I got this little lens a couple of days ago and I just really had the opportunity to do more than point it outside the studio and take enough shots to make sure it worked. Most of my photographs here are little more than test pictures to see about things like vignetting, overall sharpness --- even into the corners, and the color rendering when used with one of my favorite cameras. From my time with the lens this morning, shooting mostly at its sharpest aperture of f5.6, I have to say that it's capable of high contrast and high acutance, create nano acuity and at the same time it's about as discreet as a short telephoto could be. Since the max aperture is f4 you can't get the same kind of gooey background you could from a lens with an f1.4 aperture but then, not everything needs to be cotton ball soft in the background of every photograph.
I used a Leica SL to make my tests. The first version of their professional mirrorless line. I think I like the sensor in that model more than the later Sony sensors. I certainly like that I'm able to shoot with native ISO of 50 when the light is strong and the aperture I want to use is around 5.6 or larger. And I have to say that I find the colors to be very clean and precise. It's interesting, always, to see how much of a difference various sensors make in the imaging systems of modern cameras.
On another note, my second Nanlite FS400-C light arrived at the local Fedex office today and I was able to pick it up right before lunch. I plugged it in and ran it through its paces before heading off to warm up some left over Ropa Vieja that B. left in the fridge for me. Along with slices of avocado. Everything works well and now I can flatten the shipping boxes and recycle them. I am vigorously opposed to keeping random equipment shipping boxes around. They take up too much space.
Finally, I have to report that our usual swimming pool is closed for maintenance all this week and until Tuesday of next week. At least that's the promised re-opening day. Construction projects of any kind are fraught with various unexpected delays. In the interim I'm swimming at the spring fed pool called, Deep Eddy, where the temperature is at least 10 degrees colder. It's bracing and requires a lot more discipline to get over to and get swimming early in the morning. Brrrrrr.
All the images here are from the Carl Zeiss ZM 85mm f4 lens that was designed and produced for the M mount. Zeiss even made their own M film camera in the early part of this century. I believe that camera is now discontinued but most of the lenses Zeiss made for the system are still available, still great, and very usable on any Leica M mount camera. They focus quite well and bring up the appropriate frame lines. Well, with the exception of the 85, which brings up the 90mm frame lines because...there are no 85mm frame lined in the current M camera finders...
Hope your pools are open and well tended. Hope your lens inventory is happy and snappy.
One thing to remember when reading "opinions" on the web couched as fact: Data, and cherry picked anecdotal stories, are NOT the same thing. I guess there are so many new ways to look at "facts."
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