A Lens With Character, Introducing The Lomography Lomogon 2.5/32 Art
The Lomography Lomogon 2.5/32 Art has arrived after a successful kickstarter campaign. Let’s take a closer look at this modern vintage lens.
Vintage lenses are always a great start when building a beginners lens kit, but certain lenses have their own unique charm and characteristics. Helios are an extremely popular range of Russian lenses known for the swirly bokeh, and Lomography has been a popular choice for analogue photographers with their unique range of film stocks.
"Lomogon is the ultimate lens for travel and street photography. Shoot from the hip, catch your subject off-guard and capture the beauty of the world in its constant state of motion." -- Lomography
The Lomogon 2.5/32 is a manual lens, with an offset aputure wheel that has no blades, only a circle. This creates a very interesting bokeh when shooting wide open, and is very sharp when stopped down to the minimum aperture of F/11. The construction is full metal, which feels very comfortable in hand, and when pulling focus.
Using the aperture wheel takes some getting used to, but on the Canon 5D III or even the Sony a7 III, the combination is great for experimenting with street or photo journalism style photography. That being said, the unique contrasty look of the lens also lends itself to portraits too.
The photos below were taken in winter on a cloudy day. Despite the ambient light being rather flat, the natural contrast (and additional contrast in post) makes those rich orange leaves pop from the forest background.
The images are inherently rich in contrast, and with a focal length of 32mm the Lomogon the perspective is similar to that of our own vision, making it ideal for both portrait and wide angle scenes.
Shooting From The Hip
During the covid-19 self isolation period, I took time out during sunset to capture this surreal moment in our time; documenting the sudden change in lifestyle habits where we in the UK should only leave our houses for exercise or if we simply cannot work at home.
Unexpected Results
What I really like about the Lomogon 2.5/32 Art is that you never quite know what your photo will look like, despite knowingly setting the aperture, shutter speed and ISO. It’s this unpredicable aspect of the lens that makes me appreciate it more and more. I worry less about the sharpness, or whether the subject is in focus, and think more about just capturing the moment. The vignette and look is organic and very pleasing. It’s real, just like the scene or subject.
Certainly in times like this, I’m enjoying this aspect of ‘photo journalism’ as everyones lives have changed very dramatically.
The Lomography Lomogon 2.5/32 Art first appeared on Kickstarter, but is now available to purchase via the Lomography store here. It is available in Canon EF, Nikon F and Pentax K mount, there are also adaptor mounts available to convert the lens to Micro 4/3rds, Sony E-mount and Fuji X mount too.