Ode to Dubious Lenses: "HD MC 162728"

I’ve got roughly ten or so lenses in my collection, most are second-hand manual lenses of varying prestige, quality, and cost. I dislike my official Fujis the most, they are totems of wasted money and frustration (“Maybe this time I’ll get along with the autofocus!”). My old Soviet & East German lenses are okay, but I find myself playing pretend that they’re good and worth keeping going with (there’s a political joke somewhere there), they are just so cumbersome to use casually and using a mount adapter is always shit. Soviet lenses have not aged well, despite my misguided affection for that mess of history.

No, my favourite lenses are the cheap, scrappy manual ones of dubious origin. My most preferred lens? I have no idea where it’s from; it isn’t branded. I got it for £25 on eBay and all my favourite shots are from it.

My “HD MC 162728” lens, a metal bodied 25mm/1.8 of unknown origin rarely leaves my camera’s body now - I just can’t be be bothered with anything else, the Fuji automatics are too tiresome, I hate fighting against a machine, and the cheaper 7Artisans, TTArtisans and other Chinese lenses are just a bit boring or too experimental (okay, 10mm is too far, lesson learnt - I’m to blame for shunning some of these).

But my little mongrel metal 25mm soldiers on delivering solid results with character every time. I can take a photo of my lounge or kitchen right now and it’ll look great. My camera roll is full of photos of places I’ve lived, all through this humble little lens. The thing produces soft, homely images - with a slight sadness to it all (don’t ask me to explain that one). Amusingly most of the promotional shots of its repackaged siblings promote themselves with the usual pretty woman portrait slop that the Chinese market pours out, a far cry from the heartbreak I find it usually tints most shots I get.

From what I can tell the lens is sold by pretty much anyone, even the bigger names. They’ve all rebranded it slightly by changing the text printed on the front, but its appears to be the same lens; 7Artisans, “Pixco”, “Newer”, “Andoer” … and so on. If I’m right, and it is the same lens repeatedly repackaged by the soup of the Chinese photography market, you can probably get it first-hand for less than I did second. It is a bit funny that 7Artisans would be in on this too, given their well-earned reputation of quality.

The “HD MC 162728” is the most analogue feeling lens I’ve used, its shots are the closest to film I think my aging X-E2 is capable of reaching & the physical operation is a dream, the dials have the perfect amount of resistance and give. The lens might be dog-shit on a technical level, but that’s maybe why I love it. It unironically has “character”.