Goldie Oldies, or How the "Vintage" label Drives Prices...

[cgw120 146]

I confess to being a cynic by nature but find articles like this mildly annoying, if anything for their influence on prices. Still, the dizzying range of decent "X-mount to Y-camera" adapters just broaden our opportunities for fun.

10 Vintage Lenses That Work Great on Mirrorless Cameras

Some great vintage glass you shouldn't ignore.

petapixel.com

FWIW, I've enjoyed what a couple oddball Nikon lenses--100/2.8E and 45/2.8P--produce on my Fuji X-T1s.

 

[mrca]

I use older lenses or designs primarily. I replaced my pro nikon lenses with them. Half are manual focus. I manual focused for 35 years before digital so no big deal. On 2 medium format film cameras just installed split prism focusing screens to make it as easy as the 35 mm film cameras. The d850 has 2 arrows in the lower L corner telling you which way to twist the focus ring and when you nail focus a confirming meatball appears between them. My RB67 lenses have 5 elements, my nikon 70 to 200 22 elements. How much low energy shadow light detail is sucked up going through 17 extra pieces of glass. Let your glasses throw a shadow on the floor and not the lens creates a shadow, guess why, it reflects and blocks light.

 

[RacePhoto]

Modern glass lenses are better than most older glass lenses. Modern plastic lenses are not likely to be better than older glass and metal body lenses. Less isn't more (even though I try to maintain that it is) I don't really think the lens designers are adding expense and making them more complicated for no reason?

I tend to not own or shoot cheaper lenses, it's simple. The more expensive Canon lenses aren't just priced because they have the letter L on them. You can only fool people for so long and we all have eyes and there are all kinds of technical tests to check up on claims.

Let me try a point of logic. If old lens designs are better than new, why create a new design? Just keep making the best one?

If someone likes the results from old lenses, that's not wrong, just a matter of taste in what the finished results are and what's desired. I'd never use a Lensbaby but some people love them. Some older lenses can have a special feeling and characteristics. We have choices. Bokah

Odd that vintage FD lenses are going up in value now that mirrorless has become the modern tool. And the same for Nikon and others. All the years I laughed at someone trying to sell a FD lens on eBay for some rather high price. Oh darn, I missed it again and I was wrong.

Canon FD 300mm L F2.8 Lens MF w Hood Excellent FD Telephoto f/2.8 under $700? If I only had a mirrorless camera?​

 

[mrca]

How are newer lenses better? When digital reared it's ugly head in 2000, photography was flooded with computer geeks, numbers folks, engineers, accountants. They started measuring everything by the numbers, measurbators. Pixels, resolution, sharpness, vignetting, chromatic aberration could be measured and they demanded it be eliminated. Additional glass elements were added to the tube so a 70-200 has TWENTY TWO piece of glass in the tube. My 180 d has 8, 14 pieces of light sucking, reflecting back pieces of glass. So modern lenses are free of all those measurable characteristics. But separation, ie 3D pop like zeiss pop or leica look, gone flat 2 dimensional images. Rendering of shadow detail, huge muddy areas compared to copious shadow detail in low element lenses. And what is b&w, just contrast. Think a 16 box of crayons vs 64. Bokeh can't be measured but I can say the new nikon 105 bokek literally made me nauseous. But the bokeh on the 100mm zeiss makro planar, like budda. Same for the bokeh king the 135 dc. Now they may not be quite as super sharp as new glass, but there is that thing called photo shop that lets me make up the difference. And to some of us, some things can be too sharp, try the wrinkles or pores on a portrait of a 60 yr old woman. So is there a difference between the 180 lens or the 70-200, big time. But if the only thing someone knows about lenses is sharpness, then they won't realize the difference. I don't buy wine on the basis of alcohol content and don't buy lenses on sharpeness alone either.

 

[webestang6415 2]

Time to look through the collection and maybe make a few bucks.

 

[cgw120 146]

Time to look through the collection and maybe make a few bucks.

I know the feeling. Have mint Mamiya RB67 and Bronica SQ-B kits I should put on the block. Japanese sellers are asking--and getting--some serious scratch these days for medium format gear.

 

[mrca]

cgw, They have appreciated a bunch over the last few years.