These are my secret weapons when using old vintage lenses on my modern mirrorless cameras

A picture of a photographer outside on a bright sunny day holding a Canon EOS R5 camera to his eye with a vintage Helios lens attached to it.

I truly believe that you don’t need to spend a lot of money to take incredible photographs. And for many genres in photography, it’s more important to focus on your creativity rather than that next lens upgrade.

For years I’ve been an advocate for buying second-hand equipment and using cheap and cheerful lenses. Some of the best 50mm lenses, often called a "nifty fifty", can produce striking results and have given me some of my favourite travel portraits to date.