Your favorite "bad" lenses

[aizan]

I'm musing about doing landscapes with a "bad" lens: low contrast, flarey, blurry edges, unsharp, harsh bokeh, or some combination thereof.

I doubt I can find one in a mount that I can use, so should I be looking for a fixed-lens camera? Any rollfilm format is ok. I'm assuming I should concentrate my search on pre-war cameras and lenses.

Maybe I should get a Holga?

 

[Scrambler]

What kind of mounts do you have?

Really bad lenses (like Holgas) are a bit hard to get for real cameras. But there are some pinholes, some single element lenses for SLRs and then for Leica mounts there are basic Soviet lenses, often helpfully further degraded by time and poor storage.

Or exceed what the lens should do. Put a cheap DSLR lens on a film SLR: get lo quality wide angle. Or mount something on a large format camera (or medium format if have one that will do it) for a smaller film format. I have a 75mm MF lens that will almost cover a 4x5 frame - thats about equal to a 20mm lens on 35mm film. The lens wasn't built to do that properly, so you build in distortions.

My fave was a K mount Sigma 18-55mm for APS-C digital on a film Pentax. The lens would cover at 24mm or longer but wider gave round ends and weirdness. Expired film helped.

 

[raydm6]

Have you considered Zone Plates?
https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/11552/what-is-a-zone-plate

https://www.pinholeresource.com/index.php/all-products/zone-plate-digital-no-dust-body-caps

 

[Rayt]

Sounds like you might want to try a pinhole camera.

 

[Rob-F]

I'm musing about doing landscapes with a "bad" lens: low contrast, flarey, blurry edges, unsharp, harsh bokeh, or some combination thereof.

I doubt I can find one in a mount that I can use, so should I be looking for a fixed-lens camera? Any rollfilm format is ok. I'm assuming I should concentrate my search on pre-war cameras and lenses.

Maybe I should get a Holga?

I have an Industar 28mm in LTM mount that might be just what you need. It is impossible to take a sharp picture with it at any distance or focus setting. It also vignettes so badly that the corners are completely black, even at f/11. It is the perfect lousy lens. Cost me $1.25, including shipping from Ukraine. It wasn't worth it.

 

[Spavinaw]

I've had a couple of lenses that had soft focus everywhere. One was a Kiron tele zoom. The other was a 90mm for the Kodak Signet 80. I suspect both had been taken apart and reassembled incorrectly.
I seem to vaguely remember past discussions concerning reversing lenses on simple cameras. Maybe someone else familiar with this technique will comment.

 

[markjwyatt]

I'm musing about doing landscapes with a "bad" lens: low contrast, flarey, blurry edges, unsharp, harsh bokeh, or some combination thereof.

I doubt I can find one in a mount that I can use, so should I be looking for a fixed-lens camera? Any rollfilm format is ok. I'm assuming I should concentrate my search on pre-war cameras and lenses.

Maybe I should get a Holga?

I have a Fujinon 50mm f2.2 (triotar type lens). It is actually not particularly bad, but is known for it super bubbly bokeh.

 

[aizan]

What kind of mounts do you have?

Really bad lenses (like Holgas) are a bit hard to get for real cameras. But there are some pinholes, some single element lenses for SLRs and then for Leica mounts there are basic Soviet lenses, often helpfully further degraded by time and poor storage.

M42, Leica M, Canon FD and EF, Nikon F, Hasselblad V, Pentax 67, Mamiya RB.

I do have a Skink pinhole cap for the Hassy, but the image quality is actually too good!

 

[PaulCooper]

Once I owned Nkon 43-86 zoom. Talking about bad...

 

[aizan]

I have an Industar 28mm in LTM mount that might be just what you need. It is impossible to take a sharp picture with it at any distance or focus setting. It also vignettes so badly that the corners are completely black, even at f/11. It is the perfect lousy lens. Cost me $1.25, including shipping from Ukraine. It wasn't worth it.

I like what I'm seeing on Flickr. This has potential, thanks Rob!

 

[xayraa33]

My favourite bad lens is a Sigma 200mm f2.8 from the 1970s...unlike these days Sigma made some real crappy lenses and made them for a long time.

 

[dourbalistar]

Holga makes lenses for the Nikon F and Canon EF mounts.

Photographer Troyce Hoffman has done some incredible black and white landscapes with a Holga camera. His series The American West is shot with Tri-X with a red filter, pushed to 1600:
https://istillshootfilm.org/post/160194349791/film-photo-series-by-troyce-hoffman-the-american

 

[Pál_K]

.

For a "bad" lens, I suppose any fungus or haze affected lens would suffice and they'd be inexpensive to buy.

Once I owned Nkon 43-86 zoom. Talking about bad...

There are two versions. The first one, which has a bad reputation, has the lens-designation lettering on the inside of the filter ring. The improved version has the lettering on the outside.

 

[narsuitus]

Holga Lens by Narsuitus, on Flickr

Olympus E-p1 micro 4/3 digital with 25mm f/8 Holga lens

 

[retinax]

With many rangefinder lenses, you could try partly unscrewing/shimming the rear or front group so far that the lens doesn't draw sharply any more, or removing or reversing an element.

RobF, that 28mm Industar is for half frame, that the corners are black on full frame shouldn't surprise. Looking for half frame or smaller format lenses is another option for sure.

 

[a.noctilux]

Semi-Summicron is inspirational, or Semi-MATE ...
http://www.marcocavina.com/articoli_fotografici/Semi-Summicron-R_50_2/00_pag.htm

 

[dourbalistar]

I have an Industar 28mm in LTM mount that might be just what you need. It is impossible to take a sharp picture with it at any distance or focus setting. It also vignettes so badly that the corners are completely black, even at f/11. It is the perfect lousy lens. Cost me $1.25, including shipping from Ukraine. It wasn't worth it.

RobF, that 28mm Industar is for half frame, that the corners are black on full frame shouldn't surprise. Looking for half frame or smaller format lenses is another option for sure.

A little digging, and retinax is correct! It was made for the Chaika half frame camera, and the reason it wouldn't take a sharp picture is probably because it has a different flange distance ((27.5mm instead of standard rangefinder’s 28.8mm). More details in the article below:
https://kosmofoto.com/2020/05/hacking-a-half-frame-lens-for-wide-angle-rangefinder-photography/

 

[valdas]

What about using some cheap enlarger lenses - I guess it’s quite easy to use them on M42?

 

[css9450]

A friend of mine used to try finding a needle in a haystack; a good, sharp inexpensive long zoom. Trouble is, such a thing doesn't exist at the price he was willing to pay. He tried all kinds of junk like a 100-800 f5.6-f11 zoom, for $50. He'd get back the first roll of slides and find them all fuzzy, with poor contrast and terrible vignetting, so he'd trade it in for another. Over and over again until he learned his lesson and eventually paid some real money for a much more modest (but MUCH better quality!) zoom.

 

[Rob-F]

I like what I'm seeing on Flickr. This has potential, thanks Rob!

So you want it? I’ll send it to you free, with a money back guarantee.