My hopelessly optimistic affinity for cheap, third party lenses...

 

Is it sharp enough???

I've been chilling, laying around on the couch and reading novels since last Wednesday. I'm recovering emotionally from finding out that I might not be immortal. That as I age some shit is just bound to go wrong and I guess I have to accept that. But only grudgingly. I visited my dermatologist. He used a scalpel to remove a pesky cancer spot on my face. It didn't hurt much, at least physically, but I'm still waiting (im)patiently for the wound to heal enough to please my medical staff so they give me the thumbs up to get back into the pool. I'd like that patch of my face to regain it's imperviousness to water before I jump into the Texas water...

Having an imperfection in the system erupt to the surface always depresses me because I interpret each of these physical stumbles as a sign of deterioration; entropy, incipient chaos. 

Today B. and I went out for lunch. We had a wonderful smashed guacamole dish and then split a plate of fried shrimp that was accompanied by a warm corn relish and cole slaw. Being the conservative and austere kind of people we are we had ice tea as a beverage, forgoing the jeroboam of Champagne or the line up of tequila shots. B. took the time to "talk me off the ledge" pointing out that I had survived and would probably be in the pool as early as Wednesday. Yes, early on there was talk about getting back in on Tuesday but my face isn't ready yet. 

In the meantime I've stayed quite busy, focused on two different, vital projects. One of the projects is watching videos about cameras, lenses and lighting on YouTube (interspersed with videos about the Ukrainians spanking the Russians over the weekend). I think I've watched enough Peter McKinnon to hold me until the fourth quarter. And James Popsys seems to be doing not much more than treading water these days. My other project seems to be the capricious buying up of weird and wonderful, dirt cheap, Chinese made lenses for my L system cameras....   Oh how dangerous it is to miss swim practice.

But that brings me to my preferred subject today. My mild passion for these lenses that are changing the choice paradigm for photographers. And presenting folks with a different cost/benefit ratio than those offered by the lens products from long established brands. 

You'll probably remember just a week or so ago when I was writing about the 7Artisans 50mm f1.8 AF lens I bought for my L mount cameras. While both 7Artisans and TTArtisan have been making simple, straightforward, manual focus "dumb" lenses for various mounts for at least the last five years, 2024 was the year that both companies (and one wonders, honestly, if indeed they are the same company....) brought a handful of autofocus lenses with full lens-to-camera communication to a waiting audience. This is different! This is direct competition.

I was looking longingly at the Leica APO Summicron 50mm SL lens (about $6,000 USD) when I stumbled across the 7Artisans 50mm f1.8 AF. It was priced at a whopping $228; if you got the L mount version. Knowing I couldn't really rationalize the purchase of the Luxe/Veblen/Budget-Buster Leica lens I decided to award myself the 7Artisans lens as a consolation prize. When I got the cheap ass lens and shot it on a big Leica camera the universe did not implode. German marketers didn't come to the studio to confiscate my cameras for my sacrilege. And the cheap lens didn't explode in my hands as I was led to suspect all cheap lenses might. 

Instead it fit onto the camera with a satisfying amount of tight-fit-ness and instantly communicated with the camera. And you know what? It makes really nice photographs. It's sharp enough wide open and head-to-head competitive with most other 50mm lenses by the time you get to f4.0. I considered it a win. And I wondered what other bargain might lie out in the real world; masked by our own innate and snobbish brand filtering. 

So I started looking around. There are three Chinese lens makers that seem to enjoy having good chunks of the cheap lens market. These are Meike,  7Artisans and TTArtisan. The first two make competing lenses and both recently launched 85mm AF lenses for most of the popular lens mounts. I looked at these but since I already have the Sigma 85mm f1.4 Art lens I crossed them off my list of potential purchases. But while I was looking around I came across the 75mm f2.0 AF lens from TTArtisan. It gets pretty good reviews from all the usual characters. Nearly all of the inexpensive lenses get dinged by reviewers for having slow C-AF but most of the reviewers agree that the single AF performances of most of the new, Chinese AF lenses are just fine. On par with inexpensive, main brand lenses from the established Japanese brands.

I looked around for the 75mm f2.0 AF for the L mount and found that they are generally available and at a price of under $200 USD; brand new. Since this falls beneath the danger zone for budget destruction I decided to take a chance and order one. It came today. 

The thing that is most striking about the TTArtisan 75mm f2.0 is its remarkably small size. Much smaller than the 7Artisan 50mm and about the size of an old style DSLR era nifty-fifty. It's almost cute small but it features 10 elements in 7 groups (one extra low dispersion element and four high index elements) and feels dense and well made. It focuses down to 2.5 feet and the filter size is 62mm. Overall, the lens is such a nice complement to a bigger and heavier camera body such as a Leica SL2 because its small profile reduces the total volume of the overall package. 

Two interesting touches: One is a typical plastic lens hood but instead of being a rounded tulip shape it's more squared off. Maybe a bit more efficient without being any bigger than it needs to be. Second interesting thing is that the rear lens cap has a USB C connector on its external side and the interior of the rear lens cap has contacts to match up with the contacts on the back of the lens. This should make for easier firmware updates. As long as one doesn't lose that back cap.

While I haven't had time to exhaustively test the lens (just got it half an hour ago) I've chimped it a lot here in the office and it seems pretty well buttoned down. I'll take it for a walk tomorrow and see just how much I like it. But for now it had me at "Hello" with its size and build quality. A nice, refreshing change to the usual, huge lenses. Weather sealed? I think not. No rubber ring at the rear of the lens.

So, since I'm a professional photographer and also still solvent and somewhat successful, why do I buy these crazy cheap lenses when I can afford to get the brand name lenses or the Sigma Art lenses or the etc. etc. lenses? Mostly I am pushed into it by a unique memory from about 45 years ago. 

I was shooting with a Canon film camera. I bought a used Tamron Adapt-All 35-80mm f3.5 zoom lens for not very much money. I brought it along with me when I was meeting some friends for a drink at a lovely little restaurant. B. was there. She was facing an east facing window at sometime just pre-dusk. She was talking to one of my other friends and had her face turned just a bit. The light coming through the window was gorgeous. She was gorgeous. I focused as carefully as I could and tripped the shutter at 1/30th of a second. I was using ISO 100 color transparency (slide) film. I love the photo. I loved the look of it and the way it rendered colors. I've kept the slide safe ever since. When I pull it out or rescan the image I'm always amazed at my visceral response to the photo. It's gorgeous.

In the day that lens was considered to be a crappy, low performing lens. I think I paid $60 for it. I didn't realize at the time that the resulting photo would stick in my consciousness for nearly 5 decades with such strong adhesion. At some point long ago I sold the lens and moved on to newer, "better" lenses but every time I pull out the original slide I wish I hadn't.

I think, when I buy some of these new Chinese lenses, I'm hoping to have the same luck. To discover in an inexpensive lens some hidden level of magic that I am somehow able to unlock. To make happen. I think the makers consider these new lenses the way retailers think of loss leaders. Or introductions to new products. They pull out all the stops they can in the design and manufacturing process hoping to have products that people can afford but which also establish the bonafides of the maker. A way of getting a foot in the door. 

Sure, an early adopter might get burned from time to time. We have no idea if these lenses are going to be reliable over time. We have no guarantee when we buy an early model if the unit we get will be a good performer or something that slipped through quality control with a few pimples. But there is always the chance that in making something different from the mainstream the product will resonate with users who are ready for some differentiation and looking forward to discovering a special rendering or character that results from a different approach to lens design and manufacturing. 

Lens making is both hard and easy. It's a 20th century craft for the most part. CNC machining helps level the playing field so that inexpensive lenses and pricy lenses aren't so far apart, when it comes to performance, as lenses could be in the 1950s and 1960s. 

Chinese manufacturing is, I believe, on par with every other highly developed economies' industries. They are wedging a shoe in the door with the cost effect, but even more image effective, lenses. I'm excited. Ultimate sharpness is no longer the thing that matters most in photography. We've moved on. Now it's all about access and imagination. And it's nice to have choices that we can play with without breaking the bank. 

I can afford to buy a Leica APO 75mm SL but I certainly choose not to. Why? Because my passion is portraiture and sharp enough is good enough. A fun, new focal length lens positioned between 50mm and 85mms? Sounds fun to me. And I think, at $199, this one  is going to be a winner

In the end? It's about making portraits. Not testing lenses. Unless you are a lens tester and then that would be legit. 

Coffee break.                                                                                                                                                                                                           

revisiting good advice...

 https://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2017/08/schooled-again-by-kid-want-more-video.html

Another Milestone Notched. More Words Set Free. More Photography Discussed.

 I was deleting a bunch of old posts just now when I happened to check the VSL stats. Looks like we just turned over 33,000,000 pageviews. Mind you, Blogger doesn't record RSS feed pageviews, just people coming directly to the site. 

While some other photo bloggers have been at this longer and have generated more content, I have to remind myself that this is a completely non-profit undertaking; a hobby, and that I have done this while maintaining a full time, profitable business, raising a great kid, doing my share of spousing, writing five successful books about photography, as well as one novel, taking care of two parents and then their estates, and getting in five or six days of swimming every week. It's not a bad track record. At least I don't think it is....

As you can see from the screen shot of today's stats we reached 33,000 viewers just yesterday alone. If only I had monetized this blog I might be rich!!!

Oh wait. I guess the (long, long) journey is the real reward. 

self reflection. 2016 style.

 

Changing gears is sometimes about hitting a wall and realizing you missed the door.

I have a persona on the web. To some I am a techie guy who has a typical liberal arts education, has had some modest successes over the years as a commercial photographer and who has parleyed the fear and boredom of the years from 2007 to 2012 into a modestly successful bout of book writing and, by extension, blog writing. Most of my readers know that I swim, that I have one child, a dog and a wife of some 35 years. I've tried to keep my political viewpoints out of my public writing and I've worked to keep my views about religion personal. So, in fact, most people know very little about who I really am or what motivates me to do what I do beyond the usual, human responses to fear and greed.

While walking with my wife and my dog through our quiet neighborhood this morning I found myself taking stock of how my life has changed over the last twenty years. A change that I should have resisted more. Controlled more. In 1995 I felt as though I had a modicum of control over what I did both for a living and as an art. My audiences were the ones I actively attracted by actually meeting them. In person. Face to face. My portraits were made with tools that I loved for a number of reasons. My approach to making the portraits was nearly always predicated on a very personal view of what portraiture should be, not what popular, and every changing markets might dictate.

I had yet to write my first book or type my first blog. My days consisted of making beautiful work (at least I thought it was so), having face to face meetings with clients and friends and colleagues, and then spending many quiet evenings reading everything I enjoyed; from novels to poetry to economics. I subscribed to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times because it seemed important to be both informed and to have a foot in both political camps for balance.

When photography changed, along with everything else that was touched by the encroachment of the digital hegemony, in the early part of this century, it was like an anchor was cut loose for our art and even the previously codified flow of our everyday lives. The relentless drumbeat from media everywhere was about the unalloyed advantages of "being digital", of being one's own publisher and of being "on" for every cycle. A relentless march to the future that rewarded the media much more than the message, the number of followers more than what was being said or shown. Followers equalled eyeballs, which were connected to mostly functional brains, which were connected to credit cards, the exercise of which could conceivably create new income streams for "artists."

The problem was that the race for eyeballs and money led to unexpected consequences and behaviors. Instead of continuing to do the work I loved the lure of creating media and content that would sell to a mass market was alluring, intoxicating and seemed so much smarter than working in a small and contained market. The trade off, which exists for almost anyone who wants to grow an anonymous market, is that at some point you have to give your audience what they want. Not what you genuinely have to say but what they genuinely want to read. It's an enormous trade off and one that sociopaths have very little problem with. Just separate what you like from what you do for money and off you go. But the issue is a bit more complicated for people who aren't sociopathic and have a warm affinity and attachment for the things that they love to do well. Which for me is meeting people and making portraits.

I was playing around with small flashes and cheap, optical slaves in 2006, about the time that I was active on David Hobby's Strobist site. I did an image of then Dell CEO, Kevin Rollins with the small lights and wrote about it for a magazine. I also posted an article about the nuts and the bolts of the shoot on Strobist. Which led to an offer to write my first book with Amherst Media. I was living the new, social media marketing dream.

But. But. But. The process of writing a book took me away from the ongoing craft of working on portraits. Of shooting and doing what I really loved. The first book took six months to write and illustrate and when I finished with it I told myself I'd never do it again. It took so long. The effort was so concentrated and, worst part, I wasn't moving my art, craft or brain forward, I was crafting an educational resource based on stuff I already knew by heart. But then the book hit and sold very well and it became a focus point for me. People called me to do workshops. They called to interview me. They did all the things an artist with an ego thrives on. They played to my desire to be someone in my field. An expert. Someone who has "made it." And that's the most dangerous and destructive part of moving away from the things you love to embrace a different persona that's inauthentic and not genuine. And most of the attention given to me by web sources was in service of me creating "free" content for them; one way or the other. The interview or the copied blog post.

The ego accepts every offer. And the ego goads the brain to move in the direction that yields the most self-esteem building gratification. More books equal more eyeballs. More validation of your position as a successful and business savvy photographer. But the books required care and feeding. Any publisher will tell you that the writers who are successful are the ones who jump in and help with the marketing of their properties in any way that they can. I proceeded to do my part by writing this blog and flogging the books when I felt like the balance was right.

And all the time the web and technology and the media is ever changing and morphing and the targets are constantly moving. I started trying out new stuff all the time. Moving ever further from my own, innate and satisfying targets from decades before. Digital had killed my tools (or so I thought) and relegated me to a desperate and ongoing search to replace them with (woefully inadequate and homogenous) digital replacements. And all the while my artistic vision was fading. Ever more diluted by my bifurcated searches for general relevance, applause, and a desire to seem relevant within the context of a new generation of imagers. I was trying to constantly keep up with the younger Joneses even though none of them possessed a map to the future either.

I bought my first EP2 on a whim but stayed engaged in the Olympus system partially because of a huge surge of readers who seemed to hang on every word I wrote about the system, regardless of whether it worked for my real, personal vision or not. I never lied or accepted graft but somehow my sense of not only being part of a new community, but also a taste maker within it, kept me buying and writing about cameras that were ancillary to my core aesthetic. My way of seeing images and translating them.

By the fifth book I had come to realize that my "artist self" had been totally sublimated, suffocated and left in cold storage by the combination of income, ego stroking and delusions of using the eyeball base as a market to sell books to. To extend my reach as a "web personality" which might deliver me opportunities.

But the things that keep coming my way are truncated and compromised, to a certain extent. Witness my brief and rocky relationship with Samsung. Was a one week trip to Berlin, in the clutches of Samsung handlers, really valuable enough to make up for using a flawed camera? I could have easily dipped into the business checking account and sent myself to Berlin for a peaceful week of shooting, unencumbered by one dimensional marketing serfs. Some of the cameras were interesting but would I have ever even tried to shoot with a camera that has no EVF or OVF if it had not been offered as part of being in the program? Of course not.

I must seem naive now to so many people who know that there is no "free ride" and that all the web stuff is really just extended B.S., is a massive shift of value from the owner of art to the endless distributors of art waiting for ephemeral payment while the old hands at the aggregators and the many thieves on the internet actually get the payments. In a sense my years of blogging were/are my own form of resistance to just getting my own work done. Shooting those singular portraits I want to shoot for an audience that never, ever came from the web. And still doesn't.

It's interesting to have had all this play out in a public forum. It's like broadcasting potty training. Highly embarrassing at times and in the end it's all more or less poop.

Where does it all end? Well of course, in the grave. But at what point does it dawn on an artist that you've ceased to do your authentic art and you have moved into the more or less "blue collar" job of maintaining a web presence with the hope for tips and affiliate income, and that by doing so you've relegated yourself to modifying what you talk about into stuff you think will have wide interest, including techniques you know by heart and gear that's nothing more than transient entertainment?

Well, at least this confessional outflow is more interesting to me than whether or not the new Pentax camera will have HDR bracketing. Of course, my fear in publishing this particular piece is the very real possibility that I will be writing for myself, alone in the near future.

Ah well. What value is a blog if we can't interject a bit of honesty from time to time?

Street photography tip #317: The ugly bucket hat draws all the attention away from the big bandage on my left cheek. So subtle and discreet.

There is a set of mirrors set on an A frame stand out in front of a women's clothing shop called, Sezanne. On either side of the sign are benches. If you sit on either bench you see yourself in the mirror. I sat down and photographed myself in the mirror. I just had to see how chic that faded green bucket hat looked. Impressive. I had to go out and photograph today because I'm banned from swimming until Tuesday morning and the withdrawal effects are starting to get to me. I figured that walking around with a bit, fat, heavy, Veblen Leica and an equally big lens might be a good way to vent some energy. It's rare that I go out photographing with a fast 85mm. And I think it's true what the nuns at my deeply spiritual and very prestigious photo-prep school always said: "When the Lord puts a fast 85mm lens in your hands everything seems like an excuse to put the backgrounds out of focus." 

Zen dining al fresco. With ground grid included. 

Recuperating with super models at the San José Hotel...

The washroom at Jo's is lit during the day only by sunlight shining through a deep red filter in the ceiling. I thought I should document the effect for posterity. I also had a large coffee so.....

Women being photographed in front of the famous wall at one end of Jo's Coffee. 

I don't know how this image got in my camera. Really! I don't know.

I think I was adjusting something on my camera and accidentally hit the 

shutter button. Honest. Random chance. Or are Leica cameras so

advanced they can anticipate what you might have wanted and engaged 

autonomously without your knowledge?

All supervised under the watchful surveillance of the Mannequin squad.

Discreet surveillance from under a wide brimmed hat...

 

Recuperating with coffee at Jo's.

It was a good day to be out having coffee at Jo's. Not crowded. Not too hot. No big agenda. Just me, a camera and a cup of coffee with a slug of half and half in it. Out and about with the big 85mm. Shooting everything I could find at f2.0. Relaxing. It was one of those days on which I was thrilled not to have a job.

 

Cantaloupe. The luscious candy of the fruit world.

 

The more time you waste doing something the more you cherish it.