{"id":10250,"date":"2025-09-07T18:46:36","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T18:46:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/?p=10250"},"modified":"2025-09-07T18:46:37","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T18:46:37","slug":"yet-more-on-using-vintage-lenses-on-a-modern-mirrorless-camera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/?p=10250","title":{"rendered":"Yet more on using vintage lenses on a modern mirrorless camera"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I have done some more experimenting using old lenses. In this post I will show some close-ups with the Brownie lens, and using a 50mm Paterson enlarger lens – a budget lens from the 1970s\/80s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First I will show some of the close-up photos taken with the Kodak Brownie lens. As expected with the lens there is, not just softness around the subject, a distinct blurred halo:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Verbina in the garden taken using a lens from a Brownie six-20 (1930s-40s)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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An unopened lilac coloured hosta flower in the garden taken using a lens from a Brownie six-20 (1930s-40s)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Opened lilac coloured hosta flowers in the garden taken using a lens from a Brownie six-20 (1930s-40s)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The next lens I am experimenting with is a darkroom enlarger lens supplied by Paterson who were a leading budget darkroom supplier in the 1970s-80s. This is from a secondhand darkroom kit I bought for my daughter when she was studying photography at school. I hadn’t realised how bad the lens quality was!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Flowers in a pot showing the poor quality of the old lens – only the centre is reasonably sharp<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A view of the garden, also taken with the Paterson lens, showing the distortion around the edges<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A closer view in the garden also shows the distortions around the centre of the image.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There is a type of photography, the best known being Lomography, which uses non-standard techniques for aesthetic effect. I understand the Lensbaby (a more expensive brand) lenses do something similar. I am getting comparable effects using this old lens for a lot less money…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A technical note: The lens has a short focal length such that it wouldn’t focus when mounted on the front of the bellows (used for focussing). But, as the lens was small enough, I managed to mount it inside the bellows as shown here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Paterson enlarger lens mounted inside the bellows for focussing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have done some more experimenting using old lenses. In this post I will show some close-ups with the Brownie lens, and using a 50mm Paterson enlarger lens – a budget lens from the 1970s\/80s. First I will show some of the close-up photos taken with the Kodak Brownie lens. As expected with the lens … Continue reading “Yet more on using vintage lenses on a modern mirrorless camera”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,52,69,3,94,131],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-flowers","category-garden","category-photo-diy","category-photography","category-staffordshire","category-tests-and-trials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10250"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10261,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10250\/revisions\/10261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}