I’m out before dawn doing what I love—chasing a sunrise with a couple of bodies and some old glass that actually has personality. In this shoot I ran two cameras: my Canon R5 (the original—still my favorite “affordable” full-frame Canon ever, and yeah, I’m sad they discontinued it) and the little Canon R50, which I’m having a ridiculous amount of fun with for the money. The whole point was to compare how different lenses render a sunrise, because they absolutely do not all look the same. What I’ve learned is pretty simple: vintage Nikons are clean, but to me they’re kind of boring—great, but clean. The Pentax and even the Chinon stuff? More character. I’m talking flares, colored flares, that “radioactive” look, and sometimes even swirly bokeh—things lens makers used to try to eliminate, and now we chase on purpose. I also walk you through exactly how I focus with manual lenses: I start at infinity, zoom in on something distant like the top of a tree, and back off just a hair. Then I ride the histogram (ISO 200, variable ND, shutter speed adjustments, two-second timer) and keep it left so I’m not blowing highlights—even shooting straight into the sun.