Working with the 35mm MD Rokkor

In the way that the 80mm Planar lens on the Rolleiflex is a jack of all trades, so, too, is the 35mm lens on the smaller format. Given the choice, I'd still vote for a 40mm lens as being the best all-round focal length but I'm more than happy to go out with just a 35mm, the bog-standard f2.8 MD Rokkor in this case. That's the lens that was used for all the photographs in this post.

It's one of those lenses that is often overlooked and can, consequently, be picked up very cheaply on Ebay. As well as being commendably sharp, it's also a diminutive lens and a great partner for the compact and relatively lightweight XG2. In fact, in terms of its performance and value it's possibly the biggest bargain on the market just now.

Everyone, myself included it has to be said, seems to be chasing fast lenses. If a 35mm f1.8 MD Rokkor pops up on Ebay you can bet there's going to be a tremendous clamour for it. As a result, the fast Rokkors often sell for about five times the prices of its slower brother. Is it five times the lens? Only if you're going to shoot everything at f1.8.

In fact, if you want to get involved in 35mm photography, then an XG2 and 35mm Rokkor is a hard-to-beat combination. There are actually quite a few Minolta bodies that you could use such as the XD7, XE1 and XE5, any of the SRT series and the newer X700. That's not an exhaustive list by any means. All of the bodies are well-made and capable with build quality on a very, very high level for the older, 1960s and 1970s models and slowly becoming more plasticky into the '80s and '90s. However, the somewhat plasticky MD Rokkor just seems made for the equally plasticky XG2.

But enough of this gear chat. If you remember, what I'm trying to do here in shooting with the XG2, 35mm and 50mm lenses is to stop myself thinking about fancy cameras by sticking to something rather more basic until the image becomes the important thing again and not the equipment.

The first pic was taken to finish the roll of Agfa APX 100 before I developed it in D76 1+1. It was shot wide open and handheld at about 1/30th. It's my version of Tracy Emin's My Bed but without the condoms. :-) All of these photographs were scanned and "post-processed" on the computer with added grain and arty borders (sorry, just haven't had time to get into the darkroom lately). 

Number two was taken in an old part of town few days ago. It was my type of day for photography - overcast and rainy. I love the way rain creates all these highlights on road surfaces. So much better than dry tarmac or cobbles.

My home town of Dundee has a lot of tenement flats and the communal entrance is known as a "close",  pronounced as in "a close second". They follow a familiar pattern with doorways out to the back green, flights of stairs with a window on each landing, shiny, well-worn floors and gloss-painted walls for easy maintenance. It's this paint that I love in the third pic as it bounces light around and turns what can be in reality quite smelly places (it's not unknown for late night revellers to see them as something akin to a Scottish version of a pissoir) into temples of light and shade.

Finally, here's a pic of Magdalene Yard bandstand. If I drop Cath and Freya off in the town for shopping, I often park the car around here and go for a walk along the attractive streets and lanes in Dundee's West End. I've photographed the bandstand many times. It's a nice subject with a pleasant backdrop of the River Tay and the gently undulating hills of Fife beyond.