Molly Hollman
Molly Hollman specialises in flower, garden and wildlife photography. In 2019 she was awarded a lifetime achievement bar by the Guild of Photographers and her work has been highly placed in numerous competitions including Garden Photographer of the Year, Close-up Photographer of the Year and the RHS Photography competition. Last year she released her first book, Creative Flower and Plant Photography, which has received rave reviews. To find out more, visit www.mollyhollman.myportfolio.com.
Vintage lenses to try
What do you like about vintage lenses?
Vintage lenses often have qualities that modern lenses lack, such as interesting colour casts, bokeh and – usually – very solid build quality. I’ve never been interested in the look of a lens; for me it’s all about function (and results) over fashion.
What was the first vintage lens you used?
One of the first vintage lenses I used on my Pentax DSLR was a SMC 50mm-M f/1.7 (you can buy these on eBay for under £50). I still use this lens a lot with my Sony A7III (with the help of an inexpensive adapter). It has beautiful creamy bokeh and is perfect for flower and nature photography – it’s great for portraiture too. The SMC 50mm-M f/1.7 is fully manual, which takes some getting used to, but modern cameras with focus peaking make this much easier. The lens produces greens and blues that are very cool toned, which I love (modern lenses often have quite a yellow colour cast, which I often alter in the edit).
What other vintage lenses do you own?
Another lens I love from my Pentax (film camera) days is the Vivitar 55mm f/2.8 macro. This lens is a 1:1 macro (manual focus), and there is almost no minimum focusing distance which means you can get right on top of your subject (perfect for flowers). The lens is tack sharp and has great contrast and colour rendition. It’s also much smaller and lighter than modern macro lenses. It’s technically a zoom lens as the barrel extends to focus (which gives a range of between 80 and 135mm on a full-frame camera such as my Sony).
I also own a Helios 44-2 2/58mm lens, gifted to me by a friend. It’s an inexpensive lens, but superb for flower photography. When used wide open, the bokeh is really swirly and circular, which I love. (If you find this a bit much you can ‘tame’ it by stopping down the aperture.) The Helios 44-2 2/58mm needs an M42 adapter. If you’re looking to buy one then try and get a model from the 1970s, as these are usually higher quality than
