Below is an example. It's a throw-away photo, but the rendering is what caught me. The focus is off and the subject is soft. But I loved the look - it has enough detail to get the point across, but the unimportant details aren't able to be rendered.

Now all of the sudden I'm smitten with the idea of playing with a '40's or '50's era lens.

@pjonori I like the look of Saul Leiter’s and Fred Herzog’s photos. I wonder how much of what I like is the lens and how much is the film?

I’ve tried a couple 1970s Minolta lenses on my Fuji and the look is different from modern lenses.

@two21 Today's lenses are designed to have contract and sharpness turned up to 11. The older lenses were, simply due to technical limitations, subtler and softer.

Also, those lucky bastards had Kodachrome.

@pjonori That's the best part about being able to adapt older lenses to new cameras: you can borrow some of the character.

I have an 80 year old 50mm Leica lens that's given me some of the most fun images I feel I've taken in months.

@emorydunn I'm really conflicted to be honest. I'm allergic to acquiring new gear - it's often just dead weight and cognitive noise...

I'm also really neurotic about using the same equipment through my work to keep a consistent visual tone. Same camera, same lens, same aperture, etc. I don't even like to change the ISO past two stops.

So using an entirely new lens would be a pretty significant leap. Cold feet are starting to settle in.

@pjonori I share the sentiment. Having every option under the sun can be a distraction.

On the other hand using something new (or old, or just different) can help you think about how you take photos differently.

For reference, the 80 year old lens: https://instagram.com/p/BldrHR3FgQL/