Nifty Fifty lens and the Leica SL camera. A good match. Nice color/create black and whites.

 

My only hesitation with the Leica 24-90mm Vario Elmarit solved.

Love the 24-90mm lens. It's a perfect range of focal lengths and it would be hard to fault the optical performance. I use the lens a lot and over the course of owning it for a year my only complaint has been the issues caused by the weight of the lens when using it on a tripod in a "portrait" orientation. I can screw down the tripod screw like gang-busters and from time to time still get the dreaded droop. The weight of the lens and camera cause the assemblage to twist downward. Gravity is a bitch. 

I was thinking about this recently and thought how great it would be if someone made a product specifically for my Leica lens that gave me a traditional lens/tripod collar. At the end of a fun day of photography I was uploading files to Lightroom and I plugged in a search on B&H Photo's website. And there it was. A Novoflex tripod collar for "selected" Leica SL lenses. Two lenses fit the bill; the 24/90 and the 90/280. I hit the "buy" button with enthusiasm. I hoped it would be a good purchase. Especially since I have portrait shoots booked for both this week and next. 

It arrived this morning at 11:48. The product is spare, minimal and works perfectly with my lens of choice. I've been playing with it for a while and it changes the way I can work with the lens on a tripod. I know a lot of people who like to handhold their lenses when they make portraits but I'm more comfortable letting the tripod to the hard work. And, unlike a lot of my peers, I prefer to use continuous light sources instead of flash so the ability to comfortably use a tripod vectors into my working style. 

From a theoretical angle I like the "idea" that we're taking weight off the lens mount at the camera and also at the lens. Even though I am sure both are designed to handle the weight I'm of the opinion that the further we stay from the edges of an operational envelope the longer the gear will stay in tolerance. I am now officially smitten with the new accessory and the potential it opens up for me with the lens.

It's been a busy Sunday. I delivered the Canon FTb film camera with a 50mm lens to one of my young swim coaches this morning. He asked me what I do for a living one morning at practice and when he found out that I'm a photographer he told me about his desire to work with an actual film camera. He was born in 1999, into the age of "full digital" so it's all new and interesting to him. I needed someone to hand off the camera and lens to and he just happened to speak up at the right time. A welcome reduction of inventory for me and a no cost introduction to film for him. 

I left the pool and headed over to the Clarksville neighborhood to have coffee with my friend and former assistant and video partner, Chris. He sold his house here in Austin for more money than he ever dreamed possible and he and his wife are moving to the Pacific NW. I'll miss Chris. He was an inventive artist and ready to take deep dives into whatever interested him. We worked on still photography projects together and he partnered with me on several successful video projects for restaurants. I even used him as talent once.

He forgot to pack one thing for the move out of town and so he left it in my care. I now have his O'Connor Ultimate 1030D  cinema tripod and fluid head here in my office. Should be fun to play with for a while. It's a beast. 

 

International Self Portrait with a Camera in the Frame Day.

 

Darn contrast detect AF. I was just trying to get that lens in focus...

Attempted photo with a (tentatively) Michael Johnston approved Sigma fp camera and a Panasonic 50mm f1.8 lens. 

Having fun in two ways. First, using the old Canon 50mm f1.4 at f11 and secondly, playing around with file conversions to black and white.

 

I found a much wanted accessory today. I hope it arrives before my next studio portrait shoot.

 

The Leica 24-90mm f2.8-4.0 Vario Elmarit zoom lens (what a mouthful!) is a wild compromise for most photographers; myself included. For nearly a year and a half it was the only zoom and one of the only lenses of any kind that were available for the fledgling SL camera (model 601). Photographers who wanted a high performing, Leica zoom lens for that first mirrorless, full frame Leica camera didn't have any other choices. 

The lens is very large relative to competitive products. It's quite heavy. It has a variable maximum aperture and it currently costs just under $5800 US dollars. When it comes to what we might call "standard" zoom lenses it's by far the most expensive. 

So, with all these factors mitigating against its adoption by photographers why does it continue to sell? Why do photographers continue to select it for projects? What the heck are these people thinking?

Speaking for myself I bought the lens because I tested one and found it to be sharper and higher performing than any other zoom lens I'd ever shot. It's sharp and contrasty when used wide open. It adds about three stops of vibration reduction with it's in-lens I.S. It's very color neutral. It's capable, when used with the right imaging sensor, of unbeatable color discrimination and it has no real optical shortcomings. At least none that have become apparent to me. Plus, it's right in the sweet spot of the focal length range I use all the time in my work. Both commercial and personal. 

The only time I really want a longer focal length than 90mm is when I'm photographing live theater productions and the 70-200mm Panasonic S-Pro handles that really well (and it's an "L" native lens).

When I use the 24-90mm I'm constantly impressed by what it delivers in terms of imaging. 

But there has been one leg of compromise that sometimes causes me to reject the Leica zoom and default to a much lighter lens. It's the weight. When you mount a camera with this lens on a tripod and put the system into a vertical orientation the whole construction starts to droop down. The weight causes the camera to twist on the tripod head platform. Even with my stoutest tripod head it's a problem. And since I like doing formal portraits in the vertical orientation it's frustrates me.  Plus, from an industrial engineering point of view I'd love to take most of that front heavy weight off the lens mounts; both on the camera and on the lens.

I love the convenience of a zoom for flexible framing on the fly but I want the lens and camera to continue pointing where I want them to point. Ending up pointing at the floor is not...okay. 

I've pretty much relegated the lens to handheld work or landscape-oriented work on a tripod and have defaulted to using small primes like the Sigma 90mm f2.8 for portraits that needed to be in "portrait" mode. And that defeats the purpose, for me, of having such a high performing zoom lens. I've often wished that Leica would make a tripod collar for this lens like the one they have on their even bigger and even more expensive 90-280mm Apo zoom lens. But they don't. 

Happily a friend from Switzerland who also shoots with the same combination of cameras and lenses  emailed to see if I was aware of a product from Novoflex. A tripod collar for the two venerable Leica zooms. Since the 90-280 is already equipped with one it seems pretty obvious to me that this product was intended mostly for the 24-90mm. I presumed the product would be too niche for Amazon.com but the folks at B&H had one in stock and it's coming my way shortly. It's pricy at $235 but if it works as advertised (and I have assurances from my friend that it does....) it will be worth every cent for me. I'll be reviewing the tripod collar after I use it on an assignment to photograph two attorneys at their offices next week. 

My advice to Leica: If you plan to do a 24-90mm type II (an update) consider incorporating a removable tripod collar into the design. Just about everyone who buys the lens from you will appreciate it. And we'll get a lot more use out of our investment as well. 

There is a tripod collar on the longer Panasonic zoom and it works great. I love having it there. I'm thinking that any lens that weighs more than two pounds needs one. 

Studio Light. Black and white. 135mm Zeiss lens on Contax RTSIII. Copied from a print.

©Kirk Tuck. 

I'm restarting an old project. I'm approaching well known people in Austin with the intention of making black and white portraits of them. The short term goal is to do a continuing show of the images on a dedicated website but the longer term intention is to produce a show of prints for one of the two photo-oriented galleries here in Austin that I like. We'll see how it goes. It's helpful to write out an intention because there seems to be more momentum behind a project that way. More stick-to-it-tiveness.

My first subject will likely be our former state senator, Kirk Watson. I have known him for decades and he's a fun and interesting character. It might be fun to compare a comtemporary image with the portrait I did of him at his law offices many, many years ago. Back then I photographed on color transparency film using a Hasselblad camera and a 150mm lens. This time around the portrait will probably be done with a Leica SL2 and the 24-90mm zoom. 

Incidentally, Kirk Watson is running a campaign to be mayor of Austin. It would be a reprise of his successful stewardship of the city back in the 1990s.