We have become accustomed at the perfectly engineered look of the pictures taken with our modern lenses. The Through the Vintage Lens Series is a project with the goal of capturing underwater fauna and sceneries using the unique perspective of vintage lenses. With this project, my intention is to explore the new creative possibilities that imperfect vintage lenses can have on our image-making. From extreme, bubbly bokeh to razor sharpness, these lenses can help capture the underwater world from a different point of view. In this series, I will show images taken underwater with vintage lenses. Additionally, I will explain a bit of the history behind the lens as well as walk you through adapting the lens to your modern camera and your housing system. I will also give tips on how to shoot these lenses in terms of camera settings, lighting type, composition, and post-processing modifications.

The first lens that I acquired for this series is the Carl Zeiss Jena Pancolar 50mm f/1.8, a classic East German prime lens known for its excellent sharpness and pleasing bokeh. Carl Zeiss first opened an optics workshop in Jena in 1846. After World War II, Jena was incorporated into the Soviet occupation zone, or East Germany. The Pancolar lens was produced in East Germany.  There are two versions of the lens: 1) Zebra version, which is single-coated and recognized by its distinctive black and silver stripes, and 2) Electric version, which is multi-coated (marked as “MC”) and all black with red, green or white markings. The lens is structured in 6 elements of 4 groups. It has a 49mm filter mount and a minimum focus distance of 35 cm. This minimum focus distance is very close compared to many other 50mm prime lens (a short minimum focus distance is great for underwater use as you can get closer to your subject and get a larger magnification to fill the frame and avoid any backscatter). The lens was produced in M42, EXA, and Praktica B mounts. While more expensive, the M42 mount versions are easier to adapt to modern DSLRs or mirrorless cameras. With an M42 to your-camera-of-choice mount adapter (in my case, M42 to Nikon F adapter), you can adapt the lens to your modern camera. It is important to mention that the Zebra version tends to have a yellow tint on the glass. This yellow tint can actually come in handy when photographing underwater as it brings out a more pleasing blue color for the water. However, this also means that in order to shoot with this lens, it is best to set manual white balance, using a white slate, before shooting.

The main challenge of using the Pancolar underwater is adapting the lens to your housing and port system. The lens measures 60mm in length which is very similar to the Nikon 10.5mm fisheye lens when set at infinity focus distance or the Nikon 40mm micro lens when set at minimum focus distance. However, the lens is not capable of focusing when put behind a 4” dome port. Therefore, the best port option is a flat port. For Nauticam users, you will need to use the Nauticam 60 macro port or the Nauticam 45 macro port for this lens. In order to fit it better within the 60 macro port and to get higher magnification of your subject, I have found that using a 1.4x teleconverter comes in handy. With a Kenko Teleplus HD teleconverter, the lens fits the 60 macro port well and allows you to fill the frame with smaller subjects. Since you are shooting at f/1.8, the loss of one stop of light due to the teleconverter is not significant.

An important thing to consider is that once the lens is in the housing, you will not be able to modify the lens’ aperture or focus distance. Thus, I recommend shooting with the lens wide open (at an aperture of f/1.8) and set to the minimum focus distance (35 cm). While not at the aperture at which the lens is the sharpest in the corners, at f/1.8 and at the minimum focus distance the lens will render the most pleasing bokeh and a great center sharpness for fascinating and unique shots. Given that aperture is fixed at f/1.8, you need to play with ISO and shutter speed in order to achieve the correct exposure of your shot. Generally, good jump-in settings are 1/100s and ISO 100, but these will depend on the depth, visibility and weather conditions of your dive site.

In order to nail the focus, the best way I have found to shoot with this lens in a housing is to shoot in continuous low mode and rock forward and backward while taking pictures. While rocking, make sure to check for the focus indicator shown in the viewfinder. Take a lot of shots! Nailing the focus underwater while hovering and holding a heavy housing is hard and will require a bit of “spray and pray”.

I have found that the best set-up in terms of lighting is to use dual strobes in low power (1/4th to 1/5th of full power) on long strobe arms. At low power, the strobes are powerful enough to correctly expose your shot but also fast enough to fire several times in a row if you are shooting in continuous low mode. Additionally, the long strobe arms allow you to move the strobes freely to achieve the lighting angles and the bokeh effects you want for your shot. However, at such a large aperture of the lens, most strobes tend to be too powerful (and end up overexposing all shots). If your strobes are too powerful, an alternative is to use a powerful flood torch for your lighting. The additional benefit of using a torch instead of a strobe is being able to more easily identify when the subject is in focus due to the increased amount of light coming through the viewfinder. Moreover, you can instantaneously see through the viewfinder the effects of moving the light source in order to achieve certain lighting types or bokeh effects. The 9-3 o’clock placement to either side of your port is the best position for your torches or strobes. Finally, ambient light shooting is also possible due to the large aperture. However, I recommend staying relatively shallow (<5 meters) in order to take advantage of warmer colors and avoid getting “all-blue” shots of critters.

At f/1.8, the lens is very sharp at the center of the frame. However, the corners do appear smooth with many aberrations and some slight vignetting. Thus, I suggest keeping the composition simple with mostly bullseye type shots and plenty of colorful or open water backgrounds.  Additionally, this lens does have some flaring issues, so avoid shooting directly into the sun or using direct backlighting. There is very little need for post-processing the images, I recommend bringing up the contrast of the image a little and decrease the vignetting as most vintage lenses suffer from low contrast and vignetting. Personally, I also like to increase the texture and the sharpness of the image for tack-sharp shots.

Overall, this lens renders images comparable to those of modern lenses with the beautiful Zeiss colors, smooth bokeh and tack sharpness. For a Carl Zeiss Jena Pancolar 50mm f/1.8 in excellent condition, you will have to pay 90 euro, which makes this lens also a bargain. Check out the images in this article taken with this lens and consider giving a different look at your portfolio!