Thank you for your kind words. I’m not sure what the state of prosumer digital photography is these days, but about a decade ago, if you wanted to build a lens collection on a tight budget, you looked for vintage Soviet-made camera lenses. They were super cheap and functional.

I sometimes feel like functionality and longevity were hallmarks of pre-2000s manufacturing. I remember my mother talking about an old children’s bicycle that a relative had bought in Germany. That bicycle was passed across through multiple families, and an entire generation of kids learned to ride on it.