Composer Pro II + Double Glass II

The 12-blade aperture is a joy when you're chasing those creamy, perfectly round bokeh circles—it's like the background just melts away. I've been shooting everything from wide-open f/2.5 to stopped down at f/22 and the all-metal build makes every click feel reassuringly solid. For a lens this quirk

Dialing the aperture from f/2.5 down to f/22 by hand takes a second to get used to, but the 12 blades give me gorgeous sunstars when I stop down. Wide open, that soft dreamy glow around my subject is exactly what I was chasing.

The all-metal build feels way more solid than the plastic version I used before, and the manual aperture ring clicks nicely into place. Shooting wide open at f/2.5 gives that dreamy soft glow, then stopping down to f/22 keeps everything crisp for landscapes.