Final Notes on the 50mm f1.8 AF lens from 7Artisans.

   

One of America's leading cinematographers? How would I know?

I spent the morning in the house. I was reading an article in Scientific American Magazine about potential new cures for auto-immune diseases and conditions. Things like M.S. and psoriasis. Inflammation and related issues that lead to poorer long term health outcomes. You might have seen the article in your news feed today if you subscribe to Apple News. Seems a lot of health impacts are related to how much sun exposure you get on a regular basis. Sure, we all know that skin cancer impacts people more who live at lower latitudes more but for every 10° further up the latitude ladder you go the risk for most auto immune conditions gets worse and worse as the skin cancer risk drops. 

Scientists are now working with an interesting theory and the theory is starting to be tested in humans. The idea is that exposure to sunlight causes a reduction in overly strong auto immune responses which lowers inflammation not just in skin but in the vascular system and in organs systems generally. The magic they are working on now is finding out just which parts of the spectrum cause the positive reductions in all systems inflammation and help reduce overly aggressive immune responses, and which parts of the sun spectrum are harmful to skin in particular. Seems narrow bands of UV-B are health positive while UV-A is the main culprit as a carcinogen for skin tissues. 

There are UV-B narrow bandwidth light instruments made for dermatologists for treatments of acne, psoriasis, eczema and other epithelial applications. Instruments that have been well tested and approved by the FDA. They are supposed to require a doctor's prescription to get one of these instruments for home use but I think that would be pretty easy to either circumvent or, if you are a ethical absolutist, get from your friendly physician. Kaiser Permanente, the big health insurance concern, did an experiment and gave a couple thousand handheld units to patients suffering severe skin disorders in the hopes of keeping the patients from having to move to drugs like Humira which costs somewhere close to $80,000 per year per person and would need to be prescribed for a lifetime. A large contingent of the Narrow Band UV-B device users in the test didn't not need to move on to Humira saving them from potentially nasty side effects and saving Kaiser potentially millions and millions of dollars.

As F. Scott Fitzgerald was fond of saying, "God bless these new UV-B emitters. Zelda loves the cordless, rechargeable models! Tally Ho."

If studies pan out the real exciting news would be using inexpensive ($350 approx.) devices to trigger a lowering of immune system over-responses and the attendant inflammation which has dire consequences  for cardiac issues, pulmonary issues and overall mortality. Might be fun. More fun with lights! Just be sure to wear safety goggles!!!

After reading this and a few other journals I was ready to get out of the house and plow into a nice walk with a familiar camera and a still new lens. The 7Artisans 50mm AF lens for the L mount cameras. 

I decided to head over to South Congress Avenue yet again. I parked a mile away from JO's Coffee and headed North with the downtown cluster of buildings far off on the horizon. It's hot today but even worse, it's humid. Every once in a while a breeze blew by and it felt like immediate air conditioning. After reading about medical stuff, and taking time to read about squamous cell cancers, I made sure to wear a long sleeve, SPF 50 shirt, a wide brimmed hat, long pants and a half gallon coating of expensive, non-toxic sunscreen. 

I've finally learned how to set up different user profiles in my Leica cameras. It wasn't hard but as you probably can figure out I am desperately lazy when it comes to enabling automation and the required precursors to automating cameras that work perfectly well without these "short cuts." I now have a raw DNG profile, a high contrast black and white profile that's square as well as one that's set up to use the full frame. There's large Jpeg profile and a full manual Jpeg profile. On that last one you have to set every parameter you want to use manually. Which, I guess actually defeats the purpose of making a fully manual profile in the first place. 

Today I toggled back and forth between the square, high contrast, black and white profile and the raw/DNG profile. Confusing. I know. 

Since it's a holiday weekend it's more crowded in this shopping neighborhood than usual but nothing compared to a few weeks back when the temperatures were moderate and Mother's Day was approaching. No big lines at JO's and no big bridal parties walking side by side across the entire width of the sidewalks. 

I plodded along and shot just anything that caught my eye. You'll see mannequins over-represented below but I so love it when the window designers put sunglasses and big sun hats on the unmoving crew. I stopped and talked to a painter who was displaying a huge range of canvases. I ran into Christopher the photographer who was just heading into the fray as I was exiting. 

The only issue I can think of in reference to the lens in the title above is that it's a bit too easy to move the aperture ring from "A" to the actual individual apertures on the dial. If you aren't careful, or you are unobservant, you may find you've shot a lot at f16... But once aware you can be on your guard against aperture ring slippage! No untoward optical effects. No lack of sharpness but no over the top "character" either. 

As Hemmingway often mused about auto focus 50mm lenses, "It was a solid lens. A strong lens. We liked it and missed it when it went missing. One could feel its authenticity. One could believe in it. And then we had rum punch. And it was good." 

You might think it would have made good sense to step back a few feet and get the whole hat in one frame but you'd be mistaken. A few steps back would have ruined everything. As Nabokov always said, "The light and lyrical lens knows just where it wants to sit --- and to move from one side to another or forward or, even worse, backwards just feels as though one is closing a door to something altogether ethereal. Too much thought is antiseptic to the creative process. And be sure to shoot the color stuff in raw. Lolita always looks better in raw color. Unless she doesn't."

A series. And witty advice for young women in relationships with mediocre partners. 

Of course it would be more fun if the other side of the sign read: "Dump her before Summer starts."

Blue table. Abandoned by chairs. Bereft of sunscreen. With only the garbage can to keep it company.

the young girl is a fan of her fan.

the holy grail. Simple, straightforward coffee. None of that Espresso swill...

I stayed in the S. Congress area for about two hours and I was hot and sweaty and ready to come home. So I did. And when I got here and ducked into the arctic air conditioning of my office I decided to make a lunch. I reverted to a consistent and often consumed dish. A couple big scoops of 2% fat Greek Yogurt (no sugar, sugars, flavors or diluting ingredients added), mixed with muesli (again, no sugars added or tolerated in my mix of grains and nuts and seeds: Go Red Mills). A liberal topping of fresh black berries and a side of remarkably good cantaloupe. Knock that back with a big glass of good Austin tap water and you are set. Or, at least I am. Then I sat down and wrote this. When I finish I think I'll clean the condenser coils on the back of the refrigerator. No sense giving an appliance an excuse to misbehave. 

Right?

Yesterday was a first for me. I did a senior portrait of a young lady who just graduated, or is graduating from high school. She's heading to UT Austin in the Fall. Her dad and I work on projects together. I volunteered. It was actually fun. To get into UT you have to be in the top 5% of your graduating class and have the test scores to match. She was witty and fun. I used nothing but a camera, a lens and one tiny, tiny flash. Perfect. 770 photos later we called it a wrap.