Lenses that sometimes fly under the radar. And...Eeyore's Birthday Party.

 

I had lunch yesterday with an old friend. Well, he's not old, really but he's been a friend for a long time. Since we are both photographers we quickly moved the conversation away from politics, religion and whether or not skyscrapers were a valid photo target to less controversial and fraught subjects and settled in to discussing lenses. Yes, I know, if we were "real" artists we would have discussed some ingenious application of the color, French blue, into our work. Then we might have touched on something to do with combining our visions with discourse about hermeneutical comparisons of the seen and the unseen. But it's rare that burgers and fries engender such lofty discussions. We stuck to lenses. 

My friend is in the middle of expanding into a new camera system and asked my opinion, a few days earlier, about the Sigma i-Series lenses. He asked if I would bring a sample or two along with me to our scheduled lunch so he could get a handle on how they handle. A request I could easily handle...

I wanted to present a handful of lenses so I packed a small bag with the 24mm f3.5, the 35mm f2.0, the mystical and most often overlooked 45mm f2.8 and the small but powerful 90mm f2.8. I rarely hear about the 90mm f2.8 but it is one of my favorite lenses of all. It's small and light, optically very competitive and it's inexpensive. Especially among lenses in the Leica world.

The 90mm lens was fresh in my mind because it was the lens I used on my job the day before. I photographed two attorney in office environments and the 90mm focal length was perfect for the combination of good "drawing" for mid-torso portrait compositions --- meaning it didn't add foreshortening or too much obvious compression to the subject --- good optical performance when used with the SL2 (eye detect AF worked well with sharp irises and soft, diaphanous backgrounds) and quick focusing. In contrast to bigger lenses like the elephantine Leica 24/90mm or the Sigma 85mm f1.4 Art series lens the little 90mm makes working on a tripod casual fun. No drooping in a vertical orientation and no feeling of unbalance in any position. 

Many photographers overlook the 90mm f2.8 because they feel that they "need" the much faster aperture of the big, chubby, ungainly 85mm f1.4 lenses that everyone seems to offer. I guess f1.4 is nice to have if  you constantly shoot under profoundly dismal light but my decades of experience tell me that the times in which such a wide open aperture adds to a good portrait are minimal. Used at an 85mm's closest focusing distance with the aperture wide open is a novelty but eventually one gets bored by sharp irises and out of focus eyelashes and noses. Or sharp eyelashes and soft irises. In many past generation 85mm high speed lenses there was nearly always a trade off between speed and overall sharpness in photos. Yes, you could capture images at f1.4 but the corners paid for the speed with blurriness and artifacts. Even the centers of images were less than perfect. 

A 90mm f2.8 lens offers lens makers the opportunity to design something simpler and and easy to perfect. The Sigma lens, for instance, is sharp across the frame even when used wide open. And, at its widest aperture, and its closest focusing distance, there is just enough depth of field to do a good job with a portrait --- if you are careful to focus in the right spot. 

If you work as a commercial photographer doing portraits in studio and on location a small selection of the Sigma i-Series prime lenses, with the 90mm leading the charge, could be all a photographer needs for very sellable results. Combined with the small size and lower weight and you might find that upping your image quality while lowering your portage obligations is just what the art director ordered. 

I'm heading off to the big celebration in the park later this morning. It's the celebration called, Eeyore's Birthday Party. I've been going and photographing the characters there for decades. I'm just now packing. I've decided to bring two cameras and two lenses. Normally I'd bring just one camera and one lens but I'd like to use the 90mm for nice portraits and the 45mm for establishing shots. I've decided to put each lens on a dedicated SL body so I don't have to change them during the day. Last time I was at Eeyore's there was a lot of dust and we are also in full pollen season here in central Texas. And boy howdy! does that tree pollen do a helluva job sticking to exposed camera sensors....

I hope it doesn't rain. Or doesn't rain too much. I'd hate to see the event postponed. Now checking the website. 

Have a fun weekend. I've got a fun one all planned out.