Just get a manual-focus lens!

In over 20 years of photography, I ended up finding a nice balance between performance and user experience with Fujifilm. While other brands like Leica may be more popular in the user experience thing, Fujifilm cameras have always performed well for me and have a nostalgic feel when comes to those tactile dials that I love or the color rendering of film simulations.

However, when the matter comes to lenses, Fujifilm lenses are great but mostly auto-focus lenses. And here begins my journey of searching for manual-focus lenses on third party brands that could help me extend my experience getting closer to that analog photography shooting style.

Firstly, how does auto-focus lens differ from manual-focus lens?

Well, let’s just say that when using an auto-focus lens,  the photographer points at the subject and when pressing the camera shutter button the lens automatically focuses without any further user intervention. On the other hand, on a manual-focus lens, the photographer needs to create the focus before pressing the shutter button, this can be achieved by rotating the lens focusing ring in order to the image become focused and sharp, to get a successful focus indication on the equipment (usually a beep or a visual indication, or in some cases even both) and only then taking the picture. 

How difficult is to get good photos with a manual-focus lens?

As any manual task, practice makes perfection. Here comes the challenging part that makes the manual-focus lenses so exciting and rewarding (at least to me).

This type of lens and photography technique is becoming more popular among photographers given that it fully exposes the user to the challenge of getting a good picture by only having sometimes just a few seconds to manually setup the right camera settings.

It's like racing a manual car: No disc brakes, no power steering, no automatic shifting, no traction control. Hence, what makes all the difference is the driver´s skills and the way they control the power of their machine... in this case, how the photographer controls their camera.

How can perfect focusing be achieved with a manual lens?

In the past, the photographer, when looking through the camera optical viewfinder had to align the focus on the image with some elements in the center of the viewfinder (dots, squares, grids, etc…)

In today’s cameras, with digital displays, we simulate this process even though some brands keep using optical viewfinders (like Leica) or hybrid solutions (like Fujifilm).

In my particular case, with a Fujifilm Xpro-3 camera, I’ve chosen a technique called “focus peaking” where the image when focused shows a cut of red lines around the subject in order to focus on. Fujifilm allows other methods, however I highly prefer this one.

Does an image captured with a manual-focus lens shows better quality?

Not necessarily. Quality can sometimes be hard to measure as it can be a matter of personal taste. 

For the sake of this post, let’s just say all lenses have what is called clinical behaviour, and that depends on several technical aspects such as a good sharpness, true colours, image consistency, etc. On top of that, there is one more point identified as lens character, a sort of "signature" that may differentiate a lens from other lenses or producing images not so easily replicable by other lenses. Character may be inherent to the lens composition itself, to the brand, to a lens model, or even a particular lens or copy.

Some character shown by manual lenses may sometimes be taken as imperfections as well; a marked amber tone as a result of the coatings, a softer or creamy image rendering, a peculiar colour or background rendition, sometimes image flaring effects or other behaviours less typical of lenses with high-end production parameters. Trying to keep it simple, those imperfections may add a certain indescribable charm to photos; a sort of "je ne sais quoi" look. For some people those may be considered undesired attributes, for others those are pure joy and produce unique organic images.

It’s all about that “organic look”

Some brands of these lenses are in high demand these days precisely because “organic” images have become more popular. We can achieve this type of organic look by using older vintage lens or modern ones that are produced by brands focused on creating products with distinguish signature and character. Top quality brands such as Voigtlander keep growing on popularity producing lenses models like the Nokton or Color Scopar that are not inferior to (i.e.) a Sony G-Master or a Canon L lens. Although those are used by photographers who prefer not to risk on having to deal with that character and  prefer a more “reliable” lens who delivers faster that required result.

But I would say that when it comes to price, a manual-focus lens has that big advantage when compared to an auto-focus lens. So what's that price point like?

Well, let’s say any reasonable manual-focus lens in terms of its physical characteristics is always much affordable than a similar auto-focus lens. There are rare exceptions like a Carl Zeiss Jena or a Leica Summilux (among others) those are excepcional lenses but pricey ones. But back to this world, a Fujifilm 27mm f/2.8 auto-focus lens may cost around €400, a TTArtisan 25mm f/2 manual-focus lens may cost €100 (or less), some vintage lenses can be found on eBay starting on 50€.

Is the image quality so different?

I personally like to use this type of lens when doing street and documentary photography. To me, this genre is sometimes a sort of artistic expression, is about documenting life, is the spontaneity of capturing a moment showing visual intensity. To deal with the distinguishable and unpredictable is part of what passionates me on this process.

That’s why I prefer the more organic character and look produced by this type of lenses. So answering the question: yes, there may be flaws and unfocus, excessive lens character,  vignetting or image softness, all that may compromise the final image quality of course.

But it’s worth to say that lenses are not better or worse because they are manual-focus or auto-focus, those can behave better or worse due to the technology and optical investment made on their design and conception.

It’s challenges the photographer

We  can always try to minimize a lens weakness with a better and improved technique, like keeping a slower pace, or maybe using a flash, in some cases using a narrower aperture or just searching for a better angle to take the same picture, etc.

These are some of my thoughts about vintage or entry level manual-focus lenses. The message I would like to share is this process can be fun and at the same time enjoyable to experiment a different artistic path while using inexpensive manual-focus lenses and doing so, one can increase their lens collection or explore additional focal lengths without having to invest a fortune.

So now it’s up to you to just get a manual focus lens and start having fun.