After purchasing Takumar 55mm f/1.8 lens years ago, I started building my collection of vintage lenses, and because I don’t like spending a lot of money on them, I became a frequent visitor of thrift stores, flea markets, and online auction sites.
Hong Kong-based company H&Y has announced a new series of Black Mist Filters designed to work with the existing variable "REVORING" and magnetic clip-on filter systems.
A "vintage" bag company is being accused of scamming would-be product photographers. Vintage Bags Global apparently offered one photographer $1,250 to take five photos of a bag and the only requirement was that he pay $14 in shipping, something he points to as a "red flag."
The world of vintage lenses can provide a whole new experience to photographers but not everyone knows how to get started. To help others explore the unique characteristics of these decades-old lenses, a filmmaker has shared his best tips.
The $449 Petzval 55mm f/1.7 Mark II Bokeh Control Art Lens from Lomography is the first Petzval lens designed specifically for full-frame mirrorless camera systems like the Nikon Z, Canon RF, and Sony E. It's also fantastic.
Through the history of camera development, thousands and thousands of different types of lenses have been designed and produced. Some did not advance beyond the prototype stage, some were privately commissioned, and naturally many were mass-produced to one degree or another. Of these, some are particularly rare.
Just over a year ago, Lomography launched the 180th Anniversary Edition of the Petzval 80.5mm f/1.9 MKII Bokeh Control Art Lens which promised a bevy of improvements over its 85mm predecessor. It looked as though it would put a historic lens back in the hands in creatives at an affordable $549 price. So does it?
Filmmaker Zack Snyder reveals that the combination of an old lens mixed with his modern equipment allowed him to create the "dreamlike" and shallow depth of field sequences for his latest film, Army of the Dead.
A Wyoming-based photographer has uncovered a large collection of family photographs taken throughout the 20th century and digitized them to reveal and preserve the everyday lives of past generations.
A rare, collapsible version of the Meyer Primoplan 5cm f/1.9 LTM Leica M39 mm RF -- valued at $50,000 -- was listed for less than a day before the seller received a private offer to purchase it. Just a few months before, it was scooped up at a flea market for just $10.
Photographer Mathieu Stern was browsing a flea market when he came across a Zenit Fotosnaiper, a Soviet-era camera rig that looks and feels more like a rifle. Stern jumped at the opportunity to have a copy of his own and to go hands-on with the camera.
A camera collector recently discovered photos on a roll of film shot with a vintage Leica camera. The images, which seem to show a couple's travels through Europe, are estimated to have been shot around 70 years ago, and they've sparked a worldwide hunt for information about the couple and the locations.
Travel vlogger Drew Binsky was wandering the streets of Kabul, Afghanistan, recently when he came across an older photographer named Haji. In this 9-minute vlog, Binsky tells the story of Haji and how he has been shooting for 65 years using a 100-year-old box camera.
Maximilian Heinrich of Analog Insights recently inherited an 85-year-old Leica camera and handed it off to his friend Jules for repair and restoration. This 15-minute video is about the camera's journey from nearly being passed on to a camera store to being brought back to form.
The South China Morning Post published this 10-minute short film titled "The Camera Guardian." It's about Hong Kong shop owner David Chan, a lover of cameras who has spent over 60 years collecting and selling vintage photographic equipment.
Camera West recently received an unusual camera through a customer trade-in. In this 3-minute video, the camera shop takes a hands-on look at the Calypso, the first 35mm underwater film camera that didn't require a bulky housing.
We interrupt this regular news day to bring you a short, oddly satisfying recording of classic camera shutter sounds. Created by photographer Ace Noguera, he wanted to share a showcase of vintage cameras that was both visually and aurally satisfying. Thus was born The Evolution Of Camera Shutter Sounds.
Photographer, YouTuber, and weird lens connoisseur Mathieu Stern recently made one of his coolest finds yet. It's the Carl Zeiss 105mm f/1.9 Kipronar T, a cinema projector lens he describes as "one of the most amazing swirly bokeh lenses I ever tested"... and yet it only cost him $25.
A rare SLR camera from a century ago has been put up for sale. The Goerz Reflex-Jagd-Ango was a camera specifically designed for wildlife and expedition photography over a century ago, and one can now be yours for $3,500.
I had a chance to test a very rare lens: the Zuiko Auto-T 180mm f/2 ED-IF, an Olympus super-telephoto lens from the early 80s. Back then, the OM-system bodies that Olympus had were OM-3 and OM-4. Olympus had a very nice line up of Zuiko lenses for those cameras and other OM-system bodies. The one lineup they did not have was pro-grade fast telephoto lenses.
Arizona-based journalist and photographer Jim Headley recently set out on a "mission" to shoot an ultra-rare Japanese twin lens reflex camera called the Taroflex. Only 10 of these cameras are thought to still exist, and Headley is the proud owner of a fully-functioning copy in "excellent condition."
Portrait photos from over a century ago rarely show subjects smiling, but this 19th century photo is an exception, and it's been going viral online for that reason.
As with a majority of newbies to photography, the obsession with gear and chasing the newest toys proved to be irresistible to me. I spent far more time reading reviews, comparing charts, watching youtube videos, and looking for deals than actually going out and shooting.
Experimental photographer and "weird gear" collector Mathieu Stern made this 5.5-minute video about how he recently found a roll of mystery film inside a 60-year-old medium format camera.
Back in 2017, the Ukrainian startup Jollylook unveiled the world's first cardboard folding instant film camera. Today the company is back with a new "modern vintage" Instax camera called the Jollylook Auto.
Photographer and YouTuber Mark Holtze thinks that you (and everyone else) should give vintage lenses a try. And in the video above, he lays out his top 5 reasons why you should try vintage glass in 2020.
The folks over at The Phoblographer have uncovered a great "blast from the past" on YouTube: a compilation of old Kodak camera commercials from the 1950s and 60s that'll have you yearning for simpler times ... when it was much more complicated to take an actual photograph.
Remember those old lens advertisements you would see decades ago while flipping through magazines like National Geographic? Photographer Aaron Arizpe recently tried his hand at recreating the look and feel of those ads using his own lenses and editing skills.
On October 1st, inventor of the smartphone photo filter Hipstamatic made its grand return to the spotlight by releasing Hipstamatic X: a free iOS camera app that hopes to "bring all the joy, quirk, and randomness of film photography to your pocket."
Photographer Scott Graham recently put together a video that you'll either find incredibly boring or oddly satisfying. In preparation for the sale of a large number of his older analog and digital cameras, he created a video showcasing 37 different shutter sounds in 3 minutes and 30 seconds.