4.19.2023

A fun, "full spectrum" system for those who want to travel lighter and who don't mind using good APS-C ("cropped frame") cameras.

 

Boston Mannequin. 
Photographed with a Sony a6300 and a 50mm lens.

Whether you photograph with Sony's APS-C (6000 series) cameras, Fuji's, or the recently discontinued Leica CL digital cameras I consider all of them to be contenders for really good travel "systems." The common thread through these particular makers' cameras are: smaller size, dense and very good imaging sensors and the ability to use Sigma's line of Contemporary lenses designed and made for the smaller formats. 

Each camera system provides at least a 24 megapixel sensor and those sensors are densely packed with pixels which can give images of very high resolution and sharpness when combined with really good lenses. All three brands make decent lenses for their particular cameras buy none of them, in my opinion, match the overall performance of the three Sigma prime lenses I own for the Leica CL cameras and none of them have as well rounded and compact a standard zoom lens as that provided by Sigma in the form of its 18-50mm f2.8. And recently Sigma released their own 23mm lens for those systems. 

All of the primes share one attribute: Their fastest aperture is f1.4. So you will be able to put together a system of primes ranging from 16mm to 56mm and all of them will be of very high speed. With the zoom lens there is a similar benefit, at least over the dedicated lenses that were sold by Leica for the APS-C cameras. Their system standard zoom is the 18-55mm f3.5-5.6. I don't own one and haven't shot one but the maximum aperture of f5.6 at the long end doesn't really make me passionate about adding one. Especially at the premium price...

I currently own three of the primes and with my recent order of the 23mm I'll have all four of their current, fast primes. The 16mm f1.4, 30mm f1.4 and the 56mm f1.4 have been paired up with my Leica CL cameras for about a year now and they bring a lot to the image making table when you consider the difference in size and weight when compared to my full frame cameras and lenses. 

A lot of people like the idea of f1.4 lenses and the Sigmas are decent at that wide aperture but where they really start to shine is from f2.0 on up to f8.0 or even f11. Once you start to stop any one of the primes down you get better and better performance. Actually stellar performance for the price.

I'm writing about them today because I just learned about a photographic retrospective that interests me. Linda McCartney ("The Beatles" Paul McCartney's late wife) was a very active and competent photographer who, in most of her career, had enviable access everywhere she went. She didn't become successful as a photographer as a result of being married to Paul McCartney but had already achieved high esteem for her work previous to their relationship. In fact she was the first woman to have a cover on Rolling Stone Magazine. Here's the wiki about her: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_McCartney

The show is at the The Center for Creative Photography in Tucson. At the University of Arizona. It opened in February and I guess I didn't do a very good job of keeping up. But, thankfully, the show is up until mid to late August 2023. The Center for Creative Photography houses collections from 2200 photographers including people such as Ansel Adams and David Hume Kennerly, and W. Eugene Smith.

The McCartney retrospective is displaying over 124 prints, many very large, and is a treasure trove of music industry images from the 1960s through to the 1990s. 

I decided I need to make a quick trip to Tucson to see the work directly. I also want to see if I can get access to several of the collections by other artists that the CCP houses. I'm putting together a fairly quick itinerary and will probably go toward the end of next week. I'll head over on Wednesday and return Friday evening. I also want to photograph in and around Tucson. Many years ago, in 1985, my advertising agency did a photo shoot at dusk in the Saguaro National Park, just outside of Tucson. I have fond memories of that gonzo event in the park.

It was a wild shoot on which we hung Christmas tree lights over a number of big cacti, lit them up with a large generator and photographed the glowing cacti from dusk into the darkness of night. Or course we had a permit from the National Parks, traffic police for the one lane of the nearby highway we needed to commandeer (much, much less traffic back then), millions of dollars of liability insurance (mostly for the cacti), cherry pickers to allow us access to the tall Saguaros and a team of dedicated stylists to make piles of wrapped gifts and gift-wrapped books under each visible cactus. My assistant and I were shooting as fast as we could as the light fell, knowing there would only be  a few minutes when the light from the cacti matched up well with the sunset and afterglow. I used a Hasselblad with a 50mm lens while my assistant fired away, endlessly bracketing a Nikon F3 and a 28mm lens. Of course these were the film days so if you were going to spend $20K or $30K of a client's money it was just good form to come back with at least one usable frame! And we shot that assignment on unforgiving transparency (slide) film.

The shoot was done for BookStop Bookstores which my agency had helped to grow from two Austin locations to a large chain that spanned 120 stores across the southern U.S.A, from Florida to California. Even to a store in Beverly Hills. They were bought out by Barnes and Noble in 1986 or 1987. I remember doing that shoot, which ran a double truck (two page) spreads in regional editions of Time Magazine, Newsweek Magazine and a few other popular consumer publications, on a financial shoe string. 

In fact, when my assistant and I finished wrapping the shoot, paying the local teams, getting all the gear packed and ready it was 4 a.m. in the morning. With our budget spent all the way to the tipping point and three magazine deadlines looming in a few short days we headed back to the airport for our 7 a.m. flight to Austin and got a quick nap in our rental car before turning it in. We were young then. You could do a few days like that and survive. 

And like most overworked advertising people of that time we just considered actual sleep to be a perk and not an absolute requirement. 

It's fun to think back and realize that we've been doing zany projects like this for real money since the late 1970's. And when you've got money in the mix you can 't just "wing it" or "spray and pray" you actually had to know what you were doing. And have back up plans. A quick way of saying that when we talk about gear here on VSL it comes from hands-on, high stress, actual experience. Not just conjecture and academic hearsay....

I'm looking forward to seeing the Linda  McCartney Retrospective. Her images come from a time when my generation was just coming of age. It should be an interesting step into something like a time machine.

So, I wanted to take along a small and light system with me for my visit to the gallery show and also to have for grabbing fun shots around a Tucson that's grown up a lot since I was last there. The idea of hauling around the big stuff for three days as well as on and off planes didn't seem very appetizing so I decided to piece together a mini system of two Leica CLs, a 16mm, 30mm and the 56mm Sigmas. All of which I own as L mount lenses. The CLs are magnificent little cameras and together with the fast Sigmas represent a formidable system. If the 23mm comes in before I leave I'll likely sub it for the 30mm. Just for grins. 

I've gotten plenty of great images from cropped frame cameras over the years which bolsters my decision to go small and light for what is basically a long distance gallery hop and mini-personal vacation. 

We'll see how it all pans out. 

26 comments:

TMJ said...

I agree, my Sony APS-C with Zeiss/Sony 12mm f2.8, 24mm f1.8, 35mm f2.8 and 55mm f1.8, (the latter two being small but FE lenses), is as good as anything. Including printing at A2, never mind on a 4K screen.

Kirk, Photographer/Writer said...

TMJ, I believe it entirely. I had nothing but good luck with my little Sony a6300 and also my NEX7. With the right lenses they were as good as anything else I've shot with. 12mm f2.8 really sounds fun to me these days.

TMJ said...

You are even 'allowed' to converge the verticals, if you want to, with the 12mm......

Kirk, Photographer/Writer said...

Ah....sweet!

Edward Richards said...

I remember the ads from that shoot! Who could forget the Christmas lights on the cactus?! Do you have an image you could post?

Kirk, Photographer/Writer said...

Hi Edward, I'll forage through the archives. Almost 40 years of stuff to dig through. But yeah! It was a fun campaign.

Anonymous said...

>> She didn't become successful as a photographer as a result of being married to Paul McCartney...

Is that right, Kirk?

Kirk, Photographer/Writer said...

Anonymous, Read the information on the Wiki and then construct a time line for us based on your research. Please deliver a temporal spreadsheet of her achievements with relevant dates. Then we can make a judgement about her trajectory for photographic success and see if she was "on her way" prior to marrying P. McCartney in 1969. I believe her work at the Fillmore, at Town and Country Magazine and her cover on Rolling Stone Magazine all pre-dated her marriage to the pop star. I could be wrong but based on past history I'm probably not.

Kirk, Photographer/Writer said...

And, Anonymous, Was that what you gleaned as the relevant point of the blog post? Not that there is a show to see and an era in our history to experience through her photographs but whether or not her second spouse was fundamentally vital in her success as a photographer? Hmmmm. I must not be writing very clearly this week. Or was that just a Fox News Spot Check on my reliability as a journalist? Did I pass? Do I care?

Kirk, Photographer/Writer said...

Gosh, some of the recent anonymous posters are trying hard to help me decide the future of the blog... :-)

JC said...

I bought the Sigma 18-50 with my Fuji X-T5 basically as a travel camera setup, but it looks like it's going to be more than that. Just got the 56 from Adorama today. I'm really liking this thing. I have a book deadline May 1, and I'm still about 7,000 words out, or I'd fly down and look at the McCartney exhibit with you. I was in Tucson in early March for their book festival...there was snow on the palm trees.

adam said...

I just got the 56 1.4, really like it so far, I'm dreading the tokina 23mm 1.4 going down in price like their 35mm did when sigma relased the x version, the sigma is the same price at the moment so maybe I should offload it, my bargain open box x-t5 has a red dot in the same place on all the images, struck by a laser no doubt ;) so that'll be going back, I've asked nicely if they'll change it for another one...

Bob A. said...

Kirk - Thanks for the heads up on The Linda McCartney Retrospective in Tucson. I live in Mesa, AZ and will most definitely make the trip to Tucson for such a wonderful opportunity to see some of her photographic works of art. Bob Autrey

https://arts.arizona.edu/events/the-linda-mccartney-retrospective/

David said...

I saw the Linda McCartney show last week in Tucson. It was well done. Most of the black-and-white images were silver prints. The color images were digital prints. (I assume pigment inkjet prints) The quality of the prints was consistently high. The show has plenty of images of Paul, the McCartney family, The Beatles, and other popular musicians of the time.

One thing I wanted to know was if Linda printed any of the images on display. I would also like to know whether she herself had selected any of these images as special, or whether they were all selected by the show’s curators. (That is, are these the images she would have chosen for her retrospective?) Maybe I can find answers on the web.

Is it great art? Probably not. It’s more like a family scrapbook. But what a family! And what a time that was! If you’re old, like me, you’ll enjoy this show.

David said...

PS--Kirk, with your long-time involvement in advertising, you might like the Ignite Sign Art Museum in Tucson. Lots of old signs and logos from around Tucson.

adam said...

I think Linda was having platinum prints made at one point, there was a documentary with it in, it might be on youtube

Mitch said...

I ONLY have a Sony A6300 that I use for walking around, travel and other fun stuff because I wiped out on some waterfront rocks at night at a friends lake house shooting star trails with my A6000 and smashed the hell out of it.

Ran right out and bought an A6300 to replace it. Sold the maimed A6000 on Ebay within minutes of listing it for parts.

Yeah it's not a high ISO dream machine but for a wide swath of hiking, fun and other photographic pursuits, plus the bushels of lenses available for it and the bang for the buck in such a small package, well, I quite like this little camera.

Jim Weekes said...

I believe that Linda McCartney's maiden name was Eastman so she must have gotten free film:-}

Chuck Albertson said...

Thanks for the heads-up about the Linda McCartney exhibit. Any excuse to visit Tucson works for me - my dad grew up there, and played semi-pro ball in Ty Corbett's border-town league.

Chappy Achen said...

I just returned from Tucson, April 13-15, my wife and I were visiting friends and we took in the show. Just loved it, you will enjoy all the wonderful black and white images that are displayed along with some color work and early polaroids. A bonus for your trip, all the cacti plants are in full bloom. Absolutely beautiful. As an experiment, and wanting to travel light, I only took my iPhone 14Pro, a very capable camera, but I was constantly annoyed with my ability to see and focus the camera, wishing I had a viewfinder to assist in my composition. Looking at the phones screen I realized maybe I needed much stronger readers to assist me in taking photographs. I am 78 and use cheaters, but when your holding your phone at nearly arms length, you need stronger readers, which meant carrying around more glasses dangling around my neck. Oh well, learned my limitations and will prepare for the next time. Love your blog, enjoy the trip.

garyB said...

Hey Kirk,
Dan Winters is having a show at the Waterloo Greenway in Austin through May 20th of his 4x5 ft prints of seeing Bees should be interesting.

James Weekes said...

Based on his latest book, JC must have roon in his camera bag. He gave one of his GX-8s to Letty Davenport.

rdrowe said...

Hi Kirk, picked up the Linda McCartney retrospective when it was in Glasgow, Scotland pre pandemic. Like the output you show on the blog - a mnixture of commercial, 'Art' and family has been curated. Hope you enjoy it! R

Anonymous said...

Something WaPo just did on that McCartney exhibit in Tucson:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2023/04/22/linda-mccartney-paul-beatle-photos/
Ken

Kirk, Photographer/Writer said...

Hi Ken, Well, we're nothing if not topical here at VSL. From all I've heard the show is great. Thanks for the link! KT

Anonymous said...

It should be a fun show to see and a fun trip. Looking forward to reading about it here.

Ken

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