20171212-0051-Edit by Chris Osborne Via Flickr: I recently treated myself to an early Christmas present of some new vintage lenses. Among them was a Canon L39 Leica screw mount 50mm f1.2 rangefinder lens. It is a seriously impressive chunk of glass that weight in at about 350 grams (380 grams with an adapter so I can mount in on a digital camera) and it looks bad ass on my Fujifilm X-E1 ha ha But what kind of photos does it produce? Well, my first thoughts turned to what kind of photos this lens would produce when used wide open. So one lunchtime I headed to Grey Friars Kirk Yard in Edinburgh's Old Town (not far from where I work) for a very quick first go. There is no point in expecting a 60 year old lens to compete with modern glass. I use vintage glass to get something different from modern glass, not compete with modern glass. And sure enough wide open this lens is pretty soft, low contrast and hazy and gives that 'glow' you often see with fast vintage lenses. And all this comes with a pretty catastrophic dose of chromatic aberrations. But once I processed the photos in Silver Efex Pro I really liked the results... they seem to particularly suited to lack and white (when the CA matter less) and certainly give quite a distinctive character. I'm certainly looking forward to more extensive testing at other apertures.
