The Limbo Connection's photos with the keyword: lenses

A heavily processed photograph made at Lacock Abbey on a misty winter morning. I used a Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar 50mm f/2.8 lens on a Canon EOS 20D. The lens was £12 on eBay sometime in 2013. The perspicacious Ken Rockwell observed some years ago that “when you use a $30 adapter to use an $8 lens on a $2,000 camera, you wind up with an $8 camera.” Vividly he made the point that buying a modern decent lens will produce better quality photographs, all other things being equal. The Tessar lens is an old and simple optical design. Even when the Practika MTL 5 camera was being sold new around 1976, the East German Tessar was the cheaper option to the Pentacon 50mm f/1.8 lens, which many will claim to be the superior choice. I have used the Pentacon, and enjoyed it, but repeatedly I have returned to the Tessar. I'm really not sure why. There’s more to it than simply being a cheapskate. And Ken Rockwell’s assertion is right, if your objective is to make perfect pictures. But I don’t think that actually is my objective, certainly not in all cases.

Photographed using a Nikon D90 + AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.4D lens.

Canon EOS 30D with kit lens EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6.

On the left: Nikkor-O.C Auto f/2 35mm; on the right: Nikkor-S Auto f/2.8 35mm. Both AI converted.

Toulouse-Lautrec framed.

I have used both the 18-135mm and the 18-70mm DX Nikkor lenses. Both are good. The 18-70mm is better built and faster, and the IQ is superior. But it lacks the reach of the 18-135mm which I found very useful when covering an event and wanting to avoid lens changes.