Ten dollars allowed me to add five new lenses to my camera bag. This simple adapter, something I failed to find the last time I looked several years ago has put a few of the tools I first learned photography with back in my hands. It has been roughly 25 years since I actually used any of these to take an image.
In my college days, I spent some time running around with one of my dad’s old cameras and a couple of lenses, getting my first real taste of photography. I still have some prints from those days, but I all but gave up the pursuit in 1995. That’s a story for another day. For now, I just want to breathe in the old memories and start thinking about the future.
This simple adapter will allow me to use these 50+ year old lenses with my five-year old camera in a whole new way. While I shoot in manual mode almost exclusively, it will still be a bit of a learning curve. It has been a long time since I was manually focusing every shot. I’ll need to bone up a bit on some of the “ancient hieroglyphs” on this equipment and figure out what certain switches actually do as well. Oh, this is going to be fun!
It is relatively small things like this that can stimulate my creative side. The lenses themselves are not new to me but a simple adapter suddenly makes them spring to life! I cannot wait to explore the possibilities of a fish-eye lens again. I’ve never owned a 50mm prime and now I have a solid, tried and trued copy in the arsenal. A 135mm capable of macro work? Did I mention this was going to be fun?
What small tool have you found lately that has inspired you?
