This was taken at the minimum focusing distance for the lens and the aperture was f1.4. The depth of field is, of course, quite shallow but where the lens is in focus it's seems very sharp and detailed.
Just a field note.
8.12.2022
How is that TTArtisan 50mm f1.2 lens when used at its close focusing distance and wide open or near wide open apertures? Well, I do have a sample...
This was taken at the minimum focusing distance for the lens and the aperture was f1.4. The depth of field is, of course, quite shallow but where the lens is in focus it's seems very sharp and detailed.
Why would I use a cheap, manual, APS-C lens on a top of the line, full frame camera? Why?
It's pretty obvious to me and everyone else in photography that there are two distinct kinds of photographers. One faction has the mindset that pushes them to do everything as logically as they possibly can. They will spend lots of time narrowing down gear choices until they find the one piece in each category that gives them the "best" set of compromises they can find within a price range which they consider acceptable. Barring any severe post purchase disappointment they will use the collection of non-overlapping equipment until the wheels fall off. They wax eloquent about owning the same gear for years and years which they believe gives them special and Mariana Trench deep knowledge of every square centimeter of their kit and it's firmware. They generally have every subset of the menus memorized and have spent days, weeks, years fine-tuning custom function buttons --- which are also completely committed to memory.
And then there are the people practicing photography who like to have something different for lunch every day. Who don't own vacation homes because they want to go somewhere different each time. Who own more than one pair of dress shoes. Who like sticking their toes into new stuff and seeing just what they can do with it.
News flash! There is no "best" camera and there is certainly no "best" lens. There are lenses that are highly corrected and extremely, clinically sharp and then there is a huge range of lenses, old and new, that have character, faults, foibles, weaknesses, odd strengths and, most importantly --- personality.
The photographers who have NOT battened down the hatches, frozen their credit cards in ice cube trays and taken vows of new photo gear abstinence are sometimes drawn to eccentric optical solutions like fraternity boys are drawn to beer. Like republicans to authoritarianism. Like chubby people to fad diets.
Like .... well, you probably get the picture.
For these people (the second group) photography can be a serious undertaking but it's clearly leavened with a bigger amount of sheer fun. Of off center experimentation and with a huge dose of disregard for following the "rules" of engagement the more logical and economically wise photographers devise to homogenize the practice of photography and to make it "safe." Repeatable. Acceptable. Consistent. Codified.
I bought two of the TTartisan 50mm f1.2 lenses because I wanted to see just how good a $99, made in China, totally manual lens could be. I bought one in the L mount variety and the other in the micro four thirds lens mount variety with the idea of using them on both (or all three) systems. I've used the L mount version on the CL for about six months now and have found it to be a very good lens with a few caveats. It does have a lot of barrel distortion and there are no lens profiles for it in Lightroom (which is my preferred "front door" for post production. You'll have to figure out a correction for the lens yourself.
But recently I've been playing around with older, vintage 50mm lenses including a Nikon 50mm f1.4 (pre-AI), two versions of the Canon 50mm f1.8 FDs, as well as time spent with the Contax/Yashica 50mm f1.7. All are basically good lenses that work okay wide open and then clean up progressively as one stops down toward f8.0. Since most have ancient and simpler coatings than current products I find them to have lower contrast. Not desperately lower contrast but enough to be evident in side by side comparisons with more modern fifties. They are also less resistant to flare.
A good measure of my ongoing interest in 50mm lenses likely stems from my early embrace of photography, a limited budget at the time, and the efficiency of buying a first camera "kit" complete with a normal lens (50mm). But I would also say that it's a very natural focal length which more or less replicates the way humans process seeing.
When I photograph with a modern 50mm lens I am sometimes underwhelmed because the lens is clinical and analytic in a way that doesn't allow room for a different technical interpretation. They tend to be very effective literal documentary tools but less appropriate for images that need some visual friction in order to enhance a different presentation process.
I like lenses like the TTartisan 50mm f1.2 very much not because they are sharp and contrasty; which they certainly can be, but because they can also be flawed and curiously alluring for many kinds of images. I especially like shooting this lens in conjunction with black and white camera settings because the lower overall contrast, when compared to something like the Panasonic 50mm 1.4 S-Pro lens, enhances the feel of a longer range of gray tones and a gives an impression of a wider dynamic range because of lower contrast in the higher values.
As other reviewers of lenses have written, the TTartisan 50mm f1.2 seems like two lenses. When used at f1.2, 1.4, or even f2.0 there is lots of vignetting, lower sharpness in the corners and softer look overall. Stop the lens down to f2.8, or more obviously f4.0 or f5.6 and the lens becames more "modernly" sharp. Competitive with all my legacy lenses and almost even with a current lens such as the Panasonic 50mm f1.8 S.
If I use the lens on a full frame camera at the "open gate" of the frame there is obvious and uncorrectable mechanical vignetting. But if one uses a full frame camera set to a 1:1 aspect ratio then the lens just covers that frame with slight optical vignetting (correctable) in the corners when used at wider apertures and no vignetting from f4.0 all the way to f11. But even used wide open in 1:1 the vignetting is correctable and when I look at the photo at the top of this post the effects of any vignetting are obscured by the distributions of tones away from the main subject. In that example, when using the lens wide open, I see the underlying strength of the lens which renders the statue beautifully, with restrained highlights and open shadows, which makes the file very malleable in post production. The image just below is an example of using the lens stopped down to between f2.8 and f4.0 which shows off the relative sharpness of the lens.
So, if I embrace the foibles and weaknesses of a lens like this as an aid to artistic interpretation why then would I mate it with a state of the art camera? Well, the Leica SL2 has a very high resolution EVF which aids in and adds pleasure to accurate manual focusing. Especially when combined with the ease of punching in to a magnified frame for very fine focusing. Then, the sensor resolves 47.5 megapixels at the full size of the sensor but it also delivers 31.5 megapixels of resolution at the square, 1:1 crop setting, which is ample for just about any use and is probably beyond the resolving capability of the lens anyway.
Added to that is a very nice monochrome setting in the camera's menus which gives me a much better starting point for later tweaking of the files. So, lens with personality combined with a highly capable shooting platform makes for a nice blend of tech and art. What's not to like?
I was curious to see how the lens would handle flares such as potentially caused by
the direct sun reflected off my favorite new downtown building. Here (above) is the full frame.
While just below is a prodigious crop of the part with the sun reflection. I think the lens does quite well
if used anywhere but wide open....
The TTartisan lens under consideration here is widely available under $100. That makes experimenting with one a low cost, low risk undertaking. With the pace of inflation this lens has become almost free.
My next trial will be of the TTartisan 50mm f0.95. Just because.....zero point nine five!
8.11.2022
Blanton Museum Battle Collection. Trying out my new 1:1 specialty lens.
Camera: Leica SL2
Lens: TTartisan 50mm f1.2
This lens only completely covers an APS-C sensor.
I used it in the full frame mode but with the aspect ratio in
the camera set to 1:1. Wide open there is some corner
vignetting but when stopped down past f2.8 it goes away.
Even wide open it can mostly be corrected in post processing.
Shot mostly wide open.
It's impossible to really discuss how stuff looks anymore. Some people want to reference prints which we'll never see while some of the audience only sees art on a cellphone screen. Amazingly bad way to analyze a visual medium.
This image was taken using good technique, high shutter speeds and an optimum aperture. The shadows are open and the highlights are not burned out. It was done with a 47.5 megapixel, state-of-the -art camera. I can enlarge it on the Retina screen in the studio up to 200% and see lots and lots of detail. The granularity of the rock faces. The detail on the plant leaves and more. I can easily print this as big as I'd ever want.
In a small size, such as the reduction to 3200 pixels and then the additional reduction and compressions courtesy of Blogger, a viewer using a phone or small iPad to view will see none of the technical "features" that might make the image worth looking at. Features that make the image more immersive for me. The distillation for the web will gut much of the impact that something like a well printed and presented 4x6 foot print might have. So...how can we possible have a discussion about the merit of either the image or the technical underpinnings of its creation with any common context? Or a common visual language?
We often ask where the great photographic artists of today are hiding. This comes from our pervasive habit of judging everything on media that represent the lowest common denominators of presentation. Tiny, low bit depth screens, viewed in poor lighting conditions after being squeezed through the internet pipeline with all of its attendant compromises.
We do have choices though. We can search out the galleries which may be showing work of good artists and see the images as they were intended. If that's not possible we can try to hunt down better channels for the work and take the time to look at what's being produced on monitors that are actually accurate and are positioned in such a way as to minimize random light, the color casts of rooms in which they are situated and the kinetic clutter that comes from looking at images while out in the world and on the move.
Having tried it I can tell you that a nicely done image on a big, color corrected screen in a room with controlled light is much, much (infinitely?) better than trying to balance a cellphone in one hand, a half unwrapped burrito in the other while rocketing through a tunnel on a hard seat in a bumpy subway car with flickering flourescent lights from the last century overhead while anxiously awaiting your next stop.
Even magazine writers from the print days realized that the actual work and the diminished, commercially printed paper version of the work were wildly different and, when writing reviews about gear, always cautioned readers to chose to believe the writer's description over the vague final print sample offered up by a web-press printed magazine page made with crummy paper.
I made a mistake of blogging yesterday. I put up some images of an aerial dance troupe. The images as I see them are gorgeous and detailed but apparently when viewed on lesser media under worse viewing conditions the subjects of the images seem too small; too distant. We have now flattened a general audience for photography on the web down and down so that now all that's expected of an image is that the design be rendered big, graphic and simple for easy cellphone screen consumption.
This is why I make every effort track down the bits of good work I occasionally find on places like Instagram and see if the creator has an actual website that I can visit. To see if the artist provides a better viewing experience for those with the time and energy to drill down a bit.
It's also the reason why I like to hit as many galleries and museum shows as I can in a year. I can see work more or less as it was intended by its creator and it's always a bit transformative; if the work is good.
Seeing a Chuck Close photo realistic painting splashed out eight feet by ten feet in size and beautifully lit on a museum wall is a totally different experience than coming across the same image as a cropped, 4x4 inch Instagram image even on the best of screens.
I am often asked by commenters why we don't talk more about the "art" of photography here on the blog instead of going over lots of gear and technical work considerations and it's basically because of the inability to have a common standard for accessing viewing the works. It's hard to agree about the amazing detail in even an Alex Soth print if most of the audience has only seen the work as a weak copy on a small screen and the writer is talking about his experiences seeing the work on a museum wall in its original printed size. On a print that was the photographer's final intention. So, when we do try to talk about the work we end up with so many different avenues for viewing, each of which is a diminished and poor replica of the original, that it's impossible to make many meaningful assessments.
I'm reminded of all the times people have presented work to the masses done by great artists only to have the works judged by people who have never seen art the way it was intended by the artist. "The Mona Lisa should have had more fill light. And the artist should have gotten a better white balance on her face....." So many hobbyists, when viewing Henri Cartier-Bressson photographs on the web rush to tell the world that his work is bad because it isn't sharp enough. And suggest that he should have used an autofocus camera. Etc. Etc. They might have taken the time to see the work in one of the well printed books of HCB's work...
Group think tends to peel off concept, gesture and mood and replace it with "easy to see" and "easy to look at" work instead.
That's why we have an endless supply of skinny, big chested, just post adolescent, half-dressed women to look at on Instagram and very few images of substance or interest. Sex, food and cats. That's about it. But I guess we get the audiences we create.
I'll remember that the next time I post anything that falls out of the easy view parameters.
8.10.2022
Aerial Dancing at Seaholm Power Plant. Austin, Texas.
#BlueLapisLight
An aerial dance troupe.
Practicing for a series of shows in September.
It was breezy and less humid this morning in Austin. I grabbed a camera and headed out for a walk while the heat index clocked in around 90°. Funny how context and comfort go together.
I was feeling camera-egalitarian so I paired the Leica SL2 with a battered by serviceable Canon FDn 50mm f1.8. The last FD iteration of their manual focusing "nifty-fifty." It's the one without the metal bayonet lock and it has a 52mm filter size instead of the previous models' 55mm filter size. But it's a charming, small and light lens that I think does a wonderful job as part of a rudimentary walk-around kit. And actually, the optical performance is not at all poor. By f4.0 and f5.6 it's actually quite nice.
The focusing ring is smooth and light on the touch. It moves without too much effort and that makes it a wonderful choice for manual focusing. It's a very simple optical formula with 6 elements in four groups and a set of five curved aperture blades. I use it on the Leica SL(x) cameras with a Fotodiox Canon FD to L mount "dumb" adapter. There is no electronic connection whatsoever between the lens and the camera so everything, EVERYTHING is manually set.
I walked along with my camera slung across my chest on what Peak Designs calls a camera "leash" and it was comfortable enough. I turned the corner into the Seaholm Power Plant (now decommissioned and an active retail and office environment with a nice central courtyard) and walked right into a really fun aerial spectacle. Graceful dancers suspended dozens; maybe up to 100 feet, up in the air pushing off the sides of the old power plant cooling towers into classic dance and action movie poses.
They were practicing for an upcoming series of performances that will take place on the same towering cylinders in the middle of September. Being a bit acrophobic I was astounded at the ease and fearlessness of the dancers. I found it all quite amazing.
The lens and camera worked well but I wish I'd brought along a few longer lenses. But isn't that always the case? You chance upon something and you just have to make the best of what you brought. Thankfully the high resolution of the camera sensor meant that crossing by 50% wasn't an issue.
There was more to the walk but I was just thrilled by what I found in the first five minutes. I'll definitely go back for the show....
Cheap lenses on pricy cameras. It's a thing.
8.08.2022
Same lesson over and over again...
Like many photographers who are inordinately fond of gear I keep looking for that one perfect lens or camera that will unlock my true photographic potential. Yeah...as if.
If you read the blog regularly you'll see that I've really tried hard to substitute hardware for talent. Over and over again. But as the old saying goes: "Wherever you go, there you are." Or, in my world: "What ever camera you are shooting with you still have the same photographer."
In a moment of delusional weakness I actually paid full pop for a Leica 24-90mm zoom lens for the SL system. I thought that this would be the one. But it's big and heavy and a slog to carry around, and when I did finally cart it everywhere with me I found my images to be maybe a bit sharper but by no means any better in terms of insight, impact or overall splendor. It took me decades to stumble into the trap of considering new gear as an important factor in successful imaging and I'm afraid it's also taken me additional decades to figure out (or to admit to my recalcitrant techie self) that all of that motivation to buy new stuff was an error. Not a life or death error but certainly a stumbling block of sorts.
When you get bit by the acquisition bug you waste a whole lot of time doing mindless comparisons between products which are, for the most part, far better than anyone really needs them to be. You waste time watching obvious shills for affiliates wax on and on about the "glory" of the latest 35mm lens or the perfect Q2 camera. You waste effort in working for more money only to give up a big part of your profits to buy yet another step "forward." You encounter many opportunity costs. Trading time you could have spent finding a great model, a great location or a great client in exchange for another piece of gear that will eventually, again and again, lay bare that the only important thing is the strength of your ideas and your own concept of a photographic vision.
Why am I beating this dead horse once again? Hmmm. A few weeks back I came across an older zoom lens that was labeled with a brand badge that marketing people have inflated into an icon in the industry. It was an ancient, heavy, well used Yashica/Contax zoom lens made by Kyocera in Japan, but festooned with the Carl Zeiss branding on the front ring. It was offered used for "only" a couple of hundred dollars. I bought it. I like it but I don't know why...
I went out shooting some landscapes yesterday and intended to do the whole shoot with my newly acquired Sigma 35mm lens just to see how that would work out. But, as an afterthought I put the Yashica/Contax zoom in the backpack and brought it along. After a few preliminary shots I got bored sticking with one focal length so I pulled out the big zoom lens. The Contax-to L-mount adapter makes it look even bigger than it really is. I added a cheap, rubber lens hood for some protection against flare.
The rest of my time spent on the hot rocks was occupied shooting with the big, old zoom. It's a bear to shoot. It's used in "stop down" mode exclusively so you have the choice of slowing way down and opening the aperture to its maximum in order to fine focus. If you are shooting at f8 or f11 the depth of field delivered to the finder makes fine focusing hard. Really hard. Couple that with a "one touch" zoom mechanism and you'll really have to work to get stuff in focus and ready to shoot. It's hardly a quick process...
With the current Leica zoom lens all of this gets handled by the camera. No user sweat is involved in getting stuff in focus.
But here's the deal, the $250 used lens was perfectly adequate for the photographs I had in mind out in the field. The reality is that we're mostly using the lenses at something like f5.6 or, even more likely, f8-f11 and at those middle apertures each lens is delivering image quality to the camera sensor that is more or less identical. Which, once you've spent five or six thousand dollars on a different lens is something that's hard to admit. Especially to such a critical audience as yourself.
It's a bit unreal to come to grips with the fact that you've duped yourself into believing that a specific piece of gear can be so, so, so important to a process that you can rationalize spending a fortune on a lens that you end up rarely using. Which also brings up the question of why I chose to drag along an older and supposedly less capable lens instead of instantly reaching for the penultimate lens in the collection.
And I think, after pondering this last night, the reality is that working harder at making an image seems to be more fun than working less hard and letting the camera and lens do the heavy lifting for you. When I saw the image I'm sharing at the top of this post I also realized just how much post processing has to do with the success or failure of an image, tech-wise. The image is enhanced with a Leica SL2 preset I got from The Leica Store Miami and parts of the image have been selectively subjected to the clarity slider or have saturation of certain colors enhanced.
That the $250 lens can make a file that can be quickly and easily post processed to equal the output from a much more expensive lens is deflating and basically delivers us back to the the same old story: It's not about the lens. It's not the camera. There is no "better" brand. There is no special sauce. It's all up to me. Or all up to you, or all up to whoever is out photographing. If we point the world's best camera and lens at something boring you get a nice, but basically boring photograph. Point decades old gear at an exciting subject and you capture the excitement without much (or any) compromise.
My early work was all about people. As I got older fewer and fewer of my personal photographs have been of young, beautiful people as my age and access marched in reverse ratios to each other in lockstep. And here, now, I have relegated myself to photographing something I have very little interest in --- landscapes. And why? So I can "test" out my camera or my lens and share the results with people I have mostly never met. And who mostly disagree with my assessments.
It's not a very awe inspiring confession. But over the course of the last two decades the world, the universe and all of us have allowed for a near total homogenization of what was once a richly diverse craft to take place. At least where subject matter and style were concerned. Now it feels like we're just going through the steps in order to keep a sidelined hobby alive. Billions of cat whisker photos later...
Sobering. For sure.
I'm sure I can fix this. At least I think I can. But it's tough if you have to learn the same lessons over and over again until they actually sink in and do some good.
I have moved from the hobby of taking photographs to the hobby of spending money with an almost seamless efficiency. I wish there was someone to blame other than myself.
But there we are.
8.07.2022
A Quick Portfolio of Landscapes from Pedernales Falls State Park. Sunday, August 7th, 2022.
A.
The park was largely empty today. No good running water for swimming and way too hot for most families.
A great opportunity for uncrowded landscape photography. Something I rarely do but sometimes enjoy.
I mostly used the old Y/C Carl Zeiss, Contax 35-135mm zoom lens, a few with the new Sigma 35mm f2.0 and all with the Leica SL2. Everything raw and then converted for the portfolio in Lightroom Classic.
Hope it rains soon. Hate to see the falls drying out. Photo of the photographer at the end.....
Watch: Seiko Kinetic.
A self-winding automatic quartz.
Weird? Yeah.
I took their advice and avoided hiking at noon. I started a bit closer to one.
A quick vacation to Pedernales Falls State Park. Landscapes with the Carl Zeiss 35-135mm lens.
Pedernales Falls State Park.
Just a break from the usual cabin fever/downtown walk...
Camera: Leica SL2
Lens: Contax 35-135mm Zoom
Shoes: Hi-Tec Hiking boots.
Sunscreen by Trader Joe's.
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