Photographing Portraits with Classic Lenses (includes Example Images)

The post Photographing Portraits with Classic Lenses (includes Example Images) appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Matt Murray.

From the 1930s onwards, manufacturers around the world produced 35mm film camera systems with a huge array of interchangeable lenses. Some good, some bad, some legendary.

With the rise of digital in the early 21st century, much of this gear fell out of favor, and prices declined rapidly. But things soon turned around.

Classic lenses are now in big demand. This is not only due to the current renaissance in film photography but also due to the fact that many photographers love to shoot with these lenses on digital cameras as well.

In this article, I explain how you can shoot portraits with classic lenses on your digital camera, including how to find one, how to set your camera up, and what to expect from vintage glass. Why limit yourself to the lenses made by your camera manufacturer when there is so much good glass out there?

Three classic M42 mount lenses that can be used in digital photography. [L-R] Pentax Super Takumar 50mm f1.4, Helios 44 58mm f2, Meyer Optic Goerlitz Oreston 50mm f1.8.

Why shoot portraits on classic lenses?

This is a key question – why shoot portraits on classic lenses? There are a few reasons why I enjoy it.

Firstly, I love the different look that it gives my photos. They’re not better or worse than images taken with modern autofocus lenses. However, they certainly have a unique charm and character that you just don’t get from today’s ultra-sharp digital lenses.

Secondly, buying a vintage lens is a fantastic way of getting some quality glass in your kit on the cheap. Although prices have risen in recent years, you can still buy many amazing lenses for under $100 USD.

Finally, it’s a lot of fun to shoot with an older lens. I love to think about the images the lens has taken over the course of its lifetime, who has used it, and where it’s been. It’s also a point of interest – people often look puzzled and will go out of their way to find out what lens you’re using and where you got it.

How do I find a classic lens?

Finding a classic lens is relatively straightforward. The first thing you could try is to ask friends and family if they have any old film photography gear. It’s quite possible that an old Pentax or Olympus film camera is lurking in their attic. With some luck, the lens (and camera) will be in a usable condition, and you will be able to shoot portraits with it.

If that avenue doesn’t produce any classic beauties for you, turn to eBay, Facebook marketplace, and other online markets to see what’s for sale.

Considering their optical quality, Super Takumar lenses are still a bargain despite rising prices.

Before you do this, do some research about which lenses you’d like to buy, and make sure that you can get an adapter to fit the lens to your digital camera.

Take care when reading the description of lenses online. Ideally, you want a lens that has clear glass, with no fungus or haze. Don’t worry too much about small amounts of dust – all lenses (especially vintage ones) will have dust in the lens, which doesn’t usually affect image quality too much.

Although I’ve said above that you should avoid lenses with fungus and haze, I have used lenses with plenty of fungi in, without having much of a noticeable effect on images. Still, it’s something you’re best to avoid. If you look at the images of the lenses posted in this article, there are plenty of spots of dust and marks on the lenses I’ve used, but with no noticeable effect.

Buy a lens adaptor

A classic lens will not fit on to your digital camera as it is – you will also need to buy a lens adaptor. There is an adapter for almost every classic lens/digital mount combination.

Don’t just buy the cheapest one you can find; quality does matter here. If you’re not sure which brand to buy, ask around in Facebook groups to see what other people use and recommend.

The adapter I used for images in this article is the K&F Concept M42 to Fujifilm X adapter. I have two K&F Concept adapters – one for M42 mount and one for the smaller M39 mount.

Lens adapters are available for almost all classic lens to digital camera combinations. Pictured are M42 and M39 to Fujifilm X lens adapters.

Set your camera up to shoot with your classic lens

Once you have your lens and adapter, you now need to set up your camera to shoot with it. The steps I have below are for my Fujifilm X-Series cameras. If you’re using another brand, ask in Facebook groups, or turn to Google to find out how you can do the same for your camera.

Firstly, you need to enable the “shoot without lens” option in the menu. If the camera doesn’t recognize the lens, it may not allow you to take any images at all, so this is a must.

Secondly, set the focal length of the lens you are using in the mount adapter setting. The camera doesn’t know which lens you are using, so it will take the value in here for the metadata for images. If you skip this step, it’s no big deal, but it certainly makes finding images later on a little easier in Lightroom. Also, remember to keyword your images on import, as you may have several classic lenses with the same focal length.

Now you’re all set to manually focus your classic lens on your digital camera.

Wait, I have to focus manually?

In the vast majority of circumstances, yes. If you’re adapting a lens from one system to another, you’ll have to focus manually.

It may surprise you to know that in terms of the history of photography, autofocus lenses are relatively new. The first mass-produced autofocus camera was the Konica C35 AF point-and-shoot in 1977, and the first 35mm autofocus SLR, the Pentax ME F, was released in 1981.

Even after the arrival of this new technology, many professional photographers thought of autofocus as a gimmick and didn’t trust it until further advancements in the late 80s and early 90s.

If the thought of manually focussing on a portrait shoot alarms you, don’t worry. Digital cameras have amazing technology inside them that will help you.

I found this classic in a charity shop for $15USD.

Set up focus peaking

Focus peaking is a technology that many cameras have to make manually focussing a lens easier. When this is enabled, the camera will highlight objects that are in focus with a color (typically red) as you look through the viewfinder.

As you rotate the lens back and forth, different objects will come in and out of focus. When shooting portraits, you rotate the lens until your subject’s hair and/or eyelashes highlight in red.

This technology helps to focus enormously, especially if, like me, your vision isn’t as good as it used to be. Other options to assist manual focusing in the Fujifilm X-Series line include digital split image and digital microprism.

Classic lens road test

To illustrate the types of portrait images you can take with vintage glass, I’ve used three different lenses for this article. I’ve used the Meyer Optik Gorlitz Oreston 50mm f1.8, the Pentax Super Takumar 50mm f1.4, and the Helios 44 58mm f2 lens.

All of them have the same M42 mount, a system of attaching a lens to a camera body originally designed by the Carl Zeiss company in the late 1930s.

M42 is a screw mount. To attach the lens to a lens adapter (or an M42 mount vintage camera), you rotate it around in a circle until it stops. Don’t overtighten it. This is quite different from many modern cameras which use a bayonet-style mount. Many legendary camera manufacturers have used M42 at some stage, including Contax, Pentax, Yashica, and Olympus.

Meyer Optik Gorlitz Oreston 50mm f1.8

I picked up this Meyer Optik Gorlitz Oreston in a bag of camera gear at a charity shop for $15 USD. As soon as I saw the zebra stripe pattern around the edge of the lens, I knew I had something special.

The Zebra stripes of the Meyer Optik Gorlitz Oreston 50mm f1.8, mounted with a K&F Concept adapter to my Fujifilm X-T2.

Meyer Optik produced this lens in their East German factory from 1960-1971. After this, the company was absorbed into the Pentacon group, and the name disappeared from lenses entirely.

A feature of this lens is its beautiful color rendition and distinct vintage look. It has a softer, dreamier overall look than other lenses, but it’s still sharp. Shoot wide open with this lens for beautiful, dreamy bokeh. It’s one of my favorite classic lenses.

Sarah in a field. This image shows the dreamy bokeh of the Meyer Optik Goerlitz Oreston 50mm f1.8 lens.

This is one of my favorite shots of my daughter, taken with the Oreston 50mm f1.8 lens.

 

Pentax Super Takumar 50mm f1.4

This lens has a few dents but keeps on rocking! Super Takumar 50mm f1.4 mounted with a K&F Concept adapter to my Fujifilm X-T2.

 

In the 1960s, Pentax wanted to come up with a lens that would rival – or even outperform – Carl Zeiss glass. The result was the first version of the Super Takumar 50mm f1.4 lens with eight elements.

It’s been said that in the early days of its release, Pentax lost money each time they sold one. Perhaps this is why they soon switched to a cheaper seven-element version of the lens.

Manufacturing differences can make identification tricky, but I understand the lens that I have (pictured above) is a later version of the seven-element Super Tak. This version of the lens uses a radioactive element – Thorium – in its rear element. Despite their radioactivity, lenses with Thorium are not considered dangerous. Unless you grind one up and eat it, but that would be a terrible waste of a good lens.

Over many years, Thorium can cause yellowing in the glass. You will see from the images below – especially the first – that it has quite a warm look to it because of this issue.

The Super Tak (any version you can get your hands on) is a gem of a lens. Faster than other lenses in this review, it’s sharp, has pleasing bokeh and fabulous color rendition. If you don’t like the warm cast some of them have, due to the yellowing of the lens, you can always correct it in post.

At the beach. Shot wide open at f1.4 on the Pentax Super Takumar 50mm lens. Note the very warm look to the image caused by a yellowing of the lens over time.

Alyssa in Brisbane. Shot on the Fujifilm X-T2 with Super Takumar 50mm f1.4 Lens.

 

Helios 44

Helios 44 lenses are among the best-known vintage lenses that photographers have bought in recent years to use with digital cameras. Like many post-war Russian lenses, it’s a copy of an earlier German design, the Carl Zeiss Jena Biotar 58mm f2.

An odd-looking combination – a silver Helios 44 58mm f2 lens mounted on my Fujifilm X-T2.

Helios 44 lenses were produced in several different factories in the former Soviet Union. My lens features a full chrome metal construction, but others are black anodized lenses that come in a variety of styles. It’s been said that no two Helios lenses are the same – each has its own unique character.

Take the photos below – the Helios lenses are most associated with swirly bokeh, but in one of the images below, my lens has quite a bit of soap bubble bokeh.

The Helios is sharp, fun to use, and has the most unique bokeh in the lenses I’ve featured in this article. When you use the lens for portraits, though, beware of the bokeh trap.

What’s the bokeh trap?

Bokeh is the name for the aesthetic quality of the out-of-focus parts of an image. Vintage lenses are known to generally have much more unique bokeh than modern lenses. Be careful not to fall into the bokeh trap though – remember that you’re shooting portraits, you’re not producing images just to show off the bokeh.

This image shows some of the swirly bokeh that the Helios 44 line of lenses is known for.

In the right circumstances, the Helios 44 lenses can exhibit incredible looking bokeh. Pictured above is the soap bubble bokeh due to the backlit foliage behind the subject.

 

Lens comparison test at the beach

I took the photos above at different locations, so to demonstrate what the lenses look like on the same shoot, I took them to the beach with my Fujifilm X-T2.

On this shoot, there are noticeable differences between the three, and I believe that I could pick each one if I hadn’t taken the images myself. However, the differences were not as big as I had imagined. All images were shot wide open (using the smallest f-number the lens has) with focus peaking turned on.

No prizes for guessing which lens this is! The Super Takumar has a warm cast to it.

Next up is the Oreston, the sea did not produce a very distinctive bokeh in this instance compared to other images I’ve taken with foliage in the background.

Almost surprisingly, this image taken by the Helios was my favorite all-around image in this test.

The Helios RAW image with some edits applied in Lightroom.

 

Conclusion

Using a vintage lens with your digital camera is something every photographer should try. It’s an easy way to give your images a very unique and characteristic look, including bokeh, which you just don’t get on modern lenses.

It’s also a fantastic way of adding some high-quality glass to your kit for a fraction of the price of modern equivalents.

An added bonus is that it can help you grow as a photographer – especially if you’ve only used autofocus lenses before. Using a classic lens will force you to manually focus and discover more about the incredible features of modern cameras, like focus peaking.

Has this article, Photographing Portraits with Classic Lenses inspired you to try classic lenses with your digital camera? If you’ve already used classic lenses in your photography, which ones were your favorites? Tell us in the comments below.

The post Photographing Portraits with Classic Lenses (includes Example Images) appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Matt Murray.

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6 Ideas for Creative Funfair and Amusement Park Photography

The post 6 Ideas for Creative Funfair and Amusement Park Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Charlie Moss.

When the nights draw in its time for funfair and amusement park photography. When a fair comes to town, it’s an opportunity to photograph something new and vibrant for your portfolio. The bright lights, constant movement, and enthusiastic crowds provide endless photographic opportunities throughout the evening.

My favorite time to photograph the funfair is during the blue hour – that hour or so before night truly falls. It creates an incredibly dramatic backdrop for the lights and colors that you’re going to photograph.

It’s a good idea to get on location an hour or more before the scheduled blue hour so that you can plan your route through the attractions, work out what looks interesting to shoot, and even start to plan some compositions.

But what about the actual process of taking the photos? How do you decide what to shoot and how you’re going to take the images?

Decide on your shutter speed

There’s a real risk when shooting funfair rides that they’re going to look static and very unimpressive. This usually happens because your shutter speed is too short, and so the action is frozen without any sense of movement.

Lengthening your shutter speed up to half a second or more can lend a real feeling of action and excitement to your funfair and amusement park photography. But don’t forget that you’ll want to ideally put your camera on a tripod so that the rest of your shot stays clear and in focus!

It’s my preference to use shutter priority mode for this kind of image. Each ride will be traveling at a different speed, so you’ll need to adjust as you move from shot to shot in order to get the most dynamic images.

Watch the crowds

The story doesn’t stop at the rides – it’s going on all around you! Take a step back from focussing on the thrill-seeking action to see what the people on the ground are doing.

Almost everyone at the funfair will make a great subject, and they’ll be bathed in gorgeous, atmospheric light from the rides and stalls. Take some time to watch the action and see where people naturally stop and do interesting things.

Look for great compositions and stand yourself in the perfect place to capture people enjoying their environment. Be ready to capture fleeting emotions and interesting behavior.

You might want to use a shallow depth of field to make your background less distracting. Getting everything in focus means there is more competing for your viewer’s attention.

Look for the unique angles

At any funfair you go to, there will be at least a dozen other photographers who are also looking for a great shot. You’re not in competition with them, of course, but it’s always nice to come home with a unique photograph.

Once you’ve got a ‘safe’ shot (you know, the kind of image you often see posted online after the funfair), challenge yourself to see the same scene from a unique angle.

Here are some ideas to get you thinking:

• Look up. See what the ride looks like when you frame it against the sky.
• Use the architecture of the town that you’re in.
• Shoot through something to get an interesting foreground effect.
• Go completely abstract.
• Experiment with leading lines.

Try an unexpected technique

The bright lights of the funfair provide an opportunity to try out techniques that you wouldn’t traditionally associate with this kind of photography. It’s a great time to experiment and see what works for an alternative take on funfair and amusement park photography.

The shot above was taken using ICM (intentional camera movement) techniques. A long exposure combined with moving the camera can create an abstract image with a painterly feel.

You could also perhaps try zoom bursts for a different kind of dynamic action. Or have a go at making custom bokeh shapes to convey different messages in your photographs. Never stop experimenting – you don’t have to show anyone the shots if they don’t work!

Convert to black and white

Funfairs are a fabulous riot of color, but sometimes that’s not what we want in our photography. If a shot just seems too intense and busy, it’s always worth seeing if a black and white conversion works.

When you’re deciding if a photograph is a good candidate for black and white conversion, there are a few things that you want to keep in mind. Your shot should have good contrast between light and dark areas so that the image doesn’t end up flat and lifeless.

Black and white images also often rely heavily on composition for their impact, so make sure that your subject is both interesting and well-placed in the frame.

Make sure that you experiment with different color temperatures during the black and white conversion too. The nature of the colorful and changeable lights at the funfair means that some ‘recipes’ for post-processing will work better than others.

Photograph the funfair during the day

The funfair doesn’t disappear during the day. Instead, it looks completely different. Taking your camera to the funfair during the day can open up a whole different set of possibilities to shoot.

Instead of photographing the movement and excitement of the rides, try to capture the time when the fair workers are setting up ready for the day. Look around at the colors too – they’re very different from the colors you see at night once the sun has gone down!

This would be a great time to think about approaching some of the attraction holders and asking if you can shoot their portraits. And if you do this during the day, they’ll remember you when you go back in the evening, perhaps even posing for you again during a quiet moment. (Remember to get their details so that you can send them the picture.)

Time to get out and shoot!

No matter your level of experience, there’s something for everyone when it comes to funfair and amusement park photography. If you’re a beginner photographer, then taking a tripod and shooting long exposures is a great way to try night and long exposure photography for the first time.

If you’re more experienced as a photographer, then a whole world opens up with candid shots, portraits, and experimenting with creative angles and techniques.

Have you done any funfair and amusement park photography recently? Show us your pictures in the comments!

The post 6 Ideas for Creative Funfair and Amusement Park Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Charlie Moss.

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Photoshop Adjustment Layers Explained and How to Use Them (Part 1)

The post Photoshop Adjustment Layers Explained and How to Use Them (Part 1) appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Nisha Ramroop.

If you use Photoshop, you probably already know that layers are a great non-destructive way to edit. Within the realm of layers, there exists a group of very useful editing tools called Adjustment Layers that allows for easy editing of your images. As with most Photoshop tools, there are several ways to achieve the same result. When you use Photoshop adjustment layers (as with other layer types), you can make changes, save it as a Photoshop file (PSD) and undo/change it many years later. Since no pixels are destroyed or changed, your original image stays intact. Let’s take a look at the basics of using Photoshop Adjustment Layers.

Accessing Photoshop Adjustment Layers

There are two ways to access Photoshop Adjustment Layers.

1. To access via the Layers Menu; choose Layer->New Adjustment Layer, and choose one of the many adjustment types (which are expanded upon below).

2. To access via the Layers Panel; click on the half black/half white circle at the bottom of the Layers Panel, and choose the adjustment type you want to work with.

Adjustment Layer Types

1. Brightness and Contrast

Brightness and Contrast allow you to make simple adjustments to the brightness and contrast levels within your photo. When you adjust brightness, the overall lightness (or darkness) of each pixel in your frame is changed. To increase a photo’s tonal values and increase the highlights, slide the Brightness to the right. To decrease a photo’s tonal values and increase the shadows, slide the Brightness to the left.

Contrast, however, adjusts the difference between the brightness of the elements in your image.  Thus, if you increase brightness you make every pixel lighter, whereas if you increase contrast you make the light areas lighter and the dark areas darker.

2. Levels

The levels tool adjusts the tonal range and color balance of your image. It does this by adjusting the intensity levels of the shadows, mid-tones, and highlights in your image. Levels Presets can be saved and then easily applied to further images.

Of note, if you use the Image menu to open the levels tool (Image->Adjustments->Levels) a separate layer will not be created and the changes will be committed directly (destructively) to your image layer. Thus, I recommend using the Adjustment Layers menu (as shown above)  to access this very useful tool.

3. Curves

While the Levels adjustment allows you to adjust all the tones proportionally in your image, the Curves adjustment lets you choose the section of the tonal scale you want to change. On the Levels graph, the upper-right area represents the highlights, while the lower-left area represents the shadows.

Use either of these adjustments (levels or curves) to correct your tone when your image’s contrast is off (either too low or high).

The Levels Adjustment works well if you need to apply a global adjustment to your tone. To apply more selective adjustments, you are better off using Curves. This includes adjustments to just a small section of the tonal range or if you only want to adjust light or dark tones.

4. Exposure

When you think of exposing an image properly, you are concerned with capturing the ideal brightness, which will give you details in both the highlights and shadows. In Photoshop Adjustment Layers, the Exposure Adjustment has three sliders that adjust Exposure, Offset and Gamma.

Use the Exposure slider to adjust the highlights of the image, the Offset slider for the mid-tones and the Gamma to target the dark tones only.

5. Vibrance

Use the Vibrance Adjustment Layer to boost the duller colors in your image. The great thing about increasing vibrance is that it focuses on the less-saturated areas and does not affect colors that are already saturated.

Vibrance adjusts only the duller colors in an image

Look at the difference in the greens between this image and the one above. Saturation adjusts all the colors (and tonal range) in an image.

6. Hue/Saturation

Hue and Saturation, allows you to change the overall color hue of your image, as well as how saturated the color is.

You can change the hue (color) of your entire image by keeping “Master” selected in the dropdown (this is set by default). Alternatively, you can pinpoint the color you would like to change the hue of. You can choose from Reds, Yellows, Greens, Cyan, Blues or Magentas.

In addition to adjusting the obvious hue and color saturation of your image, this Photoshop Adjustment Layer allows you to adjust the lightness of your entire image as well as work with specified colors. Keep in mind that changing the overall saturation of an image affects your tonal range.

Use the Hue Adjustment to get creative

Color Balance

The Color Balance Adjustment layer is used to change the overall mixture of colors in an image and works well for color correction.

Color Balance adjusted for the mid-tones to include more red

You first need to select either Shadows, Midtones or Highlights, to choose the tonal range you want to change.

Check the Preserve Luminosity box to preserve your luminosity values (brightness or darkness) and maintain the tonal balance as you change the color in your image. Move your slider toward the color you want to increase and away from the color you wish to decrease.

Black and White

As the name implies, the Black and White adjustment layer allows you to easily take your images to a grayscale version or apply a color tint entirely.

There are many ways to achieve black and white image processing. The Black and White Photoshop Adjustment Layer is one of the better ones. It allows you to lighten or darken specific color ranges to enhance your black and white conversion. Example: If you want the blues of your color image to stand out more when converted to black and white, simply toggle that slider. You can add more or less contrast by making particular colors lighter or darker.

1. When you choose the Black & White Adjustment Layer, you get a default black & white conversion 2. You can tweak the image based on selective colors. In this example, the blues and yellows were adjusted 3. You can apply a tint (of any color) over the entire image by ticking the Tint box and selecting the color you wish to overlay.

Important Note: While most of these adjustments are available under the Image menu (Image->Adjustments), using them from there does not work the same. The main difference is that these are applied directly to the image (destructively) as opposed to when done under Adjustment Layers. When done under Adjustment Layers, you can turn the adjustment on and off by selecting and deselecting the “eye” in the layers panel.

Conclusion

Photoshop Adjustment Layers are a great group of tools that allow you to smartly edit your image in a non-destructive way. Your original pixels are preserved, so you are able to come back and change your edits years later. Thus, they give you the power to undo easier and work more efficiently.

Photoshop Adjustment Layers group together the most common editing tasks, along with a few others to help you bring your images to life.

In Part 2, we will explore some other tools in the Adjustment suite.

Share with us in the comments your favorite adjustment tool and how you use them.

The post Photoshop Adjustment Layers Explained and How to Use Them (Part 1) appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Nisha Ramroop.

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