This photograph is amazingly sharp. Just out of the ballpark.
It was done with a sub-$100 lens on a Leica SL2 body.
No built in lens profiles, no stabilization, no AF.
Just very nice glass in a well built tube...
I guess it's human nature to want to use the full potential of the tools we own. If you have a 47 megapixel, full frame camera it's assumed that you'll set it for raw file capture, put a zillion dollar lens on the front and shoot at its full resolution. But I would ask... if you buy a high performance car that can achieve 150+ mph does that mean that you always have to drive it all out? Does the tachometer always have to be pegged? Isn't most driving done "in town" on roads with 30 mph speed limits? Just a thought.
I bought a TTartisan 23mm f1.4 lens a while back for the L mount. It's an APS-C lens. It definitely does NOT cover the full 24 x 36 mm frame of a full frame camera. But on an APS-C camera the angle of view corresponds to a popular 35mm focal length on a full frame camera. When I used the lens on a Leica TL2 or CL I was impressed by the sharpness, color and lack of vignetting at the f-stops I normally take advantage of; f4.0- f8.0.
It's a really good lens for the price and I plan on getting a lot of use out of it. But....
I really like the color science and the ergonomics of the Leica SL2 and I'd also like to shoot a 35mm style lens on that camera as well. I have a lens for it. It's the original Sigma 35mm f1.4 lens in the L mount. It's huge and weighs a ton. Sure, it's very sharp and well corrected but it can be a burden to tote around. And when I shoot with the SL2 and the full frame lens I reflexively shoot the full resolution of the camera. And often use the raw format. But there are times when I wished that I could use a lens that's smaller, lighter and easier to carry around. So yesterday I decided to do the usual walk but instead of using a full frame lens I grabbed the 23mm TTA and put it on the camera.
I had hoped that using an APS-C lens and setting the camera for the APS-C format would trigger some internal logic which would compel the camera to write only the cropped raw file. I set the camera for raw+Jpg and went out for the walk. By setting the raw+jpeg in APS-C the camera did indeed show the cropped image across the full frame of the viewfinder. It was just as if I had the lens mounted on a cropped frame camera. The crop with the typical 1.5 X factor.
I shot merrily as I walked. I tried to photograph tight shots, close-ups, distance shots and everything in between. I even photographed a few frames with the lens wide open. I really liked the handling and the performance of the lens. I laughed a bit since I read that so many people devote so much of their time and money chasing "ultimate" lens performance when I think that comfort in actual use is at least as important and, as TTArtisan seems to be proving (some hit and miss...) they can make highly competitive lenses at small fractions of other makers prices.
There was no image stabilization. I could implement it only by cheating. I could chose a Leica M or R lens profile from the in-camera list. A lens profile that at least matches the focal length of the manual "dumb" lens I wanted to use. That would trigger the ability to use IBIS. But....as I've discovered before each of the canned lens profiles also comes with adjustments to color shift, vignetting and distortion parameters that many times harm the image rather than help if I try to cheat a profile made for one particular lens to a different, third party lens. Other than that the camera and lens interfaced perfectly.
When I got back home and looked at the files I realized that the raw files are always going to be presented in the full 35mm frame. In this case the raw files are shown as nice photos inside a black circle because....the lens doesn't cover the frame. But the Jpegs were perfect. They were written as APS-C files so no cropping or corrections had to be done.
So, what are the advantages of pressing a small, light lens into service on a camera with so much full frame potential? Well for one thing the files sizes are smaller. I also gain about a stop of depth of field. The entire package of camera and lens is much reduced making it a happier street shooting package. Manual focus lenses can be fast and fun to work with when image peaking and smaller apertures are engaged. And...under $100 USD. Seems just right to me.
What was I thinking? Not much. I just wanted to see how the lens would perform on a camera I really like. And still, at the crop format size, be able to have a high resolution file. If you are willing to work at your technique many of these inexpensive lenses can do admirable and professional work. At least I think I could get people to pay for images made with this combo. Of course you could spend thousands of dollars and get a Leica M mount 35mm Summicron lens and an M to L mount adapter and have the same size plus the "benefit" of the full resolution of the full frame camera. But where's the fun in that? Here are the samples. Decide for yourself.
I'm a walking advertisement for REI.
The pants, the shirt and the bucket hat.
You can't see my shoes but I got them at REI too.
No affiliation. No links here. But boy...
am I stylin'
one foot away from reality.
Ah. A rich frame filed with color and tones.
The camera and lens seem to "do" reds just fine.
A Veblen car. Mike would not be happy...
Sure. The added depth of field helped.
OT: Swim practice was exhilarating this morning. The water chillers were working overnight and the water was nicely cool; brisk. We did a monster set that went:
19 x 75 yard sprints with descending intervals. The last five should be "touch and go." Followed by a 100 recovery swim.
19 x 50 yard sprints with descending intervals. The last five should be close to best times. Followed by a 100 recovery swim.
19 x25 yard sprints -- all out -- on an interval that allowed for maximum effort. Followed by a 100 recovery swim.
I never figured out why we were doing 19 of each distance....
Coaches are working in a lot of HIT workouts lately which stands for High Intensity Training. They are trying to get us out of the habit of finding comfortable workout paces and getting us to swim closer to our racing times to build an acceptance of pain in return for speed. It seemed to work that way this morning.
If you are not exercising for at least an hour every day you are accelerating toward an endpoint you might not want. You don't have to train all out. An hour walk works almost as well. But everyone makes their own choices...
Speaking of choices...
Have you seen Michael Johnston's weekend post? He asks if the "Hobby of Photography" is getting priced out of reach of hobbyists? What do you think?
I get the statistics of inequality but I also know that most of our readers are highly privileged, high earners (at least during their careers) and professionals with college degrees. Is what we're seeing in the photography gear world really a progression toward unaffordability or are people just trying to have it all? Big cars, big houses, big toys AND a full complement of the latest cameras? I'd be interested to see what my readers think.
