And just a few more samples from that inexpensive but good TTArtisan 75mm f2 (L mount version).

 

Ceiling of the Ellsworth Kelly Chapel at the Blanton Museum on the UT Campus.

From the Battle Collection of sculpture at the Blanton Museum on the UT Campus. 

Detail of a renaissance painting at the Blanton. 

It's a good lens. A nice lens. A comfortable lens.

It's earnest. 

The "Cousin Eddie" travel trailer. Perfect for landscape photographers who don't want to flaunt their wealth...

 

The reference to "Cousin Eddie" is from the National Lampoon movie: "Christmas Vacation." See it to understand. One of the funniest Christmas movies I've seen. And we're watching them left and right here. Tear Jerkers. Inspirational stories. Royal Romances made possible by the "magic" of Christmas, etc. Even some with Santa Clauses sporting automatic weapons in a battle against a Santa Assassin. 

But my favorite Christmas Eve movie? After all the wrapping and eggnog tasting is done?

Yep, "Love Actually." 

The ultimate Christmas Eve date movie. 

Since I'm on a roll I thought I'd continue with yet another 75mm lens. Also of Chinese manufacture. Also really good.

 

Yesterday I wrote about my experiences with the TTArtisans 75mm f2.0 lens. My version is an L mount one which autofocuses and communicates well with the L mount family cameras. It's an inexpensive lens and it's available for Sony and various other lens mounts as well. If you don't need super fast focusing or the prestige of only buying within your chosen brand I can actually recommend this lens as a very, very decent performer in a small and lightweight package. Perfect, to my mind, as a slightly longer "street" photography or travel-esque lens. Not vouching for its indestructibility but I haven't managed to damage either a famous brand lens or a cheap third party lens in ... decades ... so you'll have to do clumsy photographer crash testing on your own. For a little over $200 for a fast-ish, AF, prime lens at a really convenient focal length it seems hard to go wrong. Right? You've probably spent more on a nice dinner...

The lens I took out and tested today arrived via Fedex yesterday. It's quite different from the TTArtisan lens I talked about just above. Today's lens is also a 75mm lens but that's where the similarities diverge. 

Today's lens is the Thypoch Simera 75mm f1.4 lens. Mine is, of course, made with a Leica M mount. There is not an L mount version and I don't expect to see one from the company any time soon. This 75mm is faster than the TTArtisan; it's an f1.4. It's manual focus only. It's denser and just a bit heavier. To use it on a Leica SL2 I have to use the Leica M to L mount adapter. All that adapter buys me is getting the lens fitted onto an L mount cameras. If this was a Leica branded M mount lens the adapter would also read the metadata. Well, at least it would communicate the focal length, lens model and relative aperture in use. But with a non-Leica lens? Nope, it just connects the lens to the camera. But the silver lining of buying non-Leica M lenses, beyond the cost savings, is that I can use these lenses on the M series rangefinder cameras without any sort of adapter and, with various adapters, I can use these M mount lenses on just about any mirrorless camera from any maker on the market. 

To be totally transparent this particular lens has been in and out of my shopping cart at B&H for the better part of the last quarter. I was hesitant to buy one since I already own a Voigtlander 75mm for the M and, of course, the 75mm TTArtisan I wrote about in yesterday's blog post. My interest was piqued by recent experiences with another Thypoch lens, the 50mm f1.4. It's a wonderful lens and even works quite well when used wide open. I thought it might be fun to have a 75mm with the ability to be both sharp when used wide open but also able to drop a huge expanse of the background out of focus. So, yeah, it's the third 75mm lens in the lens drawer. I do have a suspicion that the 75mm f1.9 Voigtlander Ultron won't be around for the long run...

The Thypoch 75mm is roughly three times (plus some change) the cost of the TTArtisan lens but as I mentioned it's not possible to use the AF, L mount lens on an M rangefinder camera. Hence my rationale for the additional expense. Seems a bit extravagant to own three 75mm lenses but even with their purchase prices combined they are far, far less expensive than  one of Leica's own 75mm f2 M lenses and far, far, far less expensive than the Leica SL 75mm f2.0 APO Summicron lens. So... multiple lenses = a screaming bargain ... relatively speaking. 

What's so special about the Thypoch 75mm Simera? To start with, it's incredibly well made. A buttery smooth focusing ring, smooth but firm aperture ring, all metal construction and, well, the speed. Especially for use with a rangefinder camera. The lens's optical formula includes an aspherical element, two HRI elements and two ED elements. There are nine elements total, in six groups. The filter size is 58mm. The lens comes in silver or black. The lens is delivered in a nice presentation box and includes a round lens hood which fits very securely, with no jitter or wobble. The delivery also includes a cap for use on the hood when the hood is installed on the lens as well as a second lens cap for use on the lens without the hood attached. 

All the parts are nicely finished and feel like high quality execution. Right down to the 16 aperture blades that almost guaranteed very nice bokeh. The lens is not light weight at .8 pounds. or 372 grams but it's short enough so that it doesn't feel overly front heavy when used with an SL or M camera. The lens focuses all the way down to 61 centimeters but everything under 70 centimeters is beyond the range of the rangefinder mechanism in most Leica M cameras. To remind you that you are in uncharted territory if you are closer than the 70 centimeters there is a soft detent at the 70 cm mark to remind you. At that point it's prudent to lean on live view on the rear screen of your digital rangefinder M camera or to use an EVF so you can punch in to effect perfect focus. 

I really like the look and feel of the Simera lens and am looking forward to pairing it with the 28mm Simera f1.4 and the 50mm Simera f1.4 together with an SL2 camera body to make up a small and efficient travel kit, especially suited for low light and close up work. For extra low light I would substitute an SL2-S or SL3-S camera body with the 24 megapixel BSI sensor. You could shoot just about anything with one of those rigs and three different focal length lenses which are all sharp and fast. If you need to shed even more size and weight one of the Panasonic S5 cameras would be a nice way to round out a kit instead of the bigger and heavier Leica bodies.

I was slow and plodding today. I chose to walk once again over on South Congress Ave. because it's an area densely peppered with higher end retail shops, nice restaurants and bars. Its real appeal though is the fact that during late afternoons and weekend evenings it has the highest percentage of foot traffic in Austin. Exceptions being during the Austin City Limits Music Festival and SXSW. There's just more interesting and ever changing stuff to point a camera towards. 

I am chastened today by how different my focusing eye is compared to a punched in tweaking of focus in an EVF. If you think your manually focused lenses aren't sharp enough  try putting them on a mirrorless camera that allows you to magnify the image for more precise focusing before you drop that Noct Nikkor 58mm f1.2 into the recycling bin. You may just find that your own eye's ability to discriminate between sharp and almost sharp isn't as good as you'd like to think. 

Since I mostly want to shoot wide open and at f2 and f2.8 I found myself punching in to fine tune focus repeatedly today. At f1.4 on a 75mm that's some really shallow DoF.  By operating in that fashion everything I took with the lens is laser sharp. Highly collimated laser sharp. One more suggestion... you may have bragged in your 20s and 30s and even into your 50s about how still you could hold your camera but you might want to take a second look. Almost all of us, in our quest for highest sharpness, could benefit from from moving that minimum shutter speed (when using the 75mm focal length) to at least 1/250th of a second and, to be even more conservative, maybe try 1/500th. After all, you paid for that noise free sensor in your chosen camera you might as well get some real use out of it...

In retrospect did I really need another 75mm lens? No, not really. If I could go back in time I'd pass on the Voigtlander lens, adjust the time machine for two years forward and then pick up the Thypoch as the primary lens instead I would. But time machines are expensive and hard to find. The TTArtisan earns its keep by providing a convenient and radically inexpensive AF version when that's convenient or prudent but for most things the Thypoch 75mm alone would suffice. Then again, fast, fun lenses are cheaper than mistresses, fast cars and other addictions. And (big sigh of relief) none of these lenses is plagued by Veblenism. No need to defend my choices against economic criticism. No hedge fund manager denies his or her shot at the pricy gear...

Here are some images from the gray and gloomy walk through South Congress Avenue on a relatively cool and quiet Friday. Today. I saw a couple hundred people walking around. Not a camera in sight. Not for two hours. Not at all. Is photography a declining pursuit? Well, yeah. But I still find it to be a fun diversion from the horrors of the current times. And a good walk will always do you good. 

Damn Right!!!

From the Lonely Table series. 

Discovered that the reflection eraser isn't binary. You can dial in a percentage of effect. I let back in a little bit of the reflection from the window glass in front of this mannequin and it looked better.

More... "authentic." 

See this one large to evaluate the nuance. I paid extra for a nuance filter.

Getting into the habit of buying the camera or lens I want, beautifully gift-wrapping it

and then putting it under the Christmas tree. I leave the tag blank and encourage a family 

member to fill in the blanks. I nearly always get what I want...

Pride Tree. At the Austin Motel. The do an entire forest of odd and fun 

artificial Christmas trees. Also, every evening in the courtyard they feature 

live music and their fabulous "Rocky's Bar." It's low key festive...

A time honored Austin tradition: Wrapping the cactus and yuccas. 

Sign in front of the ice cream shop. Goat Cheese ice cream. With red cherries. 

I tasted it. It was great. Also met a big group of men from NYC. Two of them approached to talk cameras and to ask me if I had a lighter for their cigarettes. I laughed and said, "Sorry. No lighter. No one actually smokes cigarettes in Austin." They asked three or four more passersby. All said no. 

I think they actually believed me after that. Do you smoke cigarettes? You should stop right now. 

I know that's judgmental but you know I'm right. You can hit me back for not using enough sunscreen in my youth. Merry Christmas.

 A whole series of ornaments and trees for your viewing pleasure. Shot with the new 75mm

mostly at f2 but some with f1.4... you really have to focus carefully and then be sure not to rock forward or backward ---- even by a centimeter. 

And what kind of Christmas would it be if your significant other didn't galavant around 

with his or her pair of white cowboy boots on? Couldn't find any red and green ones. 

In the 47 megapixel, raw original you can see individual pollen grains 

on the stamens in the middle of the yellow flowers. Sharp? you betcha. 

Zen picnic table at the San José Hotel. 

Druid picnic table at the San José Hotel. 

So, we're done here for today. The lens is nice. It's sharp. It works. It's a pain in the ass to stop and focus a super fast, fully manual lens when it's used wide open. You will NOT be following fast action! Are there other lenses that are more useful? Well, for starters there's the TTArtisans 75 f2. And I'm sure there are others. But as I've said probably too many times: Sometimes photography needs some extra friction in the process to make it feel more real. More fun. More challenging. If you share that sentiment then this might, indeed, be a lens for you. 

Nothing else is on the short list between now and the end of the year. Unless I can shake that BRZ from the local Subaru dealer at an advantageous price. But that's a whole different post...

Okay. That's enough of a break. Time to get back to the keyboard. Talking about a cheap 75mm f2.0 lens today...

 

I've spent most of this week testing two relatively recent lens arrivals. One is the Thypoch 50mm f1.4 lens and the other is the TTArtisan 75mm f2.0 lens (AF for L mount). It's a little funny that I'm just really getting around to doing a deep dive on the TTArtisan lens since I just bought another 75mm lens as a Christmas present for myself. I guess the TTArtisan was more of a Thanksgiving gift; if that's a thing. The things I've found in my most recent forays with the TTArtisan are twofold: The first is my realization of just how much I like shooting this very "in between" focal length. I often feel that 50mms is not long enough but that 85mm or 90mm is just too long. The second thing is that this lens, which costs, brand new, about $225, is pretty darn good. I mean, not just "good for the price" but good overall. 

With an inexpensive lens I've come to believe that the most rigorous test is how well it can handle being used at the closest focusing distances, coupled with a wide open aperture. The day before yesterday I headed over to South Congress Ave. around dusk to play with the lens. Or to have coffee and a blueberry muffin and stare at the lens, or both. The light was fading and it wasn't a particularly bright and cheery day anyway. 

Yesterday I put the lens on a camera I've been neglecting lately and had an epiphany there as well. The camera was one of the two SL2 models I've used a lot for commercial work. These camera bodies are on the heavier side which I usually don't mind unless I've decided to use them with a big, fat, heavy lens. Putting the Sigma 85mm f1.4 ii Art lens on the front makes the camera somewhat unwieldy. Putting a Leica 24-90mm zoom on the front makes every shoot a weight lifting adventure. 

Now, I'll gladly drag around a big camera package if there is a compelling reason ($$$) or I have an exacting art mission in mind but for casual galavanting around, and occasionally snapping a photo or two, the five pounds of handheld gear can be suboptimal. I also hate feeling like the package is straining at the camera strap or that the lens is gently and subtly bending some part of the camera's lens mount. 

The TTArtisan delivers no such shortcomings. It's a flyweight by comparison and the combination of the 75mm with the SL2 means we're right in a comfortable, average area. The lens itself is smaller and lighter than most current generation 50mm lenses for mirrorless cameras and, so far, it's fine with autofocusing, and the exposures seem to match what I get from the OEM lenses. So, all good on those fronts. 

I've included samples of images taken at f2 and find them to be very good. The sharpness is acceptable all around and while there is some vignetting it's nothing that can't be easily handled in post. My only disappointment is that there are no lens profiles for this lens in Lightroom yet. So, I'm comparing an un-profiled lens with profiled images from other makers lenses. But you know what? It's competitive even without the extra help from software. Pretty amazing for a lens that's about the actual cost of a Leica lens cap...

So, here are some of my tests (below). I wanted to start out with a test of its performance in the close-in range. It's also a great chance to see how the lens handles out of focus backgrounds, bokeh, and such. I find it to be calm, happy and positive, bokeh-wise. The fall off of focus is ... elegant. Almost cinematic. 

Not what I was expecting. But there it is.

I read some other reviews of the lens that mentioned that it was slow to focus and occasionally it missed the actual point of focus. After using the lens for nearly a month now I'm just not seeing that. Here's my review of the reviewers: they might benefit from taking a few courses in how to best focus lenses. And how to leverage all the focusing firepower inherent in their chosen camera system. I was able to bring my camera up to my face and immediately focus on the cute as hell corgis the man in the image just below was "wearing" to the coffee shop. No missed focus on any of the variety of images I took that evening. Just none percent. Zero focusing defects even in marginal light and while using a camera with a stone age, contrast detect AF system (I actually think the Leica SL series cameras always had very, very good and reliable focusing anyway - to be honest). 

The TTArtisan 75mm is the first TTArtisan lens I've used that has autofocus and from what I can tell it works as it was intended. Also, it's the first TTArtisan lens that communicates all of the lens data to the L system camera. That's a big step forward. And a scary thing for their competitors. Especially when you factor in the price.  Everything is getting so good these days. Even the blueberry muffins at Jo's. 

For some unfathomable reason the image of the small table and two chairs just above is one of my favorites that I've ever shot at Jo's. It feels to me as if I caught the scene in between people coming in for coffee and sitting at the foreground table or the community table just behind it. Someday I'll go in for lots of psycho therapy and finally work out why I am drawn to lonely tables caught off center in a  spare frame. Till then? I can just say that I like it...

I was curious to see how the lens would work when used in conjunction with the camera's face detect AF. These guys are S. Congress regulars and Jo's is a hub for local people. They are musicians and are very cordial when I run into them. I hadn't intended to take their photograph but they asked and I rarely turn down honest requests. The camera and lens nailed focus perfectly and I was happy with the photo both as a black and white (monochrome --- for elitists) and in color. The black and white felt best to me.

This final image from Jo's was just a quick grab shot. But it does point to how discreet a camera with a pleasant shutter sound and a lens with a low profile can be in grabbing quick, candid shots. Bigger lenses can look scary and serious. Then you have to come up with a reason or an excuse if someone asks what you are up to. A small lens connotes that you are just playing around. And that helps. Now --- on to the real test! How will the lens fare with the Mannequin Squadron???

I think the mannequins were totally on that day. They delivered

high fashion poses with elan. They were able to hold their poses indefinitely 

which was good because the light everywhere was dropping quickly. 

Poetry reading on the avenue. Loving the way the camera and lens handle flesh tones. 

Looking good at ISO 6400. Even though it's not supposed to...

If I did own cowboy boots I'd want them to be understated, like these (just above). 

A new shop, still under construction, in an alley behind other shops. Now shooting at full nighttime and depending the dynamic range of the camera to "see" into the shadows. And depending on the lens and camera to nail focus. It's all good. 

And, at some point, when all the people wonder off and the weather turns chilly, it's time to go home and play with the files. I post processed 57 shots. I'll share some more on Instagram. 

I needed a break from blogging.  Thanks for waiting around.

I wish people could think about photography, and create photography, in the NOW instead of forever mining the past and styles long dead. But it is what it is and that's the long and short of it. 

I'll edit comments a bit tighter now.