What do you look for in a grungy lens?

[richg101]

If you were buying a really character-full lens to get a vintage or raw look what sort of characteristics do you look for?    Is it loads of flare?, lack of contrast?, a particular colour to the flares and image?  Weird defocus artifacts?  rough ground elements?  micro cleaning marks? misalignment?

 

interested to hear your thoughts:)

[Bioskop.Inc]

I bought the Helios 40-2 for the swirly bokeh when used wide open - can be stunningly beautiful & weird!

 

The Jupiter 37a because of its lack of contrast.

 

But others have been for flares: 

vimeo.com/mkcine

 

And others, like Meyer Optik, for colour.

 

I've completely abandoned the idea of getting a set of lenses that match - my new ethos is a different lens for a particular situation/shot/effect that i want to get. 

But, i suppose i've always taken more photos than video, so there's always been a slight bias in my lens choice.

Also, because i'm using a Canon, there are a ton of picture profiles out there that try to emulate different film stocks, which give you so many more choices for looks as well.