study wasn’t my own increased knowledge of the lenses. It was the reaction of my friends, 21st-century millennials, to their results. Many of my friends loved the work with the Asahi lens in the snow in particular, as well as the swirly bokeh of the Helios-44. Of course, that doesn’t mean I will abandon the use of my other, newer lenses. I think modern lenses are fantastic in their own right - modern lenses are key in photography for advertising and for other commercial uses. These days developments to camera lenses like the RED cameras used on large-scale, big budget shoots and modern anamorphic lenses bring an element of reality to the viewers, a somewhat immersive effect that is perfect for the modern crowd at cinema screenings. Modern lenses allow for better clarity, better resolution and much higher definition. AS thousands of new lenses are pushed out everyday, audiences also get a larger range to choose from, and the ability to expand their experimentation and styles. The point of this RPS was not to disregard modern technology and its advancements but rather to prove the point that pre-conceived notions, especially those about vintage photography equipment, should not be a contributing factor in appreciating their results. As someone who really wants to see a change in the direction of the general use of photography from simply a form of promotion to a form of art and education, the use of vintage lenses was a starting point that allowed the reflection and study of the beauty of seeming imperfections. It proved that beauty is certainly subjective, taste is something that differs from person to person, yet we cannot dismiss the importance of learning to look at things from a different angle. I love how the lenses often stemmed from conflict, of how the lenses were sources of conflict, yet simply embracing their flaws and appreciating the uniqueness they bring to the photos brings a world of difference to the way we perceive them. Not only was this a study into photography, for me it was a real study into society and humanity; and it taught me the importance of bringing the idea of keeping and open mind and learning to see life from a new perspective. It highlighted the importance of opinion and subjectivity, which is something that also allows me to analyse and appreciate other photographers’ work as pieces of art, that although may not appeal to my aesthetic or visual taste per se, certainly brings colour and meaning to the life of others.