Crispy hot day. A wonderful time to be in a museum on the UT Austin campus. They have the resources and the know how to really air condition a building. I remember back to the time I was teaching there in the Fine Arts college; we'd have to bring jackets to stay warm in the Summer. 68° seemed to be the default of the campus engineers. That made the Blanton Museum the perfect destination on Tuesday. And it coincided with the opening of a new show (see the signage just above).
Ever a sucker for a 50mm lens; especially a fast one, I attached my newly acquired Thypoch 50mm f1.4 Simera lens to a Leica SL2-S body using the Leica branded M to SL lens adapter and headed over to scam some parking at the Bob Bullock/Texas History Museum's garage just across the street from the Blanton.
I didn't have a specific goal in mind other than to enjoy the newly hung show and then wander through the more or less permanent exhibition galleries on the second floor. I also hadn't had the opportunity to play with the new (to me) 50mm lens and it seemed like a "target rich" environment for lens work. And also to soak up the air conditioning for a while.
Two things to know about the 50mm Simera lens. First, it's very sharp. Even when used at its maximum aperture. And second, when used wide open it can vignette like crazy. Not up to failure level crazy but crazy enough for me to keep wanting to correct it in Lightroom.
UT faculty and students are admitted at no charge to the Blanton Museum. If you are no longer a faculty member you might think about going on Tuesdays. A foundation contributes money to make Tuesdays "free art" days at the museum. A great opportunity to dip a toe in, to checking out each new show.
I'm charmed by the 50mm Simera lens. Its haptics are great and the files, and the colors in the files, are right on target. Physically it's quite beautiful. Nicely designed and presented. On the SL2-S there is a nice balance and it's a pleasure to punch in at higher magnifications to check sharp focus. Did I mention that it's a manual focus lens? It is.
The nice thing about the Blanton is that when they hang a show they don't default to museum white walls. I like the color differences on the walls of the exhibit almost as much as I love these Baroque paintings.
Isn't the 50mm focal length just perfect? I think so. It's my deserted island lens. Although I probably wouldn't take many photographs on a deserted island. I'd be spending all my time trying to figure out how to quickly grow coffee beans. Or maybe a better idea would be to figure out how to escape...
Random captions below.
I need to go back to Christian Fiction and read the book of Revelations again.
I'd forgotten that there was a huge battle between good and bad angels.
Whose bright idea was it to give angels self-determination?
And it seems that Arch Angel Michael was really a bad ass...
the Thypoch Simera 50mm has a floating element design and also focuses closer than most other M mount lenses. Nice for detail work and the files stay sharp as you go close...
Putti Mania.
I was playing around with limited depth of field. The phone is my focused object and everything else is up for grabs. I personally like the rendering of the corner of the kitchen prep table best.
I never seem to get out of the Blanton Museum without looking at some 2000+ year old T and A.
The Battle Collection.
Modern art from the second floor....incoming.
Romero had me at "Reuse of ordinary objects" Like Formula One tires....
See a better use of Formula One Tires, just below.
The only thing that really stays the same at the Blanton is the ceiling on the second floor....
The show is good.
The lens is good.
The air conditioning in the museum is fantastic.
The underground parking worked a charm.
Oh, and portraiture is not dead. Not by a long shot.
Thypoch Simera, no way that I could come up with a name that cool. Museums on weekdays are fantastic. Unless there's a special exhibit or there's a school visit on, you usually have the place to yourself.
ReplyDeleteOnce upon a time I dreamed of opening a portrait studio/camera shop. I live in a rural area NW of the Adirondacks where the towns/villages have populations in the low thousands and when I was in HS there was a portrait studio in most of them. Often there was also a camera shop. Remember them? The camera shops were killed first by the 800# stores that sold cameras from NYC/Chicago/LA for less than the local shops could get them at wholesale, later by the internet.
ReplyDeleteBy the time I got out of the army (1967) the local portrait studios were dying. The HS market was being served by companies that sent camera operators who were paid minimum wage from school to school, and people rarely had portraits made after HS. That left the sporadic market for wedding photography and event photography for local newspapers (which were rapidly dying). Bottom line; portrait photography may not be dead, but if you choose not to live in a major metropolitan area, there's not enough left of it to make a decent living.
If you look beyond the traditional mom and pop retail studios there is a burgeoning market for advertising and social media portraiture but you are correct; you need to live in a big, vibrant city to take advantage of it.
DeleteIf you find another used one at a good price let me know! So I can take photos of your American fiction aka the Constitution ;)
ReplyDeleteHmm. Really need to get me one of those Tpypochs one of these days.
ReplyDeleteBy the way., update on the swim glasses. Got version 3.0 of the Nike Vanquishers as the 2.0 were not available. Fit me really well, currently enjoying swimming much more. So thank you!
Ah, I believe its the speedo vanquisher :D
ReplyDeleteYes. They are definitely a Speedo product. Sorry if I wrote otherwise. !
DeleteKirk
ReplyDeleteI'm notes sure about the demise of portrait photographers. I guy who worked at one of the two remaining camera stores in Seattle, moved to a medium sized City about two hrs north. He opened a photo studio, made contacts will all of the local schools and seems to be pretty busy making photos of the students and sports teams. Maybe a corner has been turned.
PaulB