Taking my lens to the museum to see what we can see. The Blanton Museum does not disappoint.

 

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. 

Are you currently on Adobe's "Photography" Plan? Take action soon.

 We've been on Adobe's Photography plan for years. It's such a good deal (IMHO). You get Photoshop and Lightroom Classic both for $9.99 a month. Recently we got an email from Adobe letting me know that the plan would go up in price to $19.95  a month unless I chose to pay yearly instead of monthly. If I selected to pay yearly in one lump sum the price would stay at $9.99.  This lock in is only available to current customers on the plan!

So, by doing nothing I would double my cost to use the programs. By spending 15 minutes online with someone from Adobe and changing the billing frequency I would save about $120 a year. Seems to me there is really only one way to go. Go annual instead of monthly. 

If you hate Adobe's Lightroom and Photoshop that's fine but let's not make the comments into a whole big thing about why you like Capture One better. Or why you like DXO better. Or why you don't mind the 1990's menus for some Linux program that you use just because it's free. (Changing oil in the driveway and dumping the old oil into the storm sewer..).

I'm not posting this as marketing for Adobe. But if you currently have the plan and want to keep it as is this notice will save you money. That's all I'm doing here. 

Yes, I'm sure for you that Capture One is borderline orgasmic. I've tried it. Not right for me. And Linux? Like a time machine back to WordStar... 

I need to save every cent I can since I read MJ's column today and realized that portrait photography, which until today I did to make a living, is going away or already dead. Gotta save where I can...

Does anyone have a good recipe for boiling leather Leica camera straps to make soup? Just asking. 

Nostalgia Day at the studio. That's what I get for trying to clean up for a shoot tomorrow... Nothing ever gets done...

 

This (above) is my ancient Nikon F camera, with a non-metered prism. That's the original 50mm f1.4 Nikkor lens that came along with it. As well as the bottom half of the leather, "ever-ready" case that also was included in the purchase. The camera is something like 56 years old. It still works. It works as well as it did on day one. Its favorite film is Tri-X. It has gobbled up a prodigious amount of that black and white film over the years. The lens was so well done at the time the camera and lens were available that I still use it, with an adapter, on the front of various mirrorless cameras. If you didn't know it and just looked at big, black and white prints I doubt you could see a difference between this lens and my latest APO acquisition. I can't. Usually. 

I have no axe to grind today. I don't think we should roll back the calendars, toss out the current cameras and retrograde to the old film stuff. I'm just happy that this one came along for the ride with me. And it doesn't seem to be in much of a hurry to leave the studio.

Whenever I promise to do a studio portrait of a friend, colleague or beautiful stranger I make sure the guest bathroom is clean and shiny, that there's ample coffee fixings in the house, and that the studio is tidied up and the floors are swept. But by the time I get to the part where I straighten up the studio I keep finding items like the old Nikon or the almost as old Canon QL17iii and the memories of my adventures with them flood back. And it's mostly fun to remember. 

Right now I should be changing out the background from the white seamless paper I was using to a warm, mid-gray for the portrait I have scheduled for right after swim practice tomorrow morning but instead, here we are. Writing about 50 year old cameras... Sigh. 

You never forget your first.  Now, where's that broom?  And why don't I have people for this?

OT (for non-swimmers). I know you've been waiting with bated breath to hear about the Sunday morning swim workout! I even have visual aids!!!

900 yard warm up.

The pool has been in great shape recently. The staff have been able to keep the water temperature around 80° (Fahrenheit) even though we've had several days of triple digital temperatures compounded with high humidity overnight. The water is clean and clear. All good. 

There are two masters workouts on Sunday mornings. One is at 8 and the next is at 9. These are one hour later than the workouts on Tuesday through Saturday. We get to sleep in for an extra hour. How fun!

1950 yards main set. 400 yards warm down.

Sundays used to be relaxed with less aggressive swims than we usually do during the week. Today was a bit different. A lot of faster swimmers showed up for the 9 o'clock swim. That subtly shifts everyone down the line to move a bit quicker, cut rest times a bit and drop interval times from the "comfort" zone to the "hard work" zone. It felt like being back in high school or college to aim for 100s on 1:20. But, each lane modifies their interval times to suit the constituency of their lane. Fastest people can repeat on 1:20 but as you go down the lanes the repeat times get slower.

I was coated with sunscreen today and felt pretty good in the water but by the time we finished up I was already muscle sore and looking forward to a big breakfast. I made workout all six of the days that the pool was open and running last week. With an average of 3,000 yards per day that put my week's total at around 18,000 yards. Not bad for the demographic but I have memories of some swim days in high school when we went 14,000 yards in a day, split over two workouts. The first workout back then being 5:30 a.m. That's not the "wake up" time. That's "in the water and moving" time. I'm too spoiled now for that kind of torture. I'll settle for the more restrained weekly distance. Happily. 

(Competitive swimming has changed/evolved. There is less emphasis on heroic yardage and more on technique and speed work. And dry land resistance workouts. And flexibility stretches. The days of yardage over 10K are mostly over; even for the most elite swimmers). 

I knew you couldn't enjoy coffee this morning until we talked about the Sunday swim practice. And, no mice in the pool.

The calm after the swim storm.

Diet is important. Exercise is important. Moving is mandatory.

 

I find it hard to resist buying and playing with interesting 50mm lenses. Especially so if they are Leica M mount and can be used on mirrorless cameras with adapters....

 

Here's what Thypoch says about their 50mm f1.4 lens: https://thypoch.com/en/products/simera/simera-50mm

Thypoch lenses hit my radar about a year ago. I'd never heard of the brand before but all of a sudden their 35mm, and then their 28mm lenses for M mount started getting tons of press and every review I read praised the performance and construction of the products. After watching a number of video lens reviews on YouTube, and reading written reviews ad nauseam, I took a chance on the 28mm f1.4 lens.

It's different than the Carl Zeiss 28mm f2.8 Biogon lens I already owned for M cameras. The rendering was subtly different. The CZ has a more "in your face" high contrast image signature while the Thypoch 28mm is equally exuberant at f2.8 but gives one a couple stops more speed and the ability to start playing around with out of focus backgrounds with more effect. At f1.4 the Thypoch is quite sharp in the middle of the frame and, like most fast, short lenses, has its share of vignetting. But not enough vignetting to squelch its appeal. The two lenses are different in other ways. The CZ is smaller and lighter. If you are traveling and hard up for space it's a better travel choice. It also occludes less of the viewfinder on your typical M series rangefinder camera. But the Thypoch is a good lens. Better than just about any 28mm from the past and in the same ballpark for optical performance with all but the ne plus ultra of Leica M 28s. That sold me on the idea that a new lens maker could come to market with a highly competitive product at a non-nosebleed price point. I kept it and use it mostly on SL and SL2 cameras but it's always in the M bag when I choose those cameras for projects. 

Since I own the Voigtlander 35mm and 50mm APO lenses I never really looked at the 35mm Thypoch and reviews indicated that while it's a good performer it's the weakest of their product line. Since the product line is pretty great that's no real condemnation. But I'm flush with a number of 35mm M lenses, including the CZ 35mm f2.0 and the Voigtlander 35mm f1.4 Nokton MCII. All three of the current, in-house 35mm lenses are already doing a good job making me happy. And making good photographs.

But I didn't have a nice, fast 50mm lens for my M stuff. I have the CZ 50mm f2.0 Planar and it's fantastic. And then, of course, there is the Voigtlander 50mm APO and it's a brilliant workhorse of a lens. But nothing faster than  f2.0 made to fit natively on the M cameras. 

I've looked, on and off, at various 50mm f1.4 and even 1.2 lenses for the M. The fastest ones are too big, heavy and cumbersome. The Leica Summilux variants are too expensive. Or maybe just expensive. So I kept looking; casually. Several months into this year Thypoch came out with their 50mm f1.4 Simera lens. It looked great in the product pix. The reviews started to arrive. People obviously liked this lens and, since I often put M lenses on the SL cameras I was pleasantly surprised to see that it breaks the close focus limit that most rangefinder lenses bump into. 

It's really a matter of rangefinders giving up framing accuracy and focusing accuracy below the .7 (point seven) meter mark. The Thypoch lens has a soft detent at .7 meters to let you know you are at the limit of the Leica M's rangefinder boundaries but you can go beyond that detent and continue to focus down to .45 (point four-five) meters. Or about 1.5 feet. It makes a difference mostly when using the lens with an adapter on a mirrorless camera and it's nice to have for those occasional close ups. 

More importantly, the lens uses a floating element in the optical design that continues to optimize performance as the lens is focused closer and closer. This maintains the same kind of performance you can expect at reasonable, normal distances even as you get down to a 1:6.4 magnification ratio. That's pretty cool. 

Final note on putting backgrounds out of focus: the aperture ring is a 14 blade construction which tends to optimize bokeh in a good way. 

The real intrigue for me comes when looking at the optical construction. There is an aspherical element in the mix but even better, there are 3 pieces of HRI (high refractive index) glass and also an ED (extra low dispersion) element. This is a lens design optimized for high imaging performance but not over designed like some of the ponderous 11 element behemoths currently waddling around in the mirrorless market. 

The lens is big enough to block a small percentage of the viewfinder frame on my M240 cameras but I can live with that. Not a "deal-killer." There's not much else to say about the lens but that it's nicely made and performs well. For those new to M system stuff, this lens is not autofocus and doesn't communicate electronically with the cameras.

I put it on the "we'll see what pops up" list and got on with life. The lens came in and out of availability at my favorite photo store. On days when I would decide that I'd like to have it and would head to the office to order it I'd see a message that the product was temporarily out of stock and the merchant couldn't pin down a time certain at which they'd have more. I let it all slide. 

But the other day I decided to go out and see what our local "bricks and mortar" photo retailer was up to so I got in the studio high performance limousine and headed to Precision Camera. I walked in the front door and straight over to the glass case in which old Leica treasures are usually displayed. And there it was. A black, mint condition Thypoch Simera 50mm f1.4 lens with caps and hood. For a couple hundred dollars less than the new price everywhere. Of course I bought it. Who wouldn't? 

I like the M mount lenses. Being able to use them on so many different types and brands of cameras, along with their small size, makes them a wonderful combination for most cameras. Now I should probably shed a bunch of legacy 50mm lenses and AF lenses for the L mount system. Winnowing down to an M centric collection of highly usable focal lengths. 

I was happy to find the 50mm Simera. Even happier that it is black. I haven't shot much with it yet but here is the first frame I tried. Just testing out its wide open performance with correct distance focusing. 

It's a keeper.

Making the best of a horrible gear decision today. Just tragic.

There is something about the way the Sigma fp makes photos that keeps me circling back to that camera and trying to press it into just about every kind of work. Occasionally my ego gets the best of me and I'll pick up the camera in its most naked form (no EVF, no chimney finder), combine it with a stupidly mismatched lens, like a Voigtlander 40mm f1.4 Nokton Classic, and head out into brilliant early afternoon sunlight to try to make photographs. 

Why is the lens stupid? Well it's not really. It's a good lens, as you can see for yourself, but since I can barely make out what's on the rear LCD of the chosen "camera of the day" in the bright sunlight, even with the LCD brightness turned all the way up, it would have made a lot more sense to choose an autofocus lens. That would have given me a fighting chance of at least getting things in sharp focus. Add to the hurt caused by my thoughtless choice of lenses,  where focus is involved, is the additional burden of not having an automatic stop down aperture to work with. You have to focus at your taking aperture. When manual focusing I'm basically trying to zoom way into a frame to check focus on a camera with no image stabilization. The 25X magnified part of the frame sure bounces around when you try to discern sharp focus.... And 100° heat with long walks is hardly a recipe for a super stable hold on the camera. I can attest to that. 

But in its own way the walk through the UT campus area (actually the part just across the street from the campus  proper) with a horribly mis-sorted photo kit was a bit fun. If nothing else it proves that even with an inappropriate tool set you can still make acceptable images --- if you are willing to put the work in. 

After I finished up the tromp through the mass of students and their parents here to move their children into the kids' new digs for a new Fall semester I got back to the office and looked through the take. Some good stuff. Mostly props should go to the camera and lens which worked hard together to make me a look a bit less... fallible. Okay Greg H. the EVF is now officially on my shopping list and... I might need to pick up an fpL. Just for fun. 

Lunch with B. at one of our favorite sandwich shops. Funny how much ice tea you can drink after a spirited walkabout in the torrid landscape. 

My favorite local chain of ramen restaurants, Tatsu-Ya Ramen just opened a new store right on the "Drag" across from the UT campus. Now I have a destination this Fall for good, hot snacks and lunches when I am out and about. Nice find. Good food. Fun people. 

The Sigma fp is sinisterly good at grabbing the color red. Just so nice.

Good name for a boutique "convenience store." 

Mural art on the walls outside "the Hole in the Wall." A nightclub that was there fifty years ago

when I was "at University" and is still going strong. Nice that somethings adapt but don't wholesale change. 

Balloon decor is all the rage at all the UT sorority houses this fall. Lots of pink...

So. Advice. 

Maybe take a camera with a nice EVF along with you if you are shooting in full sun.

And if you absolutely have to shoot without an EVF maybe try to use an AF lens so

you don't have to squint, get pissed off and then just wing it for focusing.

maybe wait for a cooler day in Fall to  traipse around looking for images.

That's all I've got.

Oh...and if you go to Thundercloud Subs for lunch you might want to try the "Lady Bird" sandwich. I get mine on a whole wheat bun. It's chicken salad, a thick layer of guacamole, a generous layer of jalapeño slices, provolone cheese, lettuce, tomato, onions and "Thunder Sauce." Order the large and then skip dinner later. It's really good. 

 

Thoughts about the role of critics revisited in a post from 15 years ago....

 https://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2012/03/vital-role-of-critics-and-ongoing.html

A store on the drag near the UT campus. Sigma fp + Voigtlander 40mm f1.4 Nokton Classic. A horrible combination for shooting in full sun. Without an EVF.....

Do I still like and use the Leica 24-90mm lens? Yep.

When shooting outdoors for clients on hot, Texas, Summer days one can have the best of intentions to bring out the "big guns." To pack the camera bags full of various, glorious prime lenses, a brace of big camera bodies and zoom lenses galore. But the heat and the weight will soon suck out all of your creative energy and leave your best intentions dehydrated and half fried. Better to simplify anywhere you can... The less you carry the further (and faster) you can go.

Two weeks ago we were on a shoot at a real estate development in far Southeast Austin. No cloud cover and, since the development is still in early days the shade trees weren't fully grown yet. I brought too much gear but left most of it in the trunk of the car for some unintended, spa-like, heat treatments. What I ended up doing as my heat management/image management strategy was to pick one great camera body and one flexible and magnificent zoom lens, leaving everything else behind. It was a good solution.

The camera and lens fit just right in a white canvas camera bag I wore cross body. Mostly in front of me. I could reach down and grab the camera/lens combination when I was ready to photograph and drop it back into the white bag as soon as I was ready to move on to the next shot or the next location. 

The entire shoot was outdoors. By 2pm you could see the tar bubbling on the side of the roads. We were drinking water continuously. You could feel the radiant heat bouncing up from the roads, trails and sidewalks in the same way I used to feel the heat off the griddle when I worked my way into the profession by supplementing my income as a short order fry cook in a diner. Fun times. Sweaty times. Never thought I'd do a heat bath for work at 69 years of age... But the miraculous thing is that it was still fun. And the pared down kit make the day manageable. 

The camera of choice was a Leica SL2. I have a pair so I always have an identical back-up when I use one of the them. The camera has 47.5 megapixels of resolution and a very wide dynamic range when used at its native ISO. The EVF is glorious. And I've accrued a bucket of batteries for these cameras which means I never have battery anxiety which is like range anxiety with electric powered cars. 

But the star of the show is usually the lens and that was certainly the case in this instance. While the Leica 24-90mm lens is hefty and big it's also a tour de force of optical engineering. Here is what Leica writes about it: 

"Construction Details:

Of the 18 elements in six moving groups, four are aspherical lens elements and 11 are elements made from glasses with anomalous partial dispersion for the correction of chromatic aberrations. Only one very light element is moved for focusing.  Very fast, almost-silent, precise focusing is enabled by a specially developed drive concept comprising a stepping motor and linear positioning. This means that the overall length of the lens does not change during focusing.”

Essentially it's a near flawless zoom lens that covers the full range of focal lengths I would normally use on just about any job. The lens also has built-in image stabilization which is great on bodies like the first generation of Leica SL cameras and my little Sigma fp, both of which are bereft of in-body image stabilization. The lens adds its own. It's also highly weather resistant as is the Leica SL2 body.
It was the perfect combination of tools for a challenging environment. Those, and a really good hat.

Dang sharp...even wide open.... although the chances of using it outdoors at f2.8 were ... limited. As in "none." 

Do I still like and use the Leica 24-90mm f2.8-4.0 Aspheric? On just about every commercial job I've undertaken since I bought the lens five years ago. It's big and heavy but it makes up for those drawbacks by being the best performing zoom, optically, that I have ever used. And that's cool. 

The lens is still in the current line up from Leica. When I bought mine, new, it was just over $4800 USD. The current price for a new one is a little over $6300. Amazing.