Good day everyone. Just recently I bought a vintage lens and i'm fully captivated by what an old lenses can produce. It's just bring back that old feeling when film photography is at the best a long time ago. By today contrast, digital photo and modern lenses for is just very sharp compare to the old film looks. For commercial works, modern lenses are the standard nowadays and its a must if we as a photographer or videographer to land a paying job. But, when I get my hand on this vintage lens, I realize that today lenses just don't have their personal character or personality other than the sharpness and the bokeh quality.
My first exposure of camera is the point and shoot automatic film camera that my father owns in the 90's. Those were the times when I never really learn the technical side of handling a camera and just point and click, waited until all the films inside were used and sent to the photo shop to process it. We never know the outcome until all the film were process and there were times the photo were not in focus at all. But, we never really care because those moments is what really matter. Even when I see the photo, blurry and with no visible sharpness on the subject outlines, I can still feel the emotion of that exact moments. It is what we hold dear to our hearts when the things in that photo is not with us anymore.
The vintage lens that I just acquired last week is the Helios 44-2 58mm f2.0 that is known for the swirly bokeh. It's a fully manual lens and it took me a quite sometime to get the focus right. Most of the time, I didn't nailed it but when I see the outcome, I just amazed. It gives the feeling of the old film look that I took long time ago. The subject is sharp but not really as sharp as the digital look that todays gave with modern lenses. It just gives me back the old feeling. I still need to practise a lot with this lenses because I'm now too used with autofocus that I'm now struggling with fully manual focus lenses. Here's a few photo that I took during our National Day on the 31st of August last week. There's a few shoot that I not really sharp but I just feel that its shows the character of the lens.
A group of young cultural dancers taking a wefie at the end of the events.
A candid shot of this young cultural dancers lady from the side.
I ask her to get her portrait and she said yes. There's a bit of flare at the bottom of the photo which is very prevalent to this lens when shoot directly facing a strong backlight. Can be reduce by using a lens hood but at the moment I don't have one.
Another portrait of these 3 ladies wearing the Bajau Samah traditional custome.
Portrait of these two gentlemen wearing the malay's custome. They are part of the contingent doing the parade in this event.
The Kadazan Dusun Cultural Association Sabah contingent are getting ready to get a group photo. I took this chance to snap a candid and there's a few that look in my direction.
The ladies of Kadazan Dusun Cultural Association Sabah contigent.
The Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd contingent taking a group photo.
The portrait of Unduk Ngadau Kamatan Kota Marudu 2022 winner.
The men attire of the Toraja custome.
The lady attire of the Toraja Custome.
Another attire of the Toraja custome.
The Toraja ethnicity group portraits.
This is the young lady custome of the Toraja ethnicity.
The Kadazan Dusun custome wear by this two lovely lady.
Working with this lens is very challenging especially if I were to go for a run and gun kind of shoot. It took time to nail that focus properly and thanks to today camera technology, the focus peaking help quite a lot but I've rarely used this function. It took me quite sometime to get used to this focus peaking because I feel that the red blue dot are in the way of me seeing the composition on the screen. This is going to take sometime to get used to. Until next post, have a great day everyone.
