6.17.2023
Okay. I think I have this whole camera and lens thing figured out. First tests are promising....
There are two 50mm lenses that have been vying for the title, "Best 50mm lens ever!" and I finally bought one of them to try out. There are actually three "best in the world" 50mm lenses but one is the very big and very heavy Leica 50mm f2.0 APO Summicron for the SL series of cameras. I took that one out of the running because it's just too big to travel around with and to try and be even the least bit inconspicuous with when roaming around on the streets. That left me with two I really wanted to try. One is the Leica 50mm f2.0 APO Summicron for the M series rangefinder cameras and the other is the Voigtlander 50mm f2.0 APO Lanthar, which is available both in a Sony mount and in the Leica M mount. I, of course, wanted the M mount version so I could easily adapt the lens to my Leica L mount cameras.
What's the draw of the two selected APO lenses? Well, as far as I know there only three real APOchromatically corrected 50mm lenses on the market right now. All of them are listed above. Unlike nearly every other lens out there an APO lens focuses all three light wavelengths (R.G.B.) on exactly the same plane. They mostly eliminate any sort of fringing or LOCA which should give you greater color precision and greater discrimination between color tones.
I chose to purchase the Voigtlander 50mm. All of the research I've done points to the Leica being a tiny, tiny bit better in the center of the image when used at the widest aperture. And it's slightly smaller. The Voigtlander is so, so close. Even at full aperture it's supposed to be as good as most top quality prime lenses once they've been stopped down by two or more stops. But the reason I opted for the Voigtlander instead of the Leica APO boils down to eight thousand dollars. The Leica lens is $9,000. while the Voigtlander is $999. I can think of a lot more fun stuff to do or buy for that additional $8K...
Since I was already happy enough in most shooting situations with my motley, existing collection of 50mm, and close to 50mm, lenses I was really just interested in seeing for myself how much difference there would be between the lenses I have and one of the two or three lenses that's held in such high esteem.
I have only been using the Voiglander on the Leica SL2 body since that's my highest resolution and newest generation camera. If you're looking for differences you might as well start with the camera that can best show them off.
The lens itself is rather mundane to look at. It's small, being a lens made for a rangefinder camera. The filter diameter is 49mm. There are no buttons or switches on the lens. No I.S. either. You have to splash out for a lens hood separately. It's not included in the purchase price. By most measures it's a boring looking lens --- which is okay by me because I'm presuming it will attract less attention. Certainly less than the magnetic attraction of the big, SL series 50mm APO. Much less of an attention-getter than the enormous Leica 24-90mm zoom!!!
I got the lens at the end of the day on Wednesday and immediately did an overall test. Making sure the lens focused on infinity with several different adapters; including the Leica branded M to L mount unit. I worked the aperture ring and the focusing ring and found them to be classic examples of luxe mechanical engineering. The feel of which encourages you to have the camera and lens in your hands constantly.
Once I was certain the lens was in good working order (it is a brand new product; not used) I decided to do a "trial by fire" the next day. On Thursday I took the camera and lens on location to a large public relations company H.Q. to make environmental portraits of five new hires. I set the camera to shoot .DNG files and further set the camera to show me an APS-C crop as I photographed. I knew I would would to crop down to that size but also knew that in .DNG the camera would write the full frame and just show me the crop in the viewfinder and then in Lightroom. If, after the fact, I wanted to use the full image instead of the crop that would be available to me in the raw file. Something I took advantage of in my subsequent evaluations.
Lately I've been photographing a lot of portraits with LED lights but on Thursday I decided to use electronic flash. I also put the camera on a tripod. I wanted a "best case" scenario from which to judge the performance of the new lens. The flash is perfect at freezing camera motion and subject motion while the tripod provides a solid and repeatable base for fine focusing manual lenses. I forgot to mention above but the two rangefinder lenses must be manually focused and have no automatic features whatsoever. You've been warned.
I carefully inspected samples from the 350+ shots I made at the P.R. agency. The lens renders much differently than the usual lenses I use on jobs. I've previously been using the Sigma 90mm f2.8 and the Panasonic 24-105mm on portrait jobs. The focal lengths worked for what I needed.
The Voitlander 50mm APO immediately slapped my face. I was expecting the results to be similar to all the other modern lenses. Maybe a bit sharper, a bit contrastier. The results were different. The files are all very sharp but it's the contrast and color saturation which stood out very clearly. I was impressed. Maybe even a bit intimidated.
With the modern convenience of punch-in image magnification the lens is very easy to focus exactly. The operation of everything is very straightforward. But the results are so obviously different from nearly every lens I have used in the past.
It's early times and it generally takes weeks and weeks of shooting to get used to a particular lens. Still, in the moment I'm thinking this is the combination I've always been looking for when searching for a personal/art/primary camera and lens. That's my mindset in the moment.
If you handed me a travel itinerary today this would be the camera body and single lens I would pack. It would be enough.
Is it worth it to buy an APO lens? I think so.
More experiments coming when we are able to move freely outside. Stay tuned. Somebody do something about this high pressure dome overhead... Thanks.
6.16.2023
Heat Paralysis now affecting daily walks for street photography. A hard surrender to growing more "mature."
I remember back when I was in my thirties and even my early forties and I ignored all weather conditions and routinely ran the four mile loop around Town Lake in the mid-to-late afternoon, no matter what the temperature. I remember being the only other person besides Jeff Ward running the loop one August afternoon when the thermometer temperature (as opposed to the "feels like" temperature) was 105°. I think Jeff and I had a similar philosophy; we were running around a big body of water and if we felt "off" because of the heat we were never more than a few seconds away from the option of plunging in and cooling off. Those thoughts seemed to have sustained us in our runs.
I am no way as brave (or foolhardy...) these days. The idea of pulling on the Nikes and heading out into the red hot swamp today holds no fascination or allure. I've come to grips with the encroachment of age and I've set some new safety guide rails for myself. My physician of thirty years concurs with direction but wishes I would tone down the overall enthusiasm for pushing it. I no longer run on days when the ambient temps are over 95°. And even then I run much slower. Often passed by moms pushing strollers... tragic.
Even the pool was miserable at 8 a.m. this morning. The water was just shy of 85° and once it crests that we're into the danger zone for hard, long distance swimming; or fast sprinting. The aerators at the pool just can't drop the temperature enough overnight because the humidity remains so high. We swam this morning but the coach took the workout down a notch or two (or three) .... for safety's sake.
With the outside mimicking the surface of Mercury (the side facing the sun....) I resigned myself to spending the day inside. That's okay. I got some banking done. Deposited some checks that had been sitting on my desktop for too long. Deposited with my phone. Always novel. At least to me. It's a generational thing.
The studio needed to be put back into shape after two shooting days here this week. Gotta put the gear back away so we know where to find it next time. I was bored so I went to Mike's blog hoping to read something engaging about photography but sadly left after learning about Instant Pots. Something I care less than zero about. I wonder if he's in the process of giving up on covering photography altogether. Why do I think this? Well, how could he have possibly missed out on the BIG NEWS that Leica just introduced a version of their SL2 camera in a silver finish? So beautiful and just right for his audience.... I'll forgo writing about it here --for now-- so he can take the first stab at it.---- if he wants to.
After spending too much time in the studio I started to get antsy. Any day without a lot of movement seems like a period of lost opportunities. I tried to think of some activity to burn off energy without frying myself on the surface of the sun when it came to me: "Go to the gym. The gym is air conditioned. The weight machines have missed you. Fight entropy. Conquer sarcopenia. Get out of the compound."
Apparently there are people who like the heat less than me because the attendance at the gym this afternoon was light. Sparse. Spare. People unwilling to make the long march from their front doors to their cars. I spent an hour making myself tired and borderline sore and then headed back home.
How much can change in an hour?
Well, there is a new piece of furniture in the kitchen that wasn't there when I left. A nice, waist high cabinet complete with drawers for storage and glass-fronted doors with more storage shelves behind them. I'm sure B. talked to me about this at some point... But...it's furniture.
More importantly the driver from Amazon had also dropped by and left a padded envelope outside the front door. High excitement. It contained a brand new metal lens hood for the almost as new Voigtlander APO-Lanthar 50mm lens, as well as a B&W filter for the front. A wonderful source of excitement for about the minute or so it took me to attach them to the lens and make sure nothing vignettes. Well, the lens vignettes at f2.0 but that's a different thing. And I knew about that going in...
There is a bit of meteorological progress here today. For most of the day we've actually seen blue sky. Seems that the smoke from the Mexican farm fires has shifted with the wind and gone to torture some other community for the moment. My throat and sinuses are thankful.
I'm waiting either for the dangerous heat and humidity to break or for my new passport to arrive. I'll be happy either way. If the weather breaks here I'll probably head to San Antonio and spend some time walking around with the new lens (and hood, and filter) but if the passport gets here before the abatement of dangerous and uncomfortable conditions I'll be checking on the weather in in the great north and heading there as fast as I can. With camera and lens in tow.
Is the business of photography dead? Well, not today. We billed enough this week and last week to ride all through the Summer on cash flow. That's always my goal. Why use your own money if you can gets someone else to share with you? Some proprietary products and many portraits seem currently immune to the charms of A.I. so I'll take advantage of my clients's trepidation about progress and keep billing in the moment.
Back to the pool in the morning. Hoping and praying for a quick cold front to lower that water temperature. But at least the grid is holding and all the air conditioning in house and studio seems to be taking the 110° (current) "feels like" temperature in stride.
Finally, I used the Voigtlander APO Lanthar 50mm on the portrait job yesterday, cropping an APS-C frame out of the hulking full frame files from the Leica SL2. Everything looked great. The lens is superbly sharp and contrasty and the colors more saturated than I'm used to. All good on that front.
Stay cool. Stay safe. Be happy. If you can't be all out happy then at least try for contented.
6.15.2023
Nasty Hot Weather Does Not Put a Crimp in Today's Shoot.
6.14.2023
Voigtlander 50 APO LANTHAR arrives and .... I'm too busy to go out and shoot with it right now....
First of all, I have to blame a writer for putting a major crimp in my schedule. I found a book on my shelves that I bought a while back with the intention of reading it on vacation. That vacation got cancelled by the pandemic and I shelved the novel for later... lost in my library for several years.
I rediscovered the book yesterday morning and I seem to have acquired a problem in that I can't put it down. The writing is too captivating; too real, and the plot is as exciting as a long string of free Leica lenses. The dialogue is pitch perfect. Who could walk away from a perfectly crafted story to do anything else?
It's by some obscure writer, last name of Sanford, and his protagonist is a cop named Virgil Flowers. The book is entitled, "Deadline." I am suggesting that you give it wide berth because once you turn past the first page you'll find that you've stepped into a dangerous reader's tar pit. You won't want to leave your chair to eat and you sure won't want to waste time sleeping.
The big issue for me is that I'd booked a second photo shoot here in the studio for a client at Abbott U.S. and I wasn't sure I'd be able to pull myself away from the paper pages long enough to set up the studio and get the client in and out. I was able. Just barely.
But now I'm sitting at my desk trying to read while simultaneously watching files upload and download and get written to thumb drives. This addictive book has tossed a bag of nails into my schedule.
You know a book is a winner when you'd rather keep reading it than to open the box from B&H with the newest miracle lens nestled inside. Tragic. Almost unthinkable.
And patently unfair. In fact, if I am ever able to track the culprit down I'm going to be giving this Sanford fellow a piece of my mind. Not that I have lots to spare. but the productivity loss...
I was able to pull myself away from the novel for just long enough to photograph some very small medical appliances with the Leica SL2. I had to compose with a lot of room around each piece in order to have enough depth of field to keep the entirety of each product in focus. To make this work I fell back on my old trick of using the multi-shot hi-res mode to create 180+ megapixel raw files which I could then crop into and still give my client about 40+ megapixels of good, noise free data to work with.
Thank goodness for bright LED lights and also the awesome performance of the Sigma 70mm f2.8 Art Series Macro lens. Today's optical MVP.
The 50mm APO will have to wait for its turn at tomorrow's portrait shoot. A super sharp, contrasty lens and a bunch of bright faces....what could go wrong?
Stay tuned.
6.13.2023
I passed three lenses on to a friend this morning who will use them more than I will. I sold two Panasonic zoom lenses to another friend last week. Why?
To make room for a new
I'll use this one on the SL2, the SLs and the Panasonics. It's supposed to be blistery sharp even wide open. Love the focal length. This is how you know you are truly addicted...you keep buying versions of the same focal length lens over and over again.
With this addition I will have assembled a nice little collection of M mount lenses which can be easily used on the SL cameras and will lie in wait should the day ever come when I convince myself to venture back into the hallowed camp of Leica M camera users. I guess I'm waiting for M10s to drop in price. Maybe I'm waiting in hopes that some rational person will pull me back from the edge. Or that I win the lottery and can afford a couple of those pretty M11s. Yeah. It could happen...
In other news I seem to have skated around the edge of retirement only to plunge back into the mix of corporate work. I completed an assignment here in the studio last week for Abbott US, the big medical products company, I have another assignment for them booked for tomorrow and on Thursday I'm scheduled to do five or six environmental portraits for a fun/nice/big public relations firm. Should go a long way toward cash flowing my Summer.
More on the horizon. But not too much. I'm getting too comfortable with my scheduling freedom to wish for a return to my old work schedule.
And, yes, I did tell both of this week's clients that I could not start the projects until after swim practice. We're aiming for a very civilized 10:30 a.m. start on both days. After all these years I'm finding out that you basically just have to ask for what you want and usually it works out.
Meteorology chat: So last week it was the northeastern states that got hammered by the nasty smoke from the wildfires. We've dodged the smoke but mother nature is gearing up to take a swing at us central Texans by both jacking up the temperatures and tossing in heavy doses of humidity. We're already under a "heat advisory" for today and it's only going to get worse going forward. Highs on Friday, and through the beginning of next week, will be 105°-106° without factoring in humidity, and if you add in the effects of the nearly liquid air we're going to experience "feels like" temperatures in the 114°-116° range. Nasty stuff, for sure!
I'll be hitting the pool as early as possible each day and saving the afternoons for time in the air conditioned gym. Already drinking lots of water....
The weather is just a mess. But then again, this is Texas in the Summer. Hard pressed to sell Austin as a tourist destination right now --- when heat stroke is one of the major events on offer.
Thank God for air conditioning. Hope the grid holds.... (sigh.).
6.12.2023
Everyone is so different... Plus....I dropped a camera for the first time in decades. Ouch. But not ouch...
Everyone is so different. I was reading replies to my reposted, "Lonely hunter...." post this morning and baffled at how many people rushed to defend the practice of always traveling with their spouse. The not doing of which was part of the whole point of the post. But Ted Lasso and B. reminded me not to be so judgmental so I guess it's just a different perspective from mine. Or I'm more selfish than most people. Which makes sense given my enormous sense of personal entitlement. You want to have company while you shoot? Go for it. Life is too short to slavishly hew to someone else's dictates. Or suggestions. Or something. Just know that your work will most likely suffer. But if you're okay with that.....
On a sad topic: You know that icky feeling when you're trying to get out of the house to make it somewhere on time and you're juggling your keys and your sunglasses and your regular glasses and a few other stupid items like your cellphone and you feel that camera strap slip through your hand? And a microsecond later gravity introduces your camera, or your camera and a favorite lens, to the hard reality of a Saltillo tiled floor?
And maybe it even bounces once or twice? And you're just ...... instantly deflated.
A few questions for the Universe...
Why is it that cameras never accidentally drop onto soft, padded carpeting?
Why is the fall of a camera nearly always from waist level or higher?
Why is it never our cheapest "beater" camera that takes the plunge?
Why is it always our newest, shiniest and most cool camera that impacts the hard tiles?
Why do we make the (unconscious) decision to let the camera slide instead of that pair of cheap sunglasses?
So, B. and I were leaving the house to go out for lunch on Saturday. I was juggling too much crap. I was just about to the door when I realized that my grip on my camera was only (tentatively) on the actual strap and not on the camera body itself. And the strap was slipping through my fingers because I just wasn't paying attention correctly, or at all.
The camera slid down with about two feet of uncontrolled trajectory and hit squarely on the hard surface of the Saltillo tiled floor. I looked down at my nearly new Leica Q2 and sighed. Just sighed. It's been, literally, over a decade since I've personally engineered a camera taking a nose dive from altitude to absolute, unrelenting ground level. I'd like to chalk up the blame to having use a faulty Black Rapid strap but I would never buy or use one on my own cameras; I only gift them from time to time to my least favorite competitors. As mean gag gifts. It was really just a matter of me not paying attention.
I expected the worst. A complete totaling of the wonder camera. But --- Thank goodness --- I had placed a cheap, thick leather half case on the camera the week before and that absorbed most of the energy. There are two tiny spots on the lens hood that now have no paint. About the size of a pin prick. The camera fired right up when I tested it. And, after lunch I came back to the office to shoot some test shots and make sure there was no mis-alignment of the lens or the sensor.
I dodged a bullet this time but I gave myself a severe talking to and in the future might take the painful step of hot gluing the camera strap to my hand before venturing out.
Couldn't be the Canon G15 or the old Alpa? Nope. Had to be the newest Leica in the small flock.
Relieved that I don't have to send it away and wait. That's what passport renewals are for.......
Pro tip: Don't drop your camera. Especially don't drop it on hard stuff. It's not fun
Pro tip #2: In that moment of relief that the camera has survived be sure not to share your sense relief with your spouse too quickly. Had I dragged out the drama I would have had a better excuse to upgrade to the Q3. Now that extra rationale has been vacated. My mistake.