The enduring power of Ms. Pac-Man.
How many Magnum photographers from the 1950s and 1960s can dance on the head of a pin? Will we ever find out? Is it germane to your enjoyment of photography in 2023?
I went to swim practice this morning. It was good. I drank coffee twice this morning as the trout snapped at buzzing but slow moving mayflies skitting just above the bubbling and rippling surface of a fresh running stream somewhere else. And it was good. I sat down in front of my computer a little later. I thought I'd crank out a blog about something inane and inconsequential. I knew that was not good. There were bigger fish to fry.
I pushed my poorly-made office chair away from my dated, glass-topped desk and stood up. I used the forefinger of my left hand to write my name in the dust on the glass top. I thought about cleaning. Someday that might happen.
I bent over to see the screen through the correct part of my progressive eyeglasses and at the same time fiddled around with the keyboard and mouse apparatus until I was able to find the ever elusive cursor and then, like a bull fighter, deftly clicked the right menu item and put my lumbering beast of a writing machine to sleep. And it was good. I felt the early morning joy of the screen turning to black. I felt empowered by wrenching my time back from the edge of an abyss. Or perhaps skirting a sink hole of sloth. I looked out a dirty window and saw the withered Japanese maple tree sway in the wind.
One needn't check the news feeds every half hour....
I remembered I had wanted to put my relatively new 90mm lens through a more involved audition. Now there was nothing to hold us back. My friend, Nick Adams, called to egg me on. "Bro!" he said with his usual slow, scattered delivery... "When are you going to make that new lens your bitch?" I laughed and hung up the phone in the middle of something else Nick was trying to tell me. Something about taking bacon fat, wrapped carefully in waxed paper, along on our next fishing trip so we could use it to sizzle the trout we were sure to catch. Sizzle it crispy and fine in my old cast iron skillet. Fish dancing and jumping on the hot metal, over hotter oak coals. On a merry campfire near the edge of the stream that runs through...the woods, up near Henri-Hickory Jones's place; near the marshes. Just past the weathered wood, roadside stand where the Presbyterian boys in their Sunday finery sell their freshly counterfeited Snickers bars to the gentle folks passing by.
That brought back memories of going to college on one edge of this vast country. Can't say as I ever graduated but I did move on out. Fun times. Fun times. I had a roommate named Steve. We lived in the prestige dorm. I was busy most days photographing models for my studio class. Steve, a philosophy major from a wealthy family (whose names you would know) started each late afternoon conversation, after our classes, by asking me if I'd slept with my latest model. I'd indignantly say, "Of course not." He would say, "Tsk. Tsk. And you want to be a professional photographer someday?" He would shake his head in a knowing way.
When I left college I inherited amazing amounts of money from an old family trust. But I pissed it all away. You know. Gambling on the horses. Buying rare but exquisite china for my dining room, along with golden salad utensils, and generally living too well. Apparently living much better than I have been able to afford. But that's a story for another time. Perhaps over strong cranberry juice at old man Robert Adams's bar that's still on Chickadee and North Central streets; just on the other side of the railroad tracks to Denver. Jack would know. He's been there plenty.
But back to blog business...
I bought a used TTArtisan 90mm f1.25 lens, complete with a GFX lens mount, from the folks at B&H a few weeks back. It's a heavy lens. Not too big just heavy. The lens has 11 elements in seven groups. Someone will know what that means. It also has four sets of achromatic element doublets. I don't really know what that means either but the folks at B&H put it in the description so it must be somewhat impressive.
When I say that the lens is heavy I'm not really exaggerating. Damn thing weighs just under three pounds (actually 2.3 pounds or XXX grams). Put a medium format Fuji camera together with that 90mm and you're looking at something like five pounds and change. Only mighty or insane photographers will want to carry the combo around. Thank goodness I'm on the borderline of both mighty and insane. I might have a fighting chance.
The lens has ten aperture blades but still has funky aperture artifacts when you use it at apertures like f2.0. I think they call this effect Ninja stars. They are more commonly referred to as edgy bokeh balls. You'd think with nearly three pounds of potential to play with the makers would have been able to make more rounded bokeh balls. I think there is a filter for that in some vague software that someone sells somewhere...
Other deal killers that come packaged with this inexpensive lens are: It can only close focus down to one meter. I'm not sure what a meter is because I live in the USA but I think it's the Euro-version of one yard and change. All I know is I'm pretty pissed no one told me I would not be able to do easy slide copies with this lens. Another negative is the metal lens hood. You have to screw it onto the end of the lens and that takes too much time. Sure, it's well made but what isn't? I like the hoods that just snap on. Who wants a metal lens hood?
In fact, I guess it was just last week when I was at Old Callaghan's bar and photo gallery playing checkers with a guy we call Garry. Mostly because his name is Garry. He wears glasses and has some sort of vision problems. He likes to play checkers with the board at kind of a slant. I called him on it once, early on, before I knew him better. I asked him, "Garry, Why do you always play with the checker board slanted to one side?" He gave me a long and silent look, stuck his thumbs through the front belt loops of his faded denim trousers, spit his wood toothpick onto the floor, cocked his big head to one side and then he said, "What slant???" He sure had me there.
But anyway, Garry and me and the other guys who play checkers at Callaghan's Bar got into a long philosophical discussion about whether plastic lens hoods were better or if metal lens hoods are better. Garry felt that he could never quite take the photographs he was previsualizing in his head if he knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that the hood on his lens was plastic. I maintained that it didn't matter while Henri-Hickory Jones, who had closed down his place a bit early to meet us for checkers, conceded that he had always been partial to metal. In fact, he loved the metal hoods. After he said that he was silent for a spell, just looking out the window. Like he was looking for an answer.
I didn't want to get into a fracas so I peeled the paper off part of the "Snickers" bar I'd bought from the Presbyterian kids a bit earlier and chewed a while on the delicious nougat and crunchy peanuts. So much better to buy your Snickers bars close to where they are made since they are much, must fresher. It's a taste a convenience store Snickers bar will never come close to matching. Now that's something Garry agreed on with me. Henri? He was pretty vocal about his preference for a candy bar we call, "Almond Joy."
But I digress. I was delighted when the 90mm lens arrived from NYC (actually, from a warehouse in New Jersey). It came well packed and inside the anonymous, brown cardboard box the lens was nestled like a trout in the cool shadows in its own, original box. I disagree with the store's description though. They say it was in 9+ condition. I maintain that before I got my hands on it the darn thing looked brand new.
So. Getting back to today. I put the Fuji camera and the TTA lens into my car. They ride on the front passenger seat. Strapped in like a bouncing baby. And covered by one of my straw hats. You know, the ones made just for street photographers. It was toasty and sweaty outside so I flipped on the air conditioning and made it cold enough in the car to chill beer. That was a mistake as the outside of the windows started to clot and streak with condensation. We found middle ground between comfort and safety after that...
I parked a couple blocks south of where S. Congress Avenue starts to look successful and fun. I walked north on the west side of the street, padded down a wide sidewalk and took photographs of anything and everything I saw that I thought looked cool. I have to confess though that even knowing that I should be busy pre-visualizing stuff I didn't even know exist until I saw it --- I was not. Didn't pre visualize a damn thing. Just answered my inner Gestalt. See it? Like it? Click it!!! We're not getting any younger here. And less so standing around ogling stuff or waiting for the future to effect some sort of special delivery. No sir.
As my roommate at my college used to say (and always with enthusiasm...) "Are we going to tap this keg or just sit here with our thumbs up our....???" Steve had the same feelings about photography. The old boy was wise beyond his tender years.
When I found stuff I liked the look of the only decision I made after my initial, almost spontaneous rush to photograph, was whether or not to try a second shot with a bigger, fatter, wider aperture so as to try and impress anyone who might read this and then actually look at the images. Who knows who, 100 years from now, will be diving deep into the Blogger archives for this kind of "gold."???
I shot mostly at f2.8 with a few images at f5.6 and fewer still at f1.4. I was ashamed that I paid for f1.25 but never actually used it. What a failure of technique. It's almost "deal-killer."
When the air temperature hit 105°f and the sun blasted down directly on the black body of my camera I started to get a temperature warning signal in the viewfinder. Coincidentally I also started getting a temperature warning on my self. I was as hot as a rattlesnake on a flat rock. We decided to get back to the car, get back in the AC and call it a good day. I put the camera in the studio and went to the backyard in my boxer shorts to play in the sprinkler. It was fun. And cool. B. glanced out the door to the garden. I could see her saying: "Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. What have I gotten myself into?"
Anyway, my automatic typing machine has been rattling on for hours and hours. And then I spent all day yesterday, today and tomorrow revising: word by word. Bird by bird. So let's push "publish" on this train wreck of a lens review and get to the real meat of the matter --- the actual, real, real world, authentic photographs. Mostly just like they come pouring out of the camera.
As the farm kids who sell the fake Snickers bars say, "Sure mister! It's the real thing. But don't open it until you get home." And then his little sister, the one with the lazy eye, chimes in to say, "And my daddy says NO REFUNDS." Aren't they darling?
So....on to the images. They're only here for a short time. I'll be putting them into a portfolio. I'm applying for the William Eggleston/Stephen Shore grant. I'm calling this collection "Sleeping along S. Congress Ave." It's a perfect entry for "The Intersection of Art and Intentional Banality." And if I'm not successful in getting that grant there is always the Lee Friedlander/Alec Sloth grant.
Absolutely the worst mural I have ever seen intentionally painted and paid for in a place of business.
Just the worst.
The luscious full frame.
the 100% pixel mag.
Outside the world famous Continental Club.
it was this ancient Kawasaki motorcycle that gave me the idea to sand all the black
finish off my oldest Leica SL. It's taking longer than I thought it would. But it's looking sweet.
Texas Grass Tanning Itself in the Sun.
Texas Grass Tanning Itself in the Sun. Part deux.
Just flat out grabbing Bokeh by the scruff of the neck. Right?
Yes. We now cook popcorn by just laying the kernels on any hot sidewalk.
They tend to cook faster after noon.
A reader asked if the sign's appearance (the phallic design cues) was
intentional. It's Austin --- you had to ask???
On the side of Jo's Coffee. On South Congress Ave.
Sunday afternoon live music. At Jo's Coffee. On S. Congress Ave.
An example showing the full frame (above) and then a 100% sample (below).
Yes. I'd say the 90mm lens, even used near wide open, is remarkably good.
narrow depth of field test.
reflection artifacts.
couldn't get the software to figure out how to make these lines go straight up and down...
So, what do I think of this lens?
I think it's heavy. I think I got a bargain at $400.
I think it's monstrously sharp from f2.8 onward.
I think I'll continue to ignore the idea of shooting it
wide open.
It has vignetting and you can cure it in post. But just barely.
Better to use a slight crop and surrender to physics.
Would I buy it again? yeah.
Is it the best lens ever? Not by a long shot.
Is it a "deal killer" lens? Only for the weak of arm or the
precious of status seeking.
should I ever try to channel Hemingway again?
People do stuff they know better than to do all the time.
Why would I be any different.?
