JustJessPhotos had been taken with Nikon D750 and uploaded only in low resolution, but if you’d be interested in seeing some of the pics in HQ or RAW quality, don’t hesitate to contact me. All of the pictures went through some basic post processing.
Please note that I'm not testing the lens. I regularly use it! There is no technical specification in this article, only my photos and my feelings.
Detailed review and specification available at themanualphotographer.
Photos taken with this lens:
My feelings:
I’ve had this lens since approximatelly 2010 and I haven’t used it much until 2023. Mainly because I had much better and modern lenses that were more practical and I didn’t have enough time to ‘play around’ with fully manual lenses. Therefore, I’ve been thinking about selling this lens for a long time. However, in 2023 I decided to test it one more time, before I sell it and somehow I grew fond of it. I had spend most of year 2023 with this lens on my camera and I can’t imagine not having it at this point.
The photos from Adaptall-2 have very nice touch to it, especially when using depth of field and wide open aperture. On the other hand, when taking pictures of a landscape I never seem to be able to focus corretly on infinity because the lens runs behind it. The background objects are never quite as sharp as I want them. This is a huge disadvantage if you are used to cropping pictures – the quality is simply lost there (in comparison with modern Nikkor 24-70 mm, f 2.8, which is one of the best lenses in my gear).
However it’s important to say that the amount of details that this lens is able to capture, pretty much makes up for any lack of infinity, because you can see every single halftone that you would never even notice in real life. This is especially palpable at pictures from city landscapes.
The other disadvantage is that the lens came without a hood and I often need to use my hand instead of a hood. If I don’t, blue flares from the sun are all over the pictures. However, this can be also used as an interesting effect, but many times it’s simply annoying. The lens also goes into shades of blue in darktones and semitones and has quite a high contrast.
Even though it seems like a lot of cons, the main reason I’m still experimenting with this lens is that it’s very light and compact. Unlike my Nikon D or G series lenses which are often too heavy for my wanderings in the alps.
2024 Update – I got my hands on the original lens hood. Photos dated from March 2024 onwards might be taken with the lens hood on. However, when using the fully wide lens, the hood is visible in the corners of the pics, to my great surprise and horror. So I needed to edit it out of the pictures. :/
The gallery is updated every two months.
Look at pictures from my other vintage lenses here.
