85mm Street Photography in Guangzhou. A Walk Down Manao Xiang with a Vintage Seagull Lens.
After last week’s street photography walk with a 50mm full frame equivalent vintage lens I decided to take out the Seagull Haiou-64 58/F2.0 lens this week; mounted on my Panasonic Lumix GX9 (with the Zhonggyi Lens Turbo II as a converter). This setup gave me a 85mm equivalent field of view, which to be honest, after last week’s experiences, I was not looking forward to trying it out.
Yet again, I was planning to head over to People’s Park in Guangzhou but decided to take a detour to an interesting looking alley. Perhaps next time I will just get off at the right Metro station. Perhaps not.
The alley ended up leading to China’s oldest mosque and a school. I arrived just as classes ended and the students flooded through Manao Xiang (玛瑙巷) “Onyx Lane” on their way home.
Photography-wise, it was a horrible day. I found walking around with the 50mm lens akin to looking at the world through a telescope or sniper rifle. I ended up walking back slowly and hitting a wall on more than one occasion. It was very difficult to frame a shot. This focal range is definitely not my cup of tea and I highly doubt I will try it again.
