0 . 9 5 (れい てん きゅう ご)

note: got this lens off an auction a bit more than a month ago. was shocked to see a lot of fungus on the lens. (i know i shouldn't trust the dodgy description on auction sites but still fell for it.) had it immediately brought to some 'camera lab' to have it cleaned and modified to M mount. they originally estimated 2 months, but was surprised to get a call 1 month early (reminder to self : apr 29) they couldn't take away all the fungus traces, but i think they did a very good job cleaning it.

this was shot a day after i got it. i shot some with film on the 1st day but i still don't have it back. the lens performs better than i expected. i think it is sharp enough. (the picture here is a bit out of focus though. focus is more on the nose rather than the eye, but this is the one which captures the old man's expression most with the shots i took of him.)

blog: i wanted to try this lens at night where it works best, so decided to walk to higashi-ginza after work. i chanced upon this old man along the main street of ginza. there were 2 of them actually. the other one was a middle-aged woman, who i initially thought was the main performer, but she called this old man sensei (teacher)... this old man (muraoka-san, name printed on the cd he was selling) was very nice. i think he talked more than he played. =) (i also think his cd is not worth the 2,000 yen he is selling it for. you should just listen to him live whenever you chance upon him) (btw, i walked all the way to shiodome to catch my train home. around twice the distance of my original plan, for those not familiar with tokyo.)

additional note: somehow i like the sound of how they say the aperture value in japanese: れい てん きゅう ご (rei ten kyuu go)