Cross format compatibility. Will a Voigtlander Nokton 58mm f1.4 SLIIs Nikon mount lens cover the full frame of the medium format Fuji 50Sii? Let's walk around during the heat of the day and find out...

 

Walking around the West Campus area and walking around on the University of Texas at Austin campus.

 At least on campus there is ample shade....

When I got the Fujifilm 50Sii from my friend it came complete with a Tech-Art Nikon F to GFX lens adapter. Just so happens that I have two Voigtlander lenses in Nikon mounts; the 58mm f1.4 Nokton and the 40mm f2.0 Ultron. Both are very, very good lenses when used for their "native" format = 35mm. I wondered if either of the lenses would project a big enough image circle to actually cover the full width and height of the 33mm by 44mm sensor in the MF camera. 

Today I decided to find out. Well, I decided to find out how the 58mm performed. I'll try the 40mm next time.

Here's the TB:DR (too bored, didn't read) version: The lens has a very small but very severe bit of vignetting in all four corners. I'd be more concerned if the vignetting occurred in just one corner...or two. Stopping down makes the vignetting smaller in size but denser in its core. Focusing close reduces the size of the vignette. 

At wider apertures the corners and about 5% of the edges of the frame are soft. Stopping down to f5.6 the whole frame (except for the far corners) gets nice and sharp. I think it's a laudable performance since we're using the lens here far outside its design parameters. For portrait work it would be fine. Hate the vignetting? A slight crop into the frame will fix that right up. 

The focus peaking in the Fuji 50Sii works really well. The lens focuses really well. I am now considering adding the 90mm f2.8 Voigtlander lens in a Nikon mount to round out the mix. Nothing certain yet. Hesitating because I know myself and if I end up liking and keeping the Fuji I'll probably go out at some point and buy the vaunted 110mm f2.0. But with my luck I'll decide to make the purchase the day after it goes off sale. If I push "buy" today it's $2200. If I wait it will be four or five hundred dollars more. Another first world dilemma to worry about...

Still f-ing hot here. Not getting better. Cabin fever sinking in every day after lunch....

Take a gander through the images. From what I can see both the camera and the lens are worth having. Keep in mind that my intention is to use the Voigtlander 40 and 58  (and other 35mm format lenses) with the camera set to the square format. In that configuration there is no vignetting and no noticeable softness in the corners.  Yay!

I just read a fun, smart book about photography. Not about gear; just about photography. You might like the book and it might be a nice holiday break from....THE GEAR.

What I'm reading now....

I have to say at the outset that I love reading K.B. Dixon's work but sometimes his style catches me off guard. He doesn't write in long, sweeping, detail oriented academic prose; instead, he's the master of making a quick point, writing in brief but contagious paragraphs and, well, getting right to the point.  But instead of re-inventing "what the book is" I'll just copy the blurb on the back to get the idea moving in the right direction:

"IN A NEW COLLECTION of idiosyncratic essays on the subject of photography, Too True, K.B. Dixon offers a close-up look at an enduring fascination. A writer and photographer, Dixon comes at his enigmatic subject from every direction---from the experience of reading Roland Barthes to the question of posing, from the art of the author photo to a real time history of the Vivian Maier phenomenon. He provides the reader with a distinctly personal take on the many mysteries of a maddening medium."

I have read his books, "A Painter's Life" and "The Photo Album" and enjoyed them both very much. But a word of warning, these are not "how to" books. They are books about ideas, feelings, and the flow of life--- in the life of an artist and a writer. In this book Dixon discusses topics ranging from a critic's appreciation of photographer, Garry Winograd, to the writings of Janet Macolm, to ideas about Vivian Maier and her awkward posthumous legacy. The essays are like interesting meals in that you can sit down, read one and feel satisfied and then return again and have a different dish the next day. I particularly like his observations about posing. Not physically posing, per se, but more the affectation of posing. 

If you like terse, dry, non-fiction then this is NOT the writer for you. If you want to be amused and understand something we all have a passion for (photography) from another (smart) person's point of view then you'll likely love the book. At 130+ pages it's not going to tire you out. You won't have to revisit your studies of Claude Levi-Strauss from the philosophy courses ALL OF YOU SHOULD HAVE TAKEN IN COLLEGE in order to enjoy the essays. They are, for the most part, light-hearted and non-destructively cynical. Fits right in with the VSL POV.

Images from my coverage of the Keller Williams RED DAY event. Shot with the three different Sony sensor format cameras. And a small smattering of lenses. Click to enlarge.

A7R2 w/24-70mm

A subset of the KW in-house video crew.

I have written, yesterday and today, tangentially, about my photo assignment to document a day of community service by a company. With permission to use some of the images from the shoot in hand I thought I would show a range of shots taken over the course of the day, along with some camera information; just to  give an idea of the scope of the project. Plus it's always fun (at least I think it is) to see what the real versus imagined differences are between cameras. Different end targets will demand different levels of quality but...if you click on these images and look at the bigger versions at least you will see what the three different cameras look like at 2200 pixels wide on the long end. 

The client was real estate company, Keller Williams. Here's how their company describes yesterday's event: "Inaugurated in 2009, RED Day (Renew, Energize and Donate) is Keller Williams Realty’s annual, company-wide day of community service. Keller Williams associates are asked to “give where they live” and dedicate a day to renewing and energizing the communities they serve."

To recap: There were about 200 volunteers (here in Austin; thousands more across the country) doing things as diverse as fixing up a playground, reading and recording books onto video for hospital bound kids, painting and repairing schools; donating, labeling and shelving books for school libraries, reading to elementary school classes and even putting on a comedy/drama (with five live shows) for the entire third grade of an elementary school. My role was to be a visual documentarian of the day. To do that I used three different cameras and two different, interchangeable lenses. The cameras were: The RX10iii, the a6300 and the A7R2; all current Sony products. The lenses were the Zeiss 24/70mm f4.0 and the Sony 18-105mm f4.0 G lens. The fixed lens on the RX10iii covers angles of view corresponding to 24mm-600mm (yummy!).

A7R2 w/24-70mm

A7R2 w/24-70mm

Chris, the CEO, reading for the camera.

A7R2 w/24-70mm @1250 ISO

Checking in books and labeling them.

A7R2 in crop mode @5000 ISO

The "Hero" of the school plays!

A7R2 in crop mode @1600 ISO

A quick look at the corporate messaging.

A7R2 in crop mode @5000 ISO

The dramatic comedy team at Perez Elementary School.

A6300 + 18-105 @2000 ISO

CEO being interviewed by local media.

A6300 + 18-105 @2000 ISO

Pre-kickoff orientation meeting (with real breakfast tacos).

A6300 + 18-105 @2000 ISO

A6300 + 18-105 @2000 ISO

A6300 + 18-105 @2000 ISO

A6300 + 18-105 @2000 ISO

A7R2+24/70mm @ 1600

One of the youngest volunteers sorting books at BookSpring 

A7R2+24/70mm @ 1600

A6300+18/105mm @4000 ISO

A6300+18/105mm @4000 ISO

RX10iii. 

Fixing up the playground at an early childhood development center.

RX10iii. 

RX10iii. 

RX10iii. 

RX10iii. 

RX10iii. 

RX10iii. 

RX10iii. 

RX10iii. 

RX10iii. 

RX10iii. @ISO 2000

Back to the drama at Perez Elementary.

RX10iii. @ISO 2000

The angst of possibly having to cancel Summer vacation.

RX10iii. @ISO 2000

RX10iii. @ISO 2000

RX10iii. @ISO 4000

At the breakfast launch. Me just showing off the AWB and ISO 4000 performance (under insanely mixed lighting---) with the RX10iii.

A7R2+24/70mm ISO 800

I've never yet met a photographer who looked forward to making group shots. 

The A7R2 did nicely for me. It's a tight squeeze but no one is puffing out at the corners....

These kinds of jobs require me to mix with CEOs and other corporate people, become one with the bigger corporate team, and also get by to a number of schools, and other institutions, and to do it without drawing too much attention to myself. I want to make everyone comfortable and happy in front of the camera; at least as much as is possible. The rest of the time I want to hide behind my cloak of invisibility which is most easily done by being right in the middle of things. 

I had an absolute blast. While the RX10iii can't match the other two cameras for high ISO it does quite well in the lower ranges and I'd be comfortable using it in jobs like this all the way out to 1600. If your final target is the web you can get away with higher ISOs but you can't always go to 100% magnifications and not see some real noise reduction going on. I set the camera to High Iso Noise Reduction: Standard because I knew the images would look fine for my client's intended use (web P.R.---team building). In fact, the images from the smallest sensor camera might have looked better if I had turned down the noise reduction and dealt with it in post, but the only people who will notice that difference are other photographers peeking too closely behind the curtain. 

Remember, you can click the images to see them larger.