Fine-tuning my thoughts about the TTArtisan 50mm f.095 Lens. Can it be good? A Texas Style Story.

TTArtisan lens used in the 1:1 format on a Sigma fp. either wide open or maybe at 1.1.

I'm not the deepest thinker in the photography space by a long shot. I'm just a photographer who likes to use stuff until I understand it and if I stop to write about a lens or a camera or a technique it's because I'm curious, intrigued, outraged or just interested in the subject matter. I've often thought it would be really cool to be a YouTube influencer and rake in buckets of cash for basically just reading camera maker's press releases out loud and then videotaping myself photographing a "struggling" "model" while tangentially using one of the camera maker's products. I would probably have to have "good" things to say about every product I was sent to play with and it probably wouldn't go very well because I am no longer young and cute, I lack the bubbly energy to be wildly thrilled by every new toy that comes off the Fedex truck and I'm often far too honest for my own good. After spending six years as a student at UT Austin and three more years as a faculty member I am just barely smart enough to write consistently comprehensible correct copy for a simple photo blog but I have one advantage: I try really hard. Even when it doesn't make sense. Just ask one of my book editors. Dumb as a stump but disciplined....

So, without much research or even a plausible reason for buying a TTartisan 50mm f.095 APS-C lens I sent my credit card information over the internet and bought one sight unseen. Miraculously it arrived. It was new and in a box. It had a fancy looking certificate that was supposed to let me know that it was a really good lens even if I was unable to see it for myself, or to make really sharp pix on my own. I was happy for a few minutes after it arrived but then I remembered that I already have a really good and really fast lens for the cropped frame format. It's the small but potent Sigma 56mm f1.4 and it's a lens that I've tested pretty often. It's performance has not decayed over time. Well, maybe it has but I have no way of measuring lens deterioration until it's so bad I can see it with my eyes. I sat down in a comfortable chair and worked up a sweat trying to think really hard about how I could justify the new lens to myself, my accoutant, my spouse and my blog readers. It was really hard. Every avenue of positive logic seemed blocked by reality. Was it just another in a long series of bad expenditures in which I spend between $200 and $300 on essentially what is a momentary impulse? A lark? And lark by lark will I eventually bankrupt myself by continuing in this illogical manner? Will capitalism, in the end, defeat me and leave me eviscerated on the financial battlefield of life? Are lenses like pecan pie? So fun to think about, so delicious while I'm eating a piece and yet taking the place of better nutritional choices and just basically raising my blood sugar levels for no productive reason? (and the sticky, gooey residue near the crust pulling the crowns off my molars for spite?).

Today Robert R. gave me hope and permission. Permission to enjoy random dalliances with pecan pies (and by extension I hope other pies as well...) and through the process of extrapolation I stole the permission to enjoy random dances with unnecessary lenses. Even if that was not his intention I'm using his comment to assuage my tremendous post cognitive dissonance where the "new" 50mm in question is concerned. 

After sitting for a long time trying to get the brain warmed up and in some way actually productive for me I came upon a plan. One that's thin in retrospect, but I was at a loss for anything else. Here it is. A workaround for a lens that doesn't replace a better one in APS-C and, sadly,  doesn't quite cover the frame in a full frame format camera. It also brings along a worrisome level of non-performance in the corners of the frame. The workaround is, of course, that this is the perfect artsy lens to use on a full frame camera if you are shooting in the square, 1:1 crop. I leapt up from the chair, turned off Fox News, put down the Budweiser beer can, dusted off the Cheetos crumbs from my Anti-Intellectual Society t-shirt and headed out to the workshop (not office!) to piece together an appropriate camera and the aforementioned lens so I could do one of my famous "hands on" tests. 

It took me a while to figure out how to get the back lens cap off the lens and much more time figuring out just how to attach the lens to my camera but in the end, and with the help of several YouTube instructional videos filled with drone footage, I was able to cobble them together. Having successfully put together a Sigma fp and the TTartisan lens I was ready to venture forth to test. I got about a block away from home base when I remembered that I'd forgotten to put a memory card in the camera so I turned around to do that. I thought about changing my engine oil in the driveway while I was back home but I also remembered that I don't have the tools or the needed oil and I have nowhere to dump recycle the old oil. Then I remembered this lens test and headed back out with the camera, the memory card and the lens. This time I got two blocks from home base when I realized that I'd forgotten a battery for the camera... So I turned back around and got a freshly charged battery out of the workshop. My niece came by while I was tongue-testing the contacts on the battery to make sure it was charged and she asked how one removes catalytic converters from cars but after we got through that conversation and watched a few videos on something called the dark web she got in her pick-up and left and I finally revved up the car (which I do really loud cuz it triggers my neighbors, who are nice people but trigger-able, which is so fun) and I headed downtown. By this time it was raining. Not just drizzly little crap but full on rain. But I'm nothing if no a "try hard" person so I pulled a slightly smelly, cheap rain jacket out of the trunk and determined to get some shots done before dinner. And I was not going to miss our usual Friday night corndog and french fry dinner if I could help it! Wash it down with Diet Pepsi and nothing beats the taste. Catsup or mustard? Now that is the question. And as everyone knows the best dinners (at least the most fun) are the ones where the entreé (main course?) is impaled on a wooden stick. 

The rain poured down and my glasses fogged up. My feet got wet and so did my camera. I kept wiping the water off the lens with the bottom part of the old sweatshirt I was wearing. I inherited if from an uncle. One of the few in our family to have matriculated from a real college. A college where he learned about oil well maintenance --- which he did for years before losing a couple of fingers. But we were so proud that he made it through both years of school. And his old t-shirt seemed to do the trick on the water cascading across the front of the lens. I am told that the fog between the lens elements will dry out over time; especially if I put the lens on a baking tray and put it in the oven for a while. But it is important to also turn the oven on!

I spent a couple hours walking around basically in circles until the chili I had for lunch turned mean on me and started me thinking about heading home or at least finding a restroom. It was probably not a good idea to heat up some leftover chili from the fridge. In fact, it had been in there so long I'm not even sure it was chili. I thought the little green growths sprinkled through the food were bits of jalapeño peppers but now I'm pretty sure not. Anyway I was walking around with fogged glasses, a wildly outraged gastrointestinal system and I was cold plus soaking wet. But I kept on trying to find the perfect test subjects to put up on the web. Something that never fails to get hits and "likes". I was looking for ample breasted, hot girls in  short shorts and halter tops roaming around downtown in high heels. But again, not being very sharp I never made the connection between the freezing rain and their absence on the scene until just now as I write this out. Futile search. Maybe if I try again next Summer. 

So instead I just tried my best to see what the lens could do when covered with water and used at its widest apertures, hand held in poor light with an insane paucity of cool or even interesting stuff to look at. 

To answer the question in the headline: Yes, it can be good. It's better in the square. The OOF areas are fun. 

Now I have to figure out what to do with the Crypton Currency my uncle sold me last year. I heard it fell off the cliff. Glad it's probably FDIC insured. When I get that money back there's one more lens I'd like to try before I swear off entirely. But that's fodder for another blog. 

Can't imagine why I spent so much of my life trying to take photographs when there are so many great sports shows in TV. Mysteries abound. And hard choices: Basketball or Football? Curling or the bowling championships? It's a rich life for the audience...