Benable — create shareable lists of things you recommend!
E.g., products you love, local businesses, travel recs - you can add anything to a Benable list!
Film cameras and lenses for vintage shooters
12
items I strongly believe that any photographer has to try shooting film. It's a test for your skills. Warning: it's addictive.
Sections
1
My gear
My gear
A sturdy camera that has been in my bag for many years
Pentax Spotmatic - Pentax M42 Screwmount Film SLRs - Pentax Camera Reviews and Specifications
One of the best vintage lenses - very sharp, particularly at f/5.6 and f/8. You have to have it in your stash.
Super-Takumar 50mm F1.4 (8-element variant) Reviews - M42 Screwmount Normal Primes - Pentax Lens Reviews & Lens Database
One of the first vintage lenses that I bought - and the first for many other photographers. Get one if you don’t have it yet. It’s cheap but fast and quite sharp at f/8. It’s best known for its bokeh.
Helios 44-2 58mm F2 Lens Reviews - Russian and Zenitar Lenses - Pentax Lens Review Database
A rather good lens, and one of the best vintage macro lenses. There are chromatic aberrations wide open but at f/5.6 it becomes very good.
Vivitar (Komine) Macro 90mm F2.5 or F2.8 Lens Reviews - Vivitar Lenses - Pentax Lens Review Database
A tiny and cheap lens that is better than you might expect on first glance
The Industar-50-2 50 mm f/ 3.5 Lens. Specs. MTF Charts. User Reviews.
There are different varieties of this excellent lens. It’s actually the first vintage lens that I bought and I love it. The version with T* coating is supposed to be even better than the older copies like mine.
Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar MC 135mm F3.5 Lens Reviews - Carl Zeiss Lenses - Pentax Lens Review Database
I’ll admit that I rarely use this lens. It’s quite soft, and sadly doesn’t bring more details than, e.g., its smaller counterpart, the MTO 500mm f/8.
The MTO-1000AM 1100 mm f/ 10.5 Lens. Specs. MTF Charts. User Reviews.
This Zeiss lens gives you an extra reach if you need long focal lengths. I would rate it as fairly sharp but not quite at the level of the Zeiss 135mm f/3.5.
Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar 200mm f2.8
I can’t praise enough this camera. A foldable 6x9 medium-format jewel. I was extremely lucky to have found a cheap copy of it in excellent condition.
Belfoca - Camera-wiki.org - The free camera encyclopedia
My favourite camera ever - and I’ve used many!
Asahi Pentax 6x7 MLU, TTL
Sharp and fast, excellent lens. It’s a must-have if you have the Pentax 6x7 camera.
SMC Pentax 67 / S-M-C Takumar 6x7 / Super Takumar 105mm F2.4 Reviews - 67 Normal Primes - Pentax Lens Reviews & Lens Database
If I need to go tele, this is undoubtedly my choice. It’s an excellent tool, standing out from pretty much any mirror lens. It has surprisingly good microcontrast and outperforms the others in its range.
MTO500 / 3M-5A / 3M-5CA / ZM-5A maksutov mirror 500mm F8 Lens Reviews - Russian and Zenitar Lenses - Pentax Lens Review Database