About

I'm Daniel. By day I fix bicycles; on weekends I shoot old manual-focus lenses on a mirrorless camera I probably didn't need to buy.

This site is a notebook: lens reviews written from actual use rather than spec sheets, adaptation notes, and the occasional rant about focus peaking. Most of the glass here is M42-mount Soviet and East German stuff, because it's cheap, characterful, and survives being dropped.

Everything is shot handheld, mostly at f/2 where the flaws live. No affiliate links, no sponsors — the budget for this hobby comes out of the same envelope as coffee.

Current bag: a Helios 44-2, an Industar 50-2, a Jupiter-9 that flares if you so much as think about the sun, and a battered SMC Takumar 50/1.4.