The second Randomly Generated camera and lens combo unwittingly pushed me to the edge of my sanity and patience, ultimately concluded satisfactorily, albeit at a unwanted cost to my wallet…..

Once again the Sony A7R IV was chosen as the camera; the lens was the TT Artisan M 100mm F2.8 Bubble Bokeh, to give it its full title, – henceforth referred to as the TT Artisan 100mm f/2.8. For those unfamiliar with this lens, it is a relatively modern (2023) M42 screw mount manual focus lens that borrows heavily from (i.e. it is technically the same as) the Meyer Görlitz Trioplan 100mm f/2.8 lens. The cult classic Trioplan lens is based on a simple design that dates back to 1893 and produced from 1956 until around the end of the 1970s, then revived due to popular demand in 2015 with new copies being snapped up for close to four digit sums and vintage copies seeing a surge in price.

The USP of the lens is actually an optical flaw that means it can produce distinctive and, in my eyes, attractive soap bubble bokeh in certain conditions. Optically it’s a poor lens if you crave sharpness and in every day usage is unspectacular so I’ve not used it that often. But, when the situation is right it can create unique images that I haven’t been able to recreate with any other lens, so for that reason I am very fond of – especially as it was one of the first lenses I bought back in 2023 when my photography renaissance began in earnest.

This should have been a straightforward attach the lens to the camera (using the Techart LM-EA9 adapter for autofocus of this manual focus lens and head out for a walk in the afternoon and early evening – perhaps not utilising the lens’ strengths but perhaps capturing some of the magic this lens can produce. Things did not go to plan however.

As I often do and especially when shooting with manual focus lenses and adapters I take some test shots to make sure everything is okay and with the Techart adapter, set the lens length to acquire IBIS. With the Techart adapter the method is to set the lens to infinity focus, then let the camera take over when focusing. I noticed however that the lens wouldn’t focus to infinity no matter what I attempted to focus on. I tried a different M42 adapter (a dumb one with no AF capabilities) and had the same issue. It was then I remembered that I had done something to this lens some months earlier that, in hindsight, I shouldn’t have. What I did I’ll explain all here so that anyone else who happens to stumble on this doesn’t make the same mistake.

In the last quarter of 2025 I had purchased another TT Artisan copycat retro lens – the 75mm f/1.5 Swirly Bokeh lens. One of the quirks of both lenses is that, depending on your M42 adapter, when screwed to the camera the aperture and focus information on the lens can be in the wrong position, in my instances upside down rather than on the top. Whilst this doesn’t effect the operation of the lens and camera and I have lived with it being like this on the 100mm lens, it is a little bit annoying having to turn the camera upside down to confirm the aperture setting especially.

The 75mm lens is designed, with an adjustment to some very small screws near the focus ring, to move the aperture and focus info to the correct position when mounted on your camera. The 100mm lens has similar very small screws that can also be used to move the focus information around the barrel of the lens. Crucially, however, TT Artisan never intended you to do this – the instruction manual instead suggests adjusting the screws on an adapter if that was designed to do so.

So a few months ago I successfully adjusted the 75mm lens and, forgetting what the manual said for the 100mm lens, unscrewed the 100mm lens before realising that an adjustment wasn’t possible and retightening the screws. I assume that this is what caused the lens to no longer focus to infinity.

Before reading online that a possible solution to the 100mm lens not focusing to infinity is to gently, but firmly tap it with the palm of your hand, and also forgetting again that the lens shouldn’t be unscrewed, I hastily removed the tiny (around 2mm long) screws from the 100mm lens again, and began wiggling things about in the rather optimistic hope that this would fix things. To my mild horror then lens silently, but easily, came apart into two pieces, the barrel containing the glass no longer attached to the barrel containing the lens mount!

What followed was no less than five hours painstaking (literally – my back was a mess by the end of it all) effort to attempt to not only reassemble the lens – which I was able to do – but to have the focus ring able to turn to infinity without the lens coming apart again (which I wasn’t able to do), or to have the focus ring turn at all or partially and be able to focus at anything other than the minimum focal length (which the markings had at 90cm). I knew something was very wrong when at times the lens was able to focus at around 30cm, but nothing else. In the end I left the lens in a state where it wouldn’t fall apart with the mere turn of the focus ring, but then again the focus ring was incapable of turning at all….

A day wasted and a lens down, in a move to save my sanity I looked online and was able to source a new replacement lens from a UK seller – a camera shop – at a price less than what I originally paid for it and I believe still at the price TT Artisan was offering back in the Black Friday Sales. This is an unnecessary extravagance I know but for the sake of my mental health it was an easily justifiable choice. As I mentioned earlier it’s a lens I don’t use that often, but in certain use case scenarios, is unique.

The lens ordered on the Wednesday evening, I was very impressed that it arrived Friday lunchtime even with free delivery chosen. I unpacked it, stuck it on the camera to take a test shot to check everything was as it should, which it was, then sighed with relief. I was going to abandon the idea of the Random Lens Generator for the week, especially with the weather being so wet and cold, but a narrow window of pleasant weather on the Saturday afternoon, around an hour before sunset, saw me head out with my new old lens.

Like the previous week I stuck with the black and white concept, although I was happy to edit the raw in colour if they worked better once at home. The setting sun promised some nice opportunities for golden hour photos that mostly didn’t materialise due to my route taken. There was also some unusual atmospheric conditions taking place with mist starting to develop in the park, although the lens wasn’t the best at showing this.

As I expected there were precious few opportunities to capture the bubble bokeh the lens is famous for. This meant that the walk was mostly spent using a lens that wasn’t really that suited to street style photography. The lens is not the sharpest and there were more slightly blurry shots than I normally expect to see, especially as the Techart Adapter was working properly and showing when the camera was in focus.

Reusing the lens will confirm this but I suspect it was a case of operator error in forgetting to assign the lens length to the camera. The EXIF shows a lens length of 12mm rather than the 90mm I would have chosen as the closest the Techart has to 100mm. I know that having an incorrect focal length can cause issues with the IBIS and I suspect this is what I am seeing.

What I did enjoy in using a technically inferior vintage style lens is that the outdoor shots in black and white especially captured a 1960s and 1970s vibe straight out of the camera. I suspect this is mostly due to the lens being a long way from clinically sharp, especially away from the centre and its optically simple design which I guess vintage lenses are more likely to be than today’s computer aided designs.

Ultimately the walk with this lens was more productive than with the 50mm f/1.4 the week before in that there were a handful I quite like which justifies the decision to go out on a two hour walk, if not the decision to repurchase the bubble bokeh lens….

The 100mm bubble bokeh lens is now back on the shelf awaiting its opportunity to shine with a better use case scenario than I gave it on Saturday. It’s a niche lens for sure but definitely one I’d recommend especially to those who are curious to dip their toes into the world of vintage lenses but nervous about the often volatile second hand market and the hidden horrors a vintage lens could carry. It is capable of capturing images you wouldn’t be able to capture with a modern lens and when compared to the lens it is aping, is a bit of a bargain.