Lenses with Unique, Built-in Looks

Most photographers use sharpness as qualifier to rate the quality of their lenses, but as any seasoned photographer can tell you, resolution isn’t the end-all when it comes to ranking lens qualities. If anything, it’s the character of a lens—the way it renders your subject, that determines the quality of a lens. In this article, we will discuss lenses that bring something special to the party—lenses that break from the rest of the pack.

Pinholes

Some of the earliest photographs were captured with cameras obscura, which have evolved into pinhole cameras today. While we still sell film-based pinhole cameras at B, we will concentrate on pinholes for this article, which replace conventional lenses, and are available for DSLRs, mirrorless cameras, medium format cameras, and even large format cameras.