Embarrassment of lens riches. The "forgotten 90mm."

 

There's a restaurant called, "Manny's" on West Fifth Street. I've never

been in. There's no indication about what cuisine I might find inside. But 

I find it curious that their entire front patio is covered with plants. 

And all the plants are plastic. Artificial. Ever green. 

It just feels so weird. 90mm.

somewhere in my swirling enthusiasm for Leica M cameras I ended up buying two lenses that I have mostly neglected. They seemed important enough to buy at the time but I pretty quickly remembered that rangefinder cameras aren't the best platforms for longer lenses. And by "longer" I mean anything beyond 50mm. But, in a blurry moment of optimism I bought a 90mm Voightlander APO Skopar f2.8 lens and also a Voigtlander 75mm f1.9 Ultron lens. Both are tiny compared to even the smallest lenses available in the same focal lengths for mirrorless cameras and much, much smaller than comparable DSLR lenses. 

after seeing them languish in a drawer after a few tentative and preliminary explorations I realized that they might be a lot happier working on a camera like the Panasonic S5 or a Leica SL2 where I could take advantage of great EVF viewfinders and our favorite shooting "crutch", in-body image stabilization. While I have a plump and bulky 85mm f1.4 that autofocuses it's a hassle to carry it around for fun, personal work and, for most of the daylight stuff I photograph the fast aperture is gratuitous. 

I also have a Sigma 90mm f2.8 AF lens that I find just perfect for paid portrait work, and I could tromp around town with that one on the camera but....there's something special about working with purely manual lenses. And, as we've pointed out ad infinitum, every lens has a different fingerprint. A different way of rendering images. A different feel when it comes to handling. 

yesterday I decided to bring my S5 camera and the 90mm VM APO Skopar along with me while I went for coffee on the outdoor patio at Mañana Coffee. And then for a walk through downtown. 

I had a Peak Design strap on the S5 but I finally decided that I really do hate those slippery straps. I thought to replace to with one of the retro, pale brown leather straps I bought from Small Rig instead. So, after getting a large cup of coffee and parking myself at one of the many empty tables looking out toward the ever busy pedestrian bridge across Lady Bird Lake, I set to work removing the Peak Design strap attachers from the camera and then the little metal rings themselves. After removing the offending strap I nearly broke a fingernail and a thumbnail attaching the round connecting rings of the new, leather strap. Whew. Always a burden. If I had a full time studio manager these days this is one of the many jobs I would foist onto him or her. I'm not fond of fiddly stuff. But I do like the straps. Once I get them broken in. 

the only lens I brought along was the 90mm. The package of the S5 and the rangefinder-sized 90 was pretty much perfect for walking around with nothing on my agenda other than just moving and thinking about a book I've been re-reading. It's called, "Bird by Bird." It' was written by Anne Lamott and it's ostensibly a book about "how" to write. I find it, really, a book full of funny small stories, anecdotes and self-effacing life advice. I especially like what she says about "perfectionism." 

I re-read the beginning of Lamott's chapter on perfectionism while gazing at lovely runners crossing the bridge in front of me and laughed out loud. I also thought of all those bloggers and novelists who obsessively re-write and re-write and rewrite until their work is predictable and overwrought... 

Here is Lamott's first paragraph: 

"Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it." 

"Besides, perfectionism will ruin your writing, blocking inventiveness and playfulness and life force (these are words that we are allowed to use in California). Perfectionism means that you try desperately not to leave so much mess to clean up. But clutter and mess show us that life is being lived." 

Anne Lamott. From "Bird by Bird." 

After I read a couple of chapters and drank all of my coffee it was time to walk. And photograph. And giggle a little at my reminisces of what I'd just read. And I translated the title into photography by substituting: "Frame by Frame." 

What I figured out while walking around with my camera and lens is that pretty much all 90mm lenses made recently are pretty darn good, optically. I learned that small lenses designed for rangefinder cameras are wonderful because they are small and light and agile. While big 85mm f1.4 oughta focus lenses are the Disney Dancing Hippos of the lens world. (Movie? Fantasia!). 

Everything I shot looked like it came from a 90mm lens and a full frame camera. But the difference between the combo I was using and previous other set-ups is that this combo was fun to walk around with and easy to shoot. Just the way we always wish our camera systems were. 

It's interesting to get reacquainted with a camera or a lens you tried once and then put into deep sleep. On the reawakening and subsequent successful use one has to cogitate on whether something about the gear changed or something about you changed. I touched on perfectionism and I think bigger, more expensive cameras and uber-qualified lenses encourage it. Or maybe it's the feeling of the need for perfectionism that compels the initial purchase of big, expensive gear. It's always nice to have a respite from the best stuff because the absence of the highest-end gear leaves space for one to blame the equipment if you don't get exactly what you wanted from a photographic encounter. 

In the end, whether we're talking about keyboards or surfboards or cameras and lenses, it's really all about what the artist/operator brings to the party that matters. Everything else is just an excuse. Or something to blame.

My takeaway? Happy to have the Voigtlander 90mm APO Skopar in the camera bag. It works as it should and it carries even better. I will admit to one purchasing mistake. The silver lenses looks dorky poking out at it does from all my black L system cameras. It looks too slight. But who ever thought artists worried about aesthetics? Next time? A black finish, for sure!

I guess if I'm really going to use a brick wall as a lens testing device I should 

make the camera perfectly parallel with the wall. But I've never really 

landed on lens testing as a life's work....

And, in the most severe test of a camera and lens...the red dresses of the post-holiday mannequins. 

At some point in the future I may write about the 75mm lens. It's sweet.