Lomo T-43

I just got my hands on this lens, very nicely adapted into an LTM 39mm mount and I'm rather taken with it.

 

For those unaware, it's the glass triplet lens from the Smena 8m camera.

 

I don't quite know what it is about the rendering that draws me to it, but images have a certain something that I feel I've been searching for for some time.

 

I've also used a Smena Symbol with this lens and was quite pleased with its images. Also found the Meyer Domiplan triplet to be surprisingly good. Thanks for sharing.

Nice work.

 

Meyer Domiplan

 

The main problem that makes the Domiplan less attractive is that its automatic diaphragm is very unreliable in most mounts.

Similar 'swirly' bokeh is got from a Schneider Radionar. More noticeable on its native rollfilm camera.

 

I suspect that almost any triplet with under-corrected coma and astigmatism would render very similarly.

Mmm... it's not just the swirlyness, nor the slight vignetting, or the softness towards the edges.

 

It's more the overall lack of perfection, everything combining to tell you that this is a captured memory, with warmth and feeling, not a clinically perfect rendering of the scene, but something closer to how we actually saw it, or, maybe more accurately, how we remember seeing it.

 

Perhaps I'm just feeling nostalgic, but I find modern gear to produce images that are just too good, too sharp, too perfectly exposed. What I think I'm looking for is that "family snapshot" look. I think that's why I've been drawn to instant film and now adapted "cheap" lenses. If I had a darkroom, I'd throw some film in my Lubitel or something similar. This is the closest I've come with digital so far.

 

I don't think I've really explained that well, it's hard to put it into words.

 

I'm not looking for a toy lens, I still want something with enough control and quality to let me get the photos I see in my mlnd, but I don't want perfection either.

 

I pick a camera or lens to suite my mood, or the image I'm trying to obtain, it doesn't always work out, but it's a lot of fun when it does.

 

When I want sharp, I can just pick up the Hexanon 40mm (and I often do), makes the Panasonic kit zoom look like a toy.