Back in the 1970s when I was pursuing my studies at the University of Texas at Austin (which I fully completed and for which I acquired diplomas, etc.) I was sharing my parents' stretched financial resources with my older brother and my younger sister. We were all at universities at the same time with graduate studies helping to create a financially burdensome overlap into the bargain. While my parents stepped up and covered all of our tuition, room, board and books we were left to our own devices if we wanted to buy cool (but unnecessary) stuff for ourselves. Those splurges might have included ski vacations, fashionable clothes, and automobiles. For those things we were on our own. So you can see just how cruel our parents were.... In fact, neither I nor my siblings owned or had cars throughout our undergraduate careers. How damaging this must have been.
One of the things I thought a university student desperately needed, besides stereo equipment, was a good camera with which to take photographs of my attractive and sometimes mostly naked girlfriend. This, however, was not on my parents' short list of scholastic necessities. Not by a long shot. And they were sharp enough to know that the expenses wouldn't stop with a camera. Nope, they'd stretch to lenses and, of course, endless rolls of film with attendant development and prints. They were wise to draw the line. After all, they needed to save some money to send my sister abroad for a lovely semester in Spain. And an extra dose of grad school for my dear brother... ( so as to pursue his lucrative career in the "Classics"; teaching Latin and Greek in some tony private schools).
No. I am sad to say that the parents were not financially forthcoming when it came to my newly acquired fascination with photography. This, I believe, is what taught me the basics of becoming "resourceful". With an excellent GPA at the end of seven years of higher education it seemed easy, back in the late 1970s, to nail down a teaching position at the same university. But in a totally different college. Which I proceeded to do. Which paid for a decent apartment just West of the Capitol, a motorcycle and a growing inventory of cameras.
But you have to start somewhere and for me it was with a Canon TX kitted with a 50mm f1.8 FD lens. I have written about that basic camera body elsewhere on the blog so I won't belabor a description of its charms and shortcomings here. Suffice it to say that I found it wonderful, freeing, almost completely indestructible and able. So what if the top shutter speed was 1/500th of a second? And, as a bonus, the the lens was great.
Back then we didn't give a thought to not shooting wide open. We shot our lenses wherever they needed to be set based on the film speed and the prevailing light conditions. They delivered fun, interesting and worthwhile photos. At least from my point of view. I eventually had three or four lenses I depended on and snapped them up in intervals --- whenever I could afford them.
There were several of the FD lenses that I remember as being superb. I owned an 85mm f1.8 that was really nice as well as that 50mm 1.8 I mentioned but at the time I didn't think about buying the deluxe versions of the lenses because I didn't feel that I needed them and I had developed two habits that slowed down my lens acquisition schedule at the time. Those habits were: Buying food for a regular routine of eating and not starving. A legal need to come up with enough money each month to make the rent payment on my super cool Austin apartment. Five minutes by motorcycle to the Fine Arts College.
Recently, maybe a year or a year and a half ago, I treated myself to one of those ancient "super star" lenses. It was the 50mm f1.4 FD SSC (Super Spectra Coating). I used an adapter to put it on a Leica SL2 and I was/am amazed at just how wonderful that lens still is. It's different in its look than current lenses with more layers of corrective glass elements but in no way is it really inferior to the wonder lenses of the moment --- just different. To this day I pull out the Canon 50mm f1.4 FD and use it to make certain kinds of photographs, the color and contrast of which I really enjoy.
As you know I tend to like shooting portraits more than any other subject matter and so my preference has always been for traditional, longer lenses. 50s are great general shooting lenses but the lenses that I seem to gravitate to are the short tele ones. The 85s and the 100s and 105s. Even 135mm is great if you have the room to get some distance from your subject to use it well. So, when I saw a listing for an older, used Canon 100mm f2.8 FD SSC lens in good physical shape and perfect optical condition for less than $100 USD I just had to snap it up.
Since I rarely have the time or energy to procrastinate I immediately put the lens on an FD to L mount adapter, stuck the lens on a Lumix S5 and went out in the drizzle and uneven rain to test out the lens and see if my memory of how great the old FD lenses could be was legitimate or if nostalgia and time had goosed my memory of these old, iconic devices past their point of actual performance, Past their real value.
I spent a couple hours downtown today trying to dodge the bigger raindrops and trying to keep my newly acquired lens from being drowned on its maiden voyage out of the studio and into the real world. I think I was successful. When the rain really poured down I ducked into the bank that handles my commercial account and grabbed a cup of coffee from one of the bank officers I happen to swim with. It was a good excuse to catch up but as soon as the rain let up I thanked him for his hospitality and got back out onto the streets for more shooting.
I think long lenses like this one are wonderful. I had a student in several of my classes at the University who was extremely talented and went on to work for Dallas clients like Beauty Control and Neiman Marcus, and a number of national fashion and cosmetic clients in her career as a commercial photographer. She had one camera that she used for so long and so hard that it eventually fell apart in her hands. But she only ever used one lens. It was always the 150mm f4.0 Carl Zeiss lens on her ancient Hasselblad. You'd think someone consistently billing $6,000+ per day could afford a bevy of lenses and I teased her about this but her reply was simple and sensible: She loved that focal length and that focal length only. She did, eventually buy a new camera body. Same as the old one. Its operation was transparent to her by then...
So, how do I like my latest "big ticket" lens acquisition ($90 plus shipping)? I would say to see for yourself but some of you seem very, very resistant to looking at images on big, happy screens so I guess it's par for the course to write some descriptive copy. Which I hope to rewrite over and over again until the words veritably sing in perfect harmony to your eyes, and by extension, your inner ears.
The lens, even wide open can be considered sharp into the center two thirds of the frame. By f4.0 everything is satisfactorily sharp. By 5.6 it's on par with most of the longer (short teles) lenses I have in the studio. The Sigma 90mm f2.8 Contemporary is very sharp across the frame, wide open, so, if you don't have a lens in this range it might make sense to buy that one first. The Sigma 85mm f1.4, version two Art lens is sharp everywhere at every f-stop so if you can only have one lens in this range and you desparately need it to earn your bread and wine, and you need the speed, it might also be your first stop. But....if you like the roundedness of the older lenses and the richer color of the older lenses the FD 100 is a nice lens for those times when you want to match a specific look to a specific feeling or style.
It has a nice, long focal throw so it's a good lens to use for video and certainly is of high enough resolution to outgun most video frames. And there is a lot of pleasure to be had in manually focusing lenses as well. I love working with this lens and the Panasonic S5 because they work so well together with the combination of focus peaking and manual focusing operation.
Or, you could ignore this lens and vilify me for spending money yet again on something that's more of a vague desire than a hard need. But I have to say that an occasionally cheap lens is a lot safer and cheaper than an ongoing heroin or cocaine habit. That's for damn sure.
Try making the images below bigger. They are not great art but since most of them were shot handheld at f2.8 and f4.0 I think seeing the images bigger will give you a very good idea of their "in the hands" capabilities. You might hate the look. But as other bloggers might say, "that's okay as long as you don't hurt anyone....."
The café at the main library was so plagued by homeless people that they had to close down.
Sad on many levels. I hope something else takes their place. I had many lunches and coffees
there over the last three years.
look closely at the fabric on the side of the hat. The detail is there. And the color.
New mannequins arrived at one of the 2nd Street stores. I was delighted.
distance performance is good as well.
"Dear God. Thank you for making Formula One in Austin last only one
short weekend. Also thank you for keeping the bulk of people mostly
out of downtown and out of my favorite haunts. And, if I could ask for
one small indulgence, could you move the race to any other city in
America next year?" Thank you. Amen.
Mellow Johnny's Bike Shop is Lance Armstrong's bike shop here in Austin.
It's been in a building downtown across from the Federal Courthouse on
4th St. for at least a decade. I went by today and saw this notice.
I need to go have a coffee at Manana Coffee this week and see
the new bike shop. It's just across the street.
Full disclosure. Lance swims with us at Masters. He's a very, very
good swimmer. And these days pretty congenial.
I no longer own a bike.
First draft. Sorry.
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