On Topic. Red Wagon. Camera and Lens.

 

The object in the image just above is a Radio Flyer wagon. We bought this wagon for Ben when he was a very young child. Maybe two years old. He loved dragging stuff around the yard in the wagon. The wagon has never lived inside. It's an outside wagon and it gets rained on, snowed on and pelted with all manner of hard sunlight... And yet, here we are some 28 years later still holding onto the wagon. 

B. was using it today to haul bags of hardwood mulch up to her flower garden adjoining our quiet street. How she keeps all manner of flowers and herbs alive during our seemingly non-stop droughts is beyond me; although when she is out of town I do try to remember to douse the area with a hose when the plants start to look... desperate.

I'd been out wandering around with a camera today and came back home to process some photographic files and to remind myself how well I liked or didn't like the very inexpensive TTArtisan 75mm f2.0 lens I'd bought over a year ago. Oddly, I find myself with three 75mm lenses right now. There is this one and then the faster Voigtlander 75mm f1.9 (for the M cameras), and then the even faster Thypoch 75mm f1.4 (also for the M cameras). It's truly an embarrassment of riches...I've thought to thin down the herd but I can't decide which ones stay and which ones go. To be practical I really need only to decide between the two M mount lenses as the first mentioned lens is for the L mount and is the only one of the three that can autofocus and work fully automatically with the SL cameras. 

But since I had the 75mm TTA lens on a SL2-S I decided to take a few photographs of the wagon with it. 

I say that this post is "on topic" for a "photo" blog because what I really want to write about is how appealing the 75mm focal length is to me. And possibly to everyone else. It's somewhat of a chameleon of lenses being half way between the workaday 50mm lenses and the more specialized 100mm portrait lenses. I've spent a couple hours getting reacquainted with a 75mm today and my takeaway observation is about just how easy it is to separate backgrounds with the lens but at the same time include enough of the surroundings of an object to supply important context. To see around the top, bottom and sides of your main subject. It's a lens that seems to provide the best compromise between details in a wide enough plane of focus and a background that's soft enough so the softness seems intentional. 

The 75mm lenses all remind me of an interesting lens I had for my old Leica R (SLR- film) cameras. It was a similar focal length; just 5mm longer than the 75s at 80mm. It was called an 80mm Summilux-R lens and had a maximum aperture of f1.4. Wildly fast for a longer than 50mm lens back in the day. It was always a "loner" (not a loaner...) in that Leica had, for years, made 75mm lenses of various apertures for the M system but until the advent of the digital SL system they had never made a fast 75mm lens for the non-M cameras. Nor did they ever make an 80 Summilux for the M cameras. 

Leica now has a 75mm f2.0 APO lens for the SL system and it's an interesting option for those who need or want a portrait lens longer than a 50mm but for whom a 90mm is just too long. Too restrictive. It's big and heavy and for now I'm happy with the compromise presented by the bargain priced TTArtisan lens. It functions well and hits focus with the same percentage accuracy of Leica L lenses living in the system. 

The 75mm lenses for the M system from Leica include three 75mm lenses. One is the Summilux (f1.4) which may have actually been replaced/discontinued,  another is an APO Summicron (f2) and the third is the insanely expensive 75mm f1.25 Noctilux (currently priced at a little over $15,000 USD). The surviving and current 75mm APO is an "affordable???" $5,800, new. The TTArtisan 75mm f2 (in black or silver, your choice) is a whopping $195 USD. Less than the cost of a replacement lens hood for either of the Leica 75s. 

The TTArtisan is sharp enough at f2 and gets progressively sharper as one stops down. It's not a just a riff on an ancient "legacy" lens design but is a modern construction featuring an extra low dispersion element and four high index lens elements as well. Ten elements in nine groups as opposed to film era lenses that used simpler designs with fewer elements. Usually something like six elements in four or five groups. 

The beauty, for me, of the TTA 75 is the small size and the very light weight. When used as a walk around lens on an SL camera it does a good job at reducing the overall weight of the system without an appreciable (or in most cases even noticeable) hit on image quality. 

When our kid went off to college he did not take his Radio Flyer wagon with him. And when he started working for his current company he showed no inclination in taking the wagon with him to his new apartment. B. however, has made good, continuing use of the wagon to haul stuff around the half acre. 

The wagon shows no real signs of nearing its expiration date. It soldiers on resolutely. If it saves my lower back when helping to transport mulch, top soil, big rocks and more then I salute the wagon and hope it continues to withstand the tests of time. 

Of the 75mm lenses currently in-house it seems pretty apparent to me that it's the Voigtlander lens that needs to find a new home. The Thypoch is just as sharp (or sharper) at f2.0 but has the additional advantage of a faster (f1.4) maximum aperture. It's bigger and heavier but it handles better and feels more robust. I just go by usage. I've had the VM lens the longest but it's absolutely gotten the least amount of "on camera" time amongst the 75s. 

When it comes to the SL/L mount family the TTA serves me by reducing the burden of constant access. Most of the time I'd be just as happy with the 70mm setting of one of the zoom lenses but it really is nice, if you are just walking around soaking up the good vibrations of life, to have something so small but so aligned with your vision as the TTA. Especially considering how little capital is tied up in its ownership. 

I think it might be the little red wagon of short telephoto lenses for my L system. 

Come to think of it, there is a Sigma 85mm f1.4 Art lens (for L mount) which sits in the gear drawer almost completely ignored. I think that one could go too. It's just too big and fierce looking to wave around in public...It very rarely sees the light of day...

But everyone smiles at the Radio Flyer wagon. It's definitely a keeper...