On a windy spring morning in the dreamy year of 2021, I stopped to peruse and browse an antique store here in Duluth. It was at this fine establishment that I came across an old Nikon lens. It had no lens cap or case, and was slick with a vile brownish grime. Of course, not being deterred by the very obvious signs of disuse and ill repair, I asked to inspect it closer.
Nine dollars? Absolutely! I’d love to buy this lens which will require many hours of meticulous cleaning accompanied by a skillset I don’t have.
Anyway.
Nearly all of Nikon’s camera bodies—mirrorless excluded—fit their “F-type” lens mount design, meaning that even a lens made in the late 1970s will fit snugly in place on my trusted D750 which was first released in 2014, or a lens introduced at the start of the 21st century will fit on my F1 which made its debut at the tail end of the 1950s. There is a bit of envy, though, when I see other photographers with brand new equipment, watching them take dozens of pictures in a single burst while their LCD screens shine with crystal clear detail. I’ve perused resale sites and camera stores daydreaming of Nikon’s flagship Z9 and new lenses sharp enough to cut through social media image compression.
My philosophy on art has changed though over the last couple of years however, as all things tend to do. As the creative process ebbs and flows, what I see in my head changes with it. I used to be driven to reconstruct in perfect exactity what I saw in my mind’s eye down to the smallest minutiae. This, of course, causes a lot of issues when you have the short term memory of a ketchup packet and an ADHD-addled mind that’s always searching for change.
So what’s the deal with the $9 lens? Well, as a birthday present to myself, I traveled out to the wild and untamed lands of Eastern Michigan. Mostly, it was to see friends, but knowing where I’d end up on many of the days, I decided to challenge myself creatively, too, as a titanic middle finger to the past three decades of art making. I packed two of the oldest and most—well, not great lenses. The goal was to see what I would find if I was restricted in what I could capture. It’s hard to run home and get a different lens when you’re thirteen hours away, you know? My $9 antique store purchase (Nikon 200mm f4) joined a $30 ebay find (Nikon 28mm f2.8) on my quest, aided by the ever faithful Nikon D750, and these are (a small part of) the results:
Are these going to win me any grand renown or esteem among any major publications? No. But I had fun, and feel satisfied with the results of this self-imposed challenge. That’s all that counts in the end, I suppose.
(I also brought my Nikon F and a Minolta 7000i, but my descent into the world of film photography is a story for another time)
Comments