Yes, the first one is quite heavily edited, but not because it was bad to begin with, but because I wanted to make it look a bit more artistic, so it'll have a certain mood.

The rest of the 3 first photos were white balanced to the nearest white in the photo. Since they were all reasonably long exposures, I could "push" the lighting up naturally without it affecting the photo quality. If I had something moving in the photos, it would definitely have gotten blurred though.

The rest of the photos were taken with a wide open aperture on that same (old) lens, so they can be a bit soft.

Thank you!

They were all taken with the same manual lens. 😅

Thank you!

Focusing is one of the things I sometimes struggle with myself. I've had more issues with composition though, but I will admit focusing is one of the most difficult things. My camera very rarely gets it completely right, and when using the manual lens it's even more difficult. But when you do get the focus sharp, it is very satisfying.

Anyway, most of the time it doesn't matter too much if the focus is a little bit off. It may feel like a bummer, but most people who look at your photos don't really care. It's just the photographer himself who thinks everything must be tack sharp and perfectly lit and composed. Gladly, we are in the minority.