Every day is more exciting when we mix up cameras and lenses. Same camera everyday? Hmmm. Not for me.

 

today's little photo monster.

 Old, grizzled photographers are constantly advising newbies to find one camera that they like and one lens that they adore and to just use them forever. I think that's good advice for "year number one" but I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who has used enough cameras to feel pretty fluid with everything (except a camera with a Sony menu). If you've shot your 10,000 hours with one camera. Or your one millionth photo with a dozen or so cameras it's okay to admit that it's fun to mix stuff up. Play with new cameras and lenses, try new color profiles and what not. In my way of thinking using the same camera all the time is like watching the same movie every single evening. Or having the same sandwich for lunch every day. 

Right now I have seven cameras in my studio inventory. Of the seven two are duplicates of others in the drawer ( 2 x CLs and 2 x Leica SLs). But this means I have one different camera for each weekday; if I want to choose them that way. In reality I find myself using camera and a lens for a week or two at a time before I get bored and want to move on to a different set up. For the first time that I can remember all of my camera bodies take the same lenses, and all of my lenses fit on all my cameras ---- albeit some do so natively while some do so with adapters. 

But there really is no rationale for when I'll use one camera and when I'll dump it back in the drawer and pull out something else. It's not like I'm printing out spreadsheets of which cameras I have to use on specific days. I also don't have a camera/lens interchange matrix that I slavishly abide by. Instead, I might have a conversation with a photographer friend who mentions how much he likes the color and tonality he's getting from his Panasonic Sx camera. He might even show me a few examples. And I might really like them so that by the time I get back to my studio I'm primed to pull out the S5 and a couple lenses and reacquaint myself with them for a few days. Then I might remember how much I liked the finder on the SL2 and how much I like the way that camera and the 24-90mm lens work together and I'll ditch the Lumix and pick up the big Leica. 

This morning I did a studio portrait of a person whom I have photographed during his engagements with four previous companies. It was a fun, lighthearted portrait shoot during which we spent as much time catching up about new chapters in our lives, what our kids are up to, and which way technology is headed. He is a technologist by trade... I used the SL2 for the shoot along with the big zoom. And just to make it all seem official I used a big electronic flash monolight and a big octabox. So legit.

But after we'd shot the 200th frame and the third wardrobe change we wrapped up and did the "hail fellow, well met" thing and got on with the day. After lunch I wanted to go out and take some photographs just for fun but I having dragged around big cameras now for a couple of weeks and I was ready for a change. 

It dawned on me that while I've been going through a steamy affair with full frame cameras and classic  50mm lenses I hadn't given the little APS-C cameras and the new (to me) Carl Zeiss 35mm f2.0 Biogon much of a try out. In fact, the last time I used that pretty little lens was a few days ago with big SL2. How would it feel to go back to the smaller camera and the smallest "normal lens" equivalent I have for the "cropped format"?

LSS (long story short) I loved changing it all up today. I grabbed the closest CL, added a front grip and a rear thumbgrip, stuck an extra battery in a pocket and clicked on the little Zeiss 35mm. The total volume of that system is about half that of the SL2 with one of my many "real" 50mm lenses mounted on front. But I had forgotten that the CL is robustly built and has a lot of heft for its size. Nothing like the full frame cameras but still enough to let you know the camera is there and it's serious. 

I was using the lens with a Leica branded M to L mount adapter. Happily, the adapter is well calibrated and the distance scale on the lens lines up with reality perfectly. Or as close to perfect as I am able to eyeball. 

This meant (deliriously happy here) that I could zone focus the lens all day long. And doing the zone focusing with the lens set to f8.0 meant that I could just put the focusing ring at 15 feet and everything from about 7 feet to infinity would be in acceptable focus! Geez. It's like having a fully automatic camera. 

Variable rust tone grating. The newest fad...?

Yes. You can comfortably use the Carl Zeiss 35mm Biogon wide open at f2.0.

Just be sure to take a moment to focus carefully...

There is more depth of field on an APS-C system. Good for keeping everything sharp.

While I photograph this building (the Frost Bank Tower) often it's a fine building and 

it looks different depending on the prevailing light.

I'm confused. Is "Overhead Work" work that one does to cover the overhead? Or does it mean, literally, that work is over my head? (Two different meanings there....). 

Zone focused and displayed here just for nerd fun.

I'm happy I tried this combination. I shot in Jpeg and none of the files exhibited any of the color shift across the frame that I sometimes run into when using this lens on full frame cameras. Not having to worry about corner/edge color shift makes using the lens that much more fun.

The Carl Zeiss 35mm f2.0 Biogon is NOT a "modern" lens in that it was not, I think, designed with digital sensors in mind. In fact, it was designed to be a companion lens for the Zeiss Ikon 35mm film rangefinder camera that came onto the market in somewhere around 2004-2005 and has since been discontinued. At the time Zeiss brought forward a whole group of M mount rangefinder lenses (labelled "ZM") to use with that camera. Film is much, much more forgiving at the edges and the corners of the image frames. Film can "see" more oblique light rays while digital image sensor pixels exist in individual "wells" that have depth. Image forming light gets trickier to direct when there are obstacles to the light path... You can also see these kinds of effects when using non-telecentric lenses with digital cameras that have very thick filter packs in front of their sensors. Sony cameras are pretty well known for providing less than optimal results with wide angle lenses that are not retrofocus designs. Most of the degradation of image occurs in the outer parts of the frames.

If I were to depend on full frame digital cameras only, and had to use these cameras as my only work tools I would not, after having experienced some of these optical foibles, buy "pre-modern" wide angle lenses for client work. The color shift across the frame is tough to fix. In black and white it's never a problem but....

The one camera I have used that works around any of these problems is the Sigma fp. If you look in the menu you can find a feature that allows you to take an older lens (any lens, really), shoot a white target and then have the camera calculate and make a profile for that particular lens which fixes the color shift across the frame. I've used the feature. It actually works! And it works well. Which leads me to believe that Sigma is one of the few camera makers who takes into consideration the wide range of lenses that artists like to work with. 

Used on a cropped frame camera the 35mm Biogon is very sharp and delivers nice color and rich detail. If you also shoot with M mount rangefinders I'm sure you'll find it to be a great addition to your kit at a price far below those from Leica. If you just love the look of this series of ZM lenses but want the control and precision of a mirrorless full frame camera you might want to look at pairing them with the Sigma fp or fpL cameras. They would be a nice match where excellent optical performance is the primary goal. The color shift is not a "fault". It's part of a design compromise for a lens that's meant to be used with film cameras but pressed into service on cameras with a different set of technical constraints. 

Interestingly, many, many new cameras and new AF lenses also have color shifts across their frames but are software corrected in both raw and Jpeg formats to hide this. More graciously I should say: "they are optimized as part of a unified system to take care of this intentional shifting in order to better fit the constraints of current lens design criteria --- including budgets." If you want to splash out some cash and subscribe to Reid's Reviews there is much discussion there of color shift in modern cameras and lenses. I'm not howling at the moon by myself. 

Now off to try the 28mm ZM on the Sigma fp to see how well it corrects for the older lens design. 

Health news: Today is filled with medical excitement. At 10:10 I have an appointment to get a second pneumonia vaccine. It's the latest formulation and doesn't require as frequent boosters as the previous generation. I think most people over 50 would do well to get a pneumonia vaccine as those nasty bacteria are frequent killers of people checking into hospitals, or trying to recover from respiratory events. Free with Medicare. 

Second up. After lunch, the yearly eye exam. This year I'm headed over to Warby Parker to get the exam done because I've trashed my usual pair of bifocals and need to replace them. And you know I am so, so, so fashion forward. No Texas State Prison eyeglass frames for me. Mixing shopping and prevention. Who knew healthcare could be so much fun? This time....progressives. 

Divestment news: One of my local VSL readers got me in touch with a young, aspiring but under-equipped portrait photography student/early stage professional. I'm meeting with her tomorrow to fill in some big gaps in her needed gear inventory. Finally! I get to lighten the load a bit. Remind me not to run out and "refill" my studio lighting inventory/prescription in a few weeks....  Time to do some cord cutting.

It's starting to get warmer in Austin. Summer is on the way. Must buy more cool hats. No Tilleys. They are NOT covered by Medicare. 

Final thought. The Leica CL is a great little system camera. I have the full range of Sigma Contemporary lenses for that format. All in the L mount. It's the best travel system I can imagine. Glad I pulled one of the cameras out of the drawer for a bit of rediscovery.