I've been shooting more in black and white. Sometimes I think wide angle views benefit the most from that format.

 

A while back I bought a cheap, TTArtisan 21mm f1.5 lens for the L mount systems. I used it a couple of times but I thought, at the time, that I just didn't see well with very wide angle lenses. I usually have a wide angle "limiter" in my brain that cuts off anything wider than 28mm. But last month I came across the lens again at the back of a drawer and thought that I should either give it another try or move it out and along to someone who might appreciate it more. What a difference a sunny day can make...

I used the lens in conjunction with a Leica SL2 camera and I could see that setting the camera to "monochrome" did more than just desaturate the colors. Leica seems to have created an invisible (as in: not in the menu) preset for monochrome Jpegs that takes into consideration the way black and white film works. Panchromatic black and white film. I also noted that they seem to have tweaked the way the camera responds to different colors. Almost as if when using it this way you are getting the result of a yellow filter or maybe even a weak orange filter. Skies get dramatically darker and contrasts seem to pop. 

My earlier dismissal of the lens was premature. I paid less than $300 for the lens, new, and when I looked carefully at these more recent results I was much more impressed than I was with my first outings --- which were on cloudy, winter days. The lens has some geometric distortion. Yes. And it has some smearing of details in the corners. Sure does. But it delivers a good level of sharpness in the center of the frame and when shooting in black and white I love the way the lens, at least in the center 2/3rds of the frame, renders things like clouds and hard lines of buildings. 

Since I'm not a power user of wide angles, and since I don't attract clients who would be best served by ultra-wide angle photographs I find this lens is more than adequate for my casual/artsy use. But, of course, when I get good stuff from a focal length like this one my thoughts immediately go to how much better the results might be if I invested in something like a Carl Zeiss 21mm f4.5 ZM. A much smaller and much slower lens. And maybe a much better corrected lens. Chances are I'll stumble across one when I least expect it and I'll mistakenly take its abrupt appearance as a sign from the photo gods that I should snap it up and try it out. Bad wiring, I suspect.