Sometimes you just need a break, something to reinvigorate you, like a fun, non-professional optic.
Not necessarily your favourite, or best lens you tried etc.
More on the lines of fun, something which evokes creativity and recharges your creative juices.
It can be a lens, an attachment, a filter, anything.
For me it's Tamron 20mm F2.8 Half Macro, ultra wide angle with close focussing creates some of the most memorable images, which came about by accident.
For me it used to be Zeiss Otus 55mm f1.4 lens during my Nikon DSLR days, completely frustrating for my family when I used it for family photos, but so much fun to use, and what rendering!
Would be a better thread with images. Show us how you use that fun lens.
Outstanding wrote:
Sometimes you just need a break, something to reinvigorate you, like a fun, non-professional optic.
Not necessarily your favourite, or best lens you tried etc.
More on the lines of fun, something which evokes creativity and recharges your creative juices.
It can be a lens, an attachment, a filter, anything.
For me it's Tamron 20mm F2.8 Half Macro, ultra wide angle with close focussing creates some of the most memorable images, which came about by accident.
A lens that surprises me is a fun lens.
My Jupiter-12 for example. Never know what you are going to get with that one, but there's always a few photos after a photo walk that have a special quality to them.
My current favourite is the Nikon Z 28-400mm f4-8 VR lens. I laughed when it was first announced, but I eventually gave in to curiosity and was stunned at how good it actually is... these images were taken at 400mm, which is the weakest part of the zoom range:
NIKON Z 6_2NIKKOR Z 28-400mm f/4-8 VR lens400mmf/8.01/400s8000 ISO0.0 EV
NIKON Z 6_2NIKKOR Z 28-400mm f/4-8 VR lens400mmf/11.01/400s9000 ISO0.0 EV
For creativity, I really enjoy MF lenses like the Zeiss ZF2 series and Voigtlander E lenses. MF forces you to slow down, the build quality and haptics mix up the experience, and the unique rendering styles leave an imprint on your images.
Long exposures can also add an element of creativity and excitement to your images. Especially if you have something like clouds moving in your images, you're never quite sure what you're going to send up with.
If looking for fun, sometimes an extremely flexible lens is the way to go. A lens that just quickly lets you get your photo without having to think to much about gear and lets you enjoy the experience. Like Cliff, I have been enjoying the Nikon 28-400mm lens too. In good light, I can set it to f8 and get almost any photo I can think of without having to change lenses. If you need better image quality and some better low light handling, a lens like a 24-120mm f4 is a great lens, and has become one of my favorites.
It’s hard to pick just one fun lens because in my 3rd year after switching to Sony I’m still have a blast with many various E-mount lenses. Currently one of them that is just plain fun for me to shoot with is the beastly Viltrox Lab 135mm f/1.8. I don’t carry it in the bag every day but it calls to me to take it out for fun on occasions. I bought it for photographing my nieces and nephews and look forward to an opportunity to do that.
A 2nd recent acquisition was a used Tamron 50-400mm and it also is very fun for me, the range suits me well and dropping down to 50mm makes a useful difference.
ILCE-7RM5Viltrox AF 135/1.8 LAB FE lens135mmf/1.81/320s100 ISO-0.7 EV
ILCE-7RM5Viltrox AF 135/1.8 LAB FE lens135mmf/1.81/2000s100 ISO0.0 EV
ILCE-7RM5E 50-400mm F4.5-6.3 A067 lens400mmf/6.31/250s5000 ISO-0.7 EV
ILCE-7RM5E 50-400mm F4.5-6.3 A067 lens50mmf/16.01/60s320 ISO0.0 EV
the smallest one I own (the 55/1.8) because it makes me more likely to take a camera along with me and thus have more fun with photography than I would otherwise have with my phone
Outstanding wrote:
Sometimes you just need a break, something to reinvigorate you, like a fun, non-professional optic.
Not necessarily your favourite, or best lens you tried etc.
More on the lines of fun, something which evokes creativity and recharges your creative juices.
It can be a lens, an attachment, a filter, anything.
For me it's Tamron 20mm F2.8 Half Macro, ultra wide angle with close focussing creates some of the most memorable images, which came about by accident.
This won’t be a surprise, but the funnest lens I’ve owned in a long time is the e-mount version of the fully manual Thypoch Simera 28/1.4. Images: https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1880360/
Ross Martin wrote:
It’s hard to pick just one fun lens because in my 3rd year after switching to Sony I’m still have a blast with many various E-mount lenses. Currently one of them that is just plain fun for me to shoot with is the beastly Viltrox Lab 135mm f/1.8. I don’t carry it in the bag every day but it calls to me to take it out for fun on occasions. I bought it for photographing my nieces and nephews and look forward to an opportunity to do that.
A 2nd recent acquisition was a used Tamron 50-400mm and it also is very fun for me, the range suits me well and dropping down to 50mm makes a useful difference....Show more →
Count me in for the Tamron 50-400 fan club. Actually most fun I ever had with a lens.
For many years I shot large format with an emphasis on architectural photography, at the same time I always travelled with a Mamiya C330 for "goofing around". Fast forward a couple decades and my lens collection has a bit of a split between glass for shooting architecture/landscapes and glass for different "goofing around". Here is my list:
CV 40mm Nokton - a beloved lens that borders on magical for me. The lens I most often grab for shooting around.
Laowa 35mm Argus f0.95 - Unique, challenging and almost as much fun as the Nokton.
TT Artisans 100mm Trioplan - Affordable and better than you would think. Ironically, my most liked FLICKR image was take with this lens.
TT Artisans 75mm Biotar - Another super affordable lens that is better than you would think.
CV 40mm Collapsible Heliar - Unconventional, super small and produces images with a unique look.
That's my most current line up. Most often, I'll grab one depending on my mood and do single lens shooting for a few days. It takes the stress out of trying to do good architectural images and just have some fun.
Outstanding wrote:
Sometimes you just need a break, something to reinvigorate you, like a fun, non-professional optic.
Not necessarily your favourite, or best lens you tried etc.
More on the lines of fun, something which evokes creativity and recharges your creative juices.
It can be a lens, an attachment, a filter, anything.
For me it's Tamron 20mm F2.8 Half Macro, ultra wide angle with close focussing creates some of the most memorable images, which came about by accident.
I started photographing about 12 years ago (NEX6 was my first camera, after that A6500, now A7R III) and had always used Sony autofocus lenses.
In the past years I always used modern (Sony) autofocus lenses with focus by wire manual focus rings (primes and zooms). That's all I knew. Two years ago I started to use manual primes (Zeiss Loxia) and I realy like this small precision optics with amazing built quality and mechanical focus feel. For me the user experience of using these compact manual lenses is so much enjoyable, and combined with the restriction of a single focal length I feel I need to work much more for my images, it makes me more creative. With the autofocus lenses (which I still use), especially with zooms, I noticed that I get easier into a lazy snap-shoot mode, just firing off quick snapshots here and there. With these manual primes I'm forced to work with my feet and manual focus, I feel more challanged in a positive way. Besides this big benefit the images of these manual Loxia's (I have several now, L25/2.5, L35/2.0, L50/2.0, L85/2.4) look realy pleasing to my eye as well.
So my Manual Loxia primes are my "fun lenses". I realy like to go out for a walk in local nature and take one or 2 small Loxia's with me in a small bag. Using these lenses I feel like I'm actually photographing, rather than just taking pictures, if that makes sense.
I now bought a 52mm black mist filter (1/8 strength) to try on my Loxia's. In PP I often "soften" the image a bit, and add some grain, to create a bit more "old" look which I realy like. It should help a bit with nice atmospheric effects and soften the edges a bit. So this is a new "fun" accessory that I hope to use on my Loxia's during my upcomming 4 week vacation to Singapore and Indonesia and see what it brings me.
I guess it would adapt to E mount.