Fun Lens Adaptations. Here's my "32mm" Len for the GFX.

Homage to twentieth century art photography.

I know some people look down their noses at the idea of adapting older or unusual lenses to their modern cameras. I get it. In the Fuji medium format system using Fuji's lenses means you don't have to worry much about things like vignetting and corner sharpness. Or overall sharpness. Nor do you have to learn/practice focusing manually. But sometimes I look for something other than a perfect rendering from a lens. And sometimes I want a lens that doesn't yet exist in a camera maker's inventory. And, to be frank, there are instances where I just don't want to splash out the cash for a lens that's not an everyday necessity. It's fun to play.

Last year, on a whim, I bought a Voigtlander 40mm lens that's made for the Nikon F mount. It's called the 40mm f2.0 Ultron. It's a smallish lens. Not quite as small as a lens in the same focal length made for the M series mounts, but small just the same. I think I was moved to buy it because I'd been using a Voigtlander 58mm f1.4 lens in the same mount and thought its performance was quite good. That lens was also a Nikon F mount version. I guess I buy the Nikon versions because they are easily and inexpensively adaptable across most lines of cameras. With the correct adapter these lenses are right at home on a Leica SL, and with a different adapter they are equally comfortable when used on a Fuji GFX camera. 

But what every lens adapting Fuji GFX user worries about is whether or not the lens adds too much vignetting to the image and whether it will be sharp enough. My experience tells me that there is no one answer across all the lenses in a particular line up. Nor are more expensive and intensively engineered lenses made for full frame at all guaranteed to work well on the larger format cameras. The 58mm Voigtlander seems to add a harder vignette than does the 40mm, for example. And, the 50mm f1.4 Zeiss Milvus lens, which is a superb all around lens on the format it was designed for (24x36mm), is not as good on the larger format as it just covers the 35mm frame but has a hard vignette on the larger frame. 

There are two things I like about the 40mm V lens better than the very good 35-70mm kit lens from Fuji. First, it's smaller and lighter. Second, it has a fast f2.0 aperture as opposed to the f4.5 aperture that is the max aperture on the Fuji GFX zoom. Another reason to like the 40 is how cool it looks on the front of the GFX with its Fotodiox Pro adapter. There's a red ring for Nikon G series lenses, an aperture ring on the lens, and a well marked, manual distance scale. In a nod to backward compatibility the lens even has the little silver "rabbit ears" that allows it to function (without an adapter) on older Nikon cameras. Even the pre-AI cameras. 

So far I've found the lens to be a good overall performer. One could easily cobble together a complete manual system of these Voigtlander lenses made for the Nikon as a basic package for a GFX incursion. 

The lenses made for the Nikon F mount by Voigtlander include a 28mm, this 40mm, a fast 58mm f1.4 and also a 90mm f2.8. This would give a GFX users a range that included (equivalents) a 22.5mm, a 32mm, a 46.4mm and a 72mm. I've only bought and tested the 40mm Ultron and the 58mm f1.4 Nokton SL ii s in this family (Nikon F mounts) but I have also used the 90mm f2.8 APO-Skopar lens in an M to GFX mount and found it to be a wonderful combination. 

Caveat: Your tolerance for vignetting might vary from mine. I shoot a lot of people and portraits where the corners don't have to be anywhere near as bright as the center of the frame. Since there is a lot of resolution in the GFX sensors it's easy to choose a more conservation aspect ratio and set that in the menu.  For example, I've been using the 40mm in the 3:2 ratio and hardly see vignetting at all. With the 58mm  there is more vignetting but I switch to a 4:5 ratio and it effectively kills the vignetting. All of the lenses work superbly well with a 1:1 crop and you know that's a basic preference of mine. If you are shooting your GFX in a square aspect ratio then the world of adapted lenses is your oyster....

Today I think I'll take the 40mm out for a long stroll. Get the kinks out. Get to know that focal length on this camera (Fuji GFX 50Sii). It certainly is fun. 

I came in close on these day lilies. Then I used the Focus Blur

tool too defocus the background. When I look closely at the closest flower is see

detail upon detail. It works well. 

Here's the what I'm talking about....

Go forth and adapt to your heart's content. 

An adapted lens as a mother's day present?

Your call....

 

In my mind the general purpose of owning and using a camera is to have fun. To capture expressions and memories of your friends and loved ones and to not give a shit about who John Szarkowski idolized.

        

I was living in the upstairs of a two story duplex on the West side of the UT campus. That was back in 1979 and 1980. I was just getting into "real" photography which meant that I worked some extra night shifts at Kerbey Lane Café to save up the money to buy a very, very shitty Novatron 120 electronic flash box and one plasticky Novatron flash head. But the flash head did have a modeling light and that was truly something. I waited tables for a while so I could take the plunge and buy a medium format camera. I was out to emulate my two idols, Irving Penn and Richard Avedon; both of whom used 6x6 cm twin lens reflex cameras for many of their definitive images from the 1950s and 1960s. 

The camera I could afford was a used YashicaMat 124G (not a Rolleiflex or Hasselblad) which was in very, very good condition. A few months later, for my birthday, my parents helped me out so I could buy an actual flash meter. Now I was on a roll. A roll of Panatomic X, that is...

My upstairs apartment was Austin Chic at the time. It was about six blocks from the UT campus, situated in an older, residential neighborhood and surrounded by trees. I had an (seemed like it at the time) enormous living room, a separate dining room, a bedroom that looked out onto a forest of trees, a workable kitchen in which I personally made the finest quiche Lorraine I have ever sampled, and the kitchen fed out onto a second story patio that was perfect for parties in temperate weather. I can't remember if I had an air conditioner but this was pre-global warming and we were used to the mid-90s for Summer temperatures. I am certain I had a box fan and that was pretty good too. 

I'm sure you know how it is when you first get stung by the photography bug and decide that you might want to do this for, well, the rest of your life. Every day was an opportunity to shoot something new, rush to the Ark Co-op Darkroom to hand develop my film (one roll at a time; all I could afford), and then spend long nights in the darkroom, making prints on Ilfobrom, double-weight, graded paper. I'm pretty sure I wore out a couple pairs of flip-flops pacing back and forth, waiting for film to wash. 

In one corner of my living room I set up a photography area that consisted of a short roll of gray seamless paper, my single flash head on a stand, and the electronic flash generator box -- which scared me when it occasionally sparked and smoked. The flash head held a 42 inch, translucent/white umbrella that some kind soul passed along to me, a spindly tripod and, of course, my Richard Avedon and Irving Penn wannabe YashicaMat 124G. No Polaroid. No previews. Just blind faith. 

One afternoon B. came over in the heat of the Summer. I asked her to pose in front of the gray seamless. In those days, in order to conserve the pricey battery in my flash meter I'd done some tests and I had a string attached to the light stand and I had tied a knot in the string at the point where the flash meter had shown me the best exposure. Rather than fire up the meter I'd have my subject stand so they were just at the knot point of the string and I'd set the camera for the exposure implied by that simple tool. 

I made prints that I still have in a box in the file cabinet next to my desk. They’ve withstood the test of 45 years without yellowing, staining or losing their ability to bring an huge, warm smile to my face. 

I used the "string method" of exposure control for a couple of years and just like the guide number routine for on camera flashes, it worked pretty well. Not anywhere close to "state of the art" in 1979.

I sometimes wonder if my modest assemblage of gear in the early years goads me to spend like a drunken sailor now that I've figure out the money end of the equation. I'd ask my shrink. If I had a shrink. 

So, these images are nearly my first go-around with a medium format camera and definitely among my first forays with studio electronic flash. Pivotal year 1979. Gosh, it was such a financial reach back then to get a set of background stands and a cross bar. Probably helped me keep the weight off after I stopped competitive swimming; post college. Food or gear? Food or film? Film or rent? The last one was easy enough to calculate since I liked sleeping indoors. 

I recently unearthed this roll after many years. A whole roll of images. Twelve of them. And you know what? They look pretty good. And that can be interpreted three ways... On the one hand it may tell us that photography is not that hard to master; or at least be proficient at. On the other hand it could be that I'm just an amazingly talented photographer. But the most obvious answer is that I've cheated by nearly always having models who were so cute, and beautiful, and animated, that the technical stuff didn't matter at all. That's the idea I'm going with. 

I worked at an Austin restaurant for about two years. I was a short-order cook who did the Saturday and Sunday brunch shifts (the money makers for the business) as well as several "bar shifts." We cooked burgers, fajitas, omelettes, eggs to order, enchiladas, salads and four kinds of pancakes until the wee hours of the mornings. We helped the folks who closed down the bars get some solid food into their beer and liquor saturated bellies at 3 in the morning. But the schedule worked for me because it left the normal workday hours open for me to do portfolio shows at magazines and ad agencies, small jobs and much daylight experimentation. 

I eventually discovered and locked onto Tri-X as my preferred film but seeing how nice some of these shots from 1979 look I wonder if I've been barking up the wrong tree. Panatomic X seems pretty nice to me. 

Much later I succumbed to the lure of the 35m cameras. At least for a while. Canon TX and then, afterwards a Canon EF. My great, great, great aunt brought it over on the Mayflower. But it worked well. Never did like those batteries though. 

Renae with organizer. For an ad done for Pervasive Software. A company long since dissolved by the ravages of business. Leaving me with a folder full of transparencies and a pleasant memory of a fun afternoon playing with cameras, lights and film.

 

so much easier back in the days when you'd shoot transparency film under electronic flash and everything would turn out perfectly, right out of the camera. Not like now when everything seems to need "just a touch" of post processing... Ah well. 

Building a shot by sticking around and trying stuff out instead of "hit and run." Just rummaging around in the photography bin...

I've been trying to pay attention to how other photographers shoot when they are out in public places. Some "lock in" and shoot frame after frame from one position with one crop. Almost like they are afraid they haven't "set the hook" and the photo is going to get away from them. Some shooters are methodical and pre-programmed. You can see their brains working as they shoot. It's like they are following a formula: wide shot, medium shot, tight shot, low angle, high angle, done. But the one's who I think might be missing the mark are the hit-and-run photographers who whip their cameras up to their eyes, grab one frame and then walk off trying to look like nothing ever happened. Perhaps routinely driven away by fear and trepidation...

I really like to build shots and I guess I have a bit of the old formula in my brain when I go out. But my formula isn't all about getting higher or lower or lefter or righter, it's more about peeling the image down. I'll see something I like in a wide shot; like the young woman near the center who is eating ice cream while trying really hard to ignore the amorous couple sitting right next to her. And  the look on her face is classic. She looks angry. It's a look beyond concentration. She's really not happy. That's the scene where I start but not where I end up.

In the retrospect afforded by having these images in a triptych over my desk for years I've come to like the wide shot the best but I remember in the year or two after I took these images in Piazza Navona (Rome) that I liked the tight shot at the bottom were the woman is separated from all the people around her. 

There is nothing magical about these shots, although the tourists with the guidebook in the right corner make me smile; as does the man with the newspaper across his knee on the left, bottom corner. But I do like them all because they reference a time and place in which people lived more outdoors. Where the urban scape was lived in. Not like my city where everyone rushes around in cars and spends time in the urban scape only for events like concerts in the park. But not an everyday thing.

I was hardly invisible at the time I shot these images. I was using a Mamiya 6 medium format, film camera and I had a camera bag hanging over one shoulder. I was walking by and something in my head prompted me to stop. I guess it was the feeling of depth provided by the groupings of people in layers. And with an angry women with ice cream right in the middle. I went for the wide shot. 

But I didn't walk away. I tried to figure out what it was about the scene that drew me in and I decided that it was the contrast of the "happy' couple and the dour ice cream women. It seemed distinctly like a juxtaposition you don't see in "too cool" Austin. At least not often.  So I stepped in and framed the shot a bit tighter. And shot a couple frames. 

I liked the tighter crop but I stayed around to see if one more variation would add to my appreciation of the scene. I wanted a shot of the woman isolated with her thoughts and her ice cream. Maybe it works okay. But really, after looking at the images for years it was the initial shot, the wide shot, that I think is the keeper. 

I guess my point is that if you are motivated enough to stop and look at a scene it certainly makes a lot of sense to spend some time with it and explore a bit. I know many people would find it uncomfortable to get closer and closer but nobody really paid any attention to me. I guess most of us assume we're standing out when really the people in front of me might just have thought I was trying to get a good image of the fountain. After all, isn't that what most tourists with cameras do? 

 

I'm happy with the way a standard lens worked on a square framed, medium format camera. It's elegant. I guess these days I might be tempted to take a zoom lens, stand in one place and get the three different looks with a twist of the zoom ring. I'm sure the images would be fine but they definitely would create the same result as using one focal length and then zooming with one's feet. There is also more friction of the process when putting yourself closer to your subject. At some point you might step over the line....

And yeah, I know. It's called "Gelato." From Tre Scalini. They make pretty decent gelato...

Let's take a break from the gear and talk about...photographs.

 

Michelle in the studio. 

I like this photo because it's calm and her stare is direct. Just on the verge of being questioning.

When I scanned the negative I was intending to crop out the black frame lines, the arrow and the small part of an adjacent frame. But as I looked at the raw image I felt like the added details conveyed the idea that this was captured in a continuing stream of images instead of being a "one off." 

It's fun to remember that I was so hands on with the negatives and generally marked small arrows in the space between frames to remind myself that my first thoughts on seeing the contact sheets were:

Print This One.

This is a photograph of my friend Michelle. Over the twenty some years that we've known each other she's been one of the muses who have kept me interested in photography. While I have cast her in a number of print advertisements most of the photos I show of Michelle here come from the informal and relatively unplanned photo shoots we've done over the years just for fun. 

I might be toying around with a new way to light portraits and I'll call and see if she's available for a session in the near future. She's always interested not in photography, per se, but in how the psychology of a portrait sitting works. By working with each other in a close collaboration I think we both came to the same conclusion a long time ago. A good portrait session is really a conversation with someone you'd like to get to know a lot better. Someone different enough from you to bring a perspective about some things that you'd just never thought of before. 

It's also a chance to be beautiful in a safe space and to admire and document beauty in a reciprocally safe space. I know that many people think there is often an awkward, almost predatory angle to photographing beautiful people but it's something I wouldn't dream of allowing in my studio. The lifeguard for the studio is my sweet wife who is generally around on the days and evenings we photograph. Our house is 12 steps from the studio and it more or less mandates complete transparency in my work. Not that I would have it any other way. Honest intention means so much less anxiety.

Michelle and B. have known each other for years and get along well. We've started nearly every shoot with Michelle arriving at the house first, spending some time catching up with B. then selecting an outfit and heading out to the studio. It's a very comfortable, almost family-like relationship. 

It's that transparency and familiarity that make the space we photograph in feel very safe and comfortable. We can literally and metaphorically let our hair down...

When we start to photograph the camera work usually occurs in between conversations about life, loss, happiness, dreams and the feeling of being connected. Austin is a small town and we both know dozens and dozens of the same people. We continually cross reference people I think Michelle should know and she connects me with people who she thinks need to be photographed. 

We've more or less grown from youthful exuberance into calmer adulthood together and we've got the photographs to show the progression of time and experience. 

I hate doing "quick" photo sessions. I like to sink into session slowly and build images step by step. The course of the conversation will bring up a happy thought or a thoughtful look and that will engender an expression I find interesting. A look I want to share. I take note of the expression and the body language and try to capture it if I can. Sometimes I'll show Michelle an image I liked by showing her the screen on the back of the camera and we'll work to get back to that expression if we've lost it. 

Sometimes the lighting works and sometimes my experiments go awry. It really doesn't matter if it works or not because every "failure" is a learning point. An intersection that pushes me away from something that doesn't work and pulls me toward different lighting designs that work better. But always  in the service of making the person in front of the camera look as beautiful and interesting as I can. 

It seemed somehow easier in the film days. A shared black and white Polaroid was a real, physical manifestation of the evolution of the work. The pauses to load a new roll of film were like a natural cadence for the shoot. The ever growing pile of spent film was an indicator of the time and energy spent. A marker of the arc of the session. 

I wonder how other people approach portrait shoots. It would be interesting to know...

Aventures in scouting a location. A quiet way to spend a Monday morning.

In a couple of weeks I'll be heading to the offices of a company that provides insurance to the Texas legal community. We'll be doing the usual images for a new website type of photography. It's an association that I've worked with for about ten years, most recently photographing their board of directors in front of interesting urban landscapes. The upcoming shoot in the offices is the kind of project I've been doing for decades. Making every day corporate work spaces look streamlined and inviting, and helping the people who work there look interesting and engaging. 

This client moved offices since our last website shoot. And because I hate to drop in cold on the day of the photography I made arrangements to drop by this morning to do a quick scouting. I wanted to see which of the two conference rooms works best for a meeting shot. Which offices have good light and nice scenery out the windows. How high the ceilings are. Where the coffee machine is and what kind of coffee to expect... And mostly to say "hi" to the gatekeepers who make most companies, and by extension, most shoots, run smoothly.

The client offices are about three miles from my office and, at ten in the morning, the traffic was light. My scouting adventure took about 20 minutes and provided me with all the information I need to do the project the way the web designers would want. 

I've done plenty of projects over the years without scouting them. In a number of cases a few moments pre-scouting could have saved a lot of time and frustration. Like the time one huge computer maker wanted me to set up a seamless background and do executive portraits in a ten foot by twelve foot conference room that came complete with a table that could seat eight people. The tiny room even came complete with tiny ceiling height. About nine feet. It was a nightmare. And, on the day of the shoot no other conference rooms were available...(right...).

Or the time we arrived on site to photograph a server farm only to find that it was a work in progress and none of the servers had been taken out of their shipping boxes and set up. We essentially had an enormous space lined on the sidewalls with stacks of cardboard boxes. The video interview outside that coincided with jack hammers working next door and construction going on for months. But, of course, you had to get the front of the building in the background of the interview... The shot of the swimming pool for a new, five star hotel ---- the one without any water in the pool when we arrived at the appointed time.

How many times have we been scheduled to shoot a CEO in the "lush gardens" surrounding the front of HQ only to  arrive and find that all the plants died in the heat wave, were removed, and we were faced with shooting across an expanse of mud? Or how many times have we been asked to photograph a CEO or important company officer outside, in August, on one of those day when the temperatures hit 108 degrees? And the spot the marketing people wanted to use would put their mission critical exec in direct sun? In a suit and tie with a bright red face, covered with sweat. (Can you retouch all the sweat out???").

Dispatched to photograph a product that never arrived? Ben and I spent three days in a sorry motel in Baton Rouge waiting for UPS to find a product they lost that was mission critical to an advertising project. I know that's a different issue than what might be called scouting but it's pre-production and that counts when it comes to efficiency and effective use of time.... Especially if the missing product is also the star of the shoot.

Today I observed that some of the furniture in the client's main conference room had torn up armrests. We talked about repairing or replacing in the next two weeks. We also fine-tuned a shooting schedule so we would have sun in the right place at the right time to get the looks that the art directors asked for. We talked about who would be responsible for having lunch delivered, where to park, wardrobe for the employees, etc. 

There's no guarantee that scouting a location will ensure everything goes smoothly on the day of the shoot. But at least you'll know what you have to work with; in terms of the space, decor, lighting, etc. And you will be better prepared to hit the ground running. You'll know what kind of lights you'll likely need, and how many. You'll know if you need a really wide lens or if your 24mm will work just fine. If you were observant you'll know where to plug stuff in or whether to be safer and just bring battery powered lighting. What still image to use on the screens for the fake Zoom call images and much more. 

In a number of ways a casual visit well in advance of the shoot day is just good politics. You build more trust and collaborative spirit in every encounter. It all adds up to a smoother experience for everyone...

Don't go into a shoot naked and clueless. Spend some time to understand the 

underlying lay of the land....

Not my client's office front. 

Just some downtown photos from yesterday's adventure. Now making notes about this morning's meeting. All relaxed over here... 

A Needed Break from All That Leica Nonsense. A Celebration of International "God, That's an Awful Hat Day." And so much more...

 

Can't pass up a reflection in a window when I've got my premium hat on...

As popular taste continues to restrict my choice of "acceptable" subject matter for photographs here on the blog (no more graffiti, skyscrapers, mannequins or anything fun....) I was thrilled when I read in my online calendar that, not only is today Cinco de Mayo, but it is also International Bad Hat Day. A day made famous by the Tilley Hat Company, makers of some of the most atrocious civilian headwear since the Papal Crowns of the 17th Century. Today is that day of the year that people concerned with fashion, good taste and an acute sensitivity to popular outrage find and document hats that make us queasy. Or queasier. 

I'm starting out just below with a picture of modern Cerberus, the three headed guardian of the entry to Hades. And for good reason as, in this blog, they sit just above the sartorial gates of Hell when it comes to head coverings... I'm not sure if I should label this post NSFW or not....

Modern Cerberus on the prowl to enforce good taste. 

So, here we go....

A popular Mother's Day choice.

 I enjoy going to the Pecan Street Festival each Spring with a camera in one hand and a white flag of surrender in the other. Surrendering, of course, to the visual collage/onslaught of middle America on fashion parade. An endless stream of families and singles navigating our famous Sixth Street, from Congress Ave. all the way east to the freeway.  A broad avenue covered with white pop-up tents and featuring everything from window and door sales people to turkey legs vendors and cotton candy pushers. From bad art to fun sculptures made from metal hardware. From empañadas to soy candles. And hats. Lots and lots of hats. 

Usually I grab any old camera and a matching lens and wade through the crowd looking for fun images. Today I chose the Fuji GFX 50Sii as my camera of choice; completed by the 35-70mm GFX zoom. It's been raining on and off for days and days here in Texas and I figured that the Fuji stuff is advertised as being water resistant (both the lenses and the bodies) and I figured that if worse came to worse I'd rather trash a used GFX than a more costly Leica M body. And lens.

It was a good choice. And I made ample use of the rear screen set up as a waist level finder. I shot everything as a Superfine Jpeg (which sounds like a rap lyric) and the Standard color profile. The camera is quick to focus, does a great job of nailing exposure and has a highly functional auto white balance capability. 

And it seems to love to photograph hats. Half the time as I was staring in awe as someone in a giant cowboy hat tried and succeeded in getting an entire Turkey leg in his mouth all at once the camera, with a mind of its own, was busy making more or less autonomous images of hats. It seemed miraculous. 

Just the right hat for all of you who were keenly interested in the Kentucky Derby. 

And so fitting. Resplendent as the noon day sun. Now where did we stick that mint julep?

A full day of press coverage for two minutes of horse racing.... yeah. Just the ticket.

Almost makes watching football on TV seem sensible... 

On a serious note, this is D.S. Clarke. He's a painter and, to my mind, a very good one. 

I usually find the "art" at festivals to be eccentric at best and horrifying at the worst but you know my saying/motto from my teaching days at the University of Texas at Austin,  College of Fine Arts:

"I know a lot about art. I just don't know what I like." 

Anyway, D.S. Clarke studied art and painting at the Chicago Institute of Art and he's a fine painter. 

I looked at his work and almost instantly found a piece that was amazingly good and very compelling. I bought it on the spot. We chatted. I asked if I could take his photograph and he asked me to wait until he put on his "Art Hat." That set the tone for the rest of my stay at the festival. Hats. 

I look forward to getting my artwork. D.S. is shipping it to me since I didn't want to walk around downtown with a big piece of art tucked precariously under one arm, camera in the other...

Warning!!! Atrocious hats coming up. Maybe now would be a good time to take a nap instead...

No? Well, here we go: 

As nice as the hats above might be and as much as you might enjoy owning one or two or all of them, I saved the best for last. In keeping with the city of Austin's unofficial motto: "Keep Austin Weird" I give you.....ta da....the ultimate in comfortable, fashionable pate covers, 

The tie dye bucket hats. In regular and wide brim variants.

A shot across the bow of both Tilley and any semblance of good taste. 

So....of course, I bought one of these as well.

After showing these images of psychedelic, tie-dye bucket hats to a specialty buyer at a big outdoor outfitter, retail chain he sheepishly admitted that the next generation of floatable, SPF 50 adventure hats from a well known hat maker with a long tenure in the market, was actually copying the tie dye aesthetic and the company was planning to launch a complete line of Canadian Made, tie dye, bucket hats with the aim of getting the full line of their hats into his stores by Summer. 

Oh Boy!!!!! Just what the hippie golfers ordered. 

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