Loving one very cheap lens in particular. An amazing imaging investment for a bit less than $200. USD. How did they do this???

 

About a month ago I took a small chance on a lens I knew next to nothing about. I felt fine experimenting with something new because the price was so low, but at the same time I presumed that because the lens was so inexpensive that the performance would be nothing really to write home about. Or to write about here. As usual, I was wrong. The lens turned out to be a really good performer and it's one of the few lenses that I carry around with me almost all the time. 

Part of that is because of how good the lens actually is coupled with its relatively small size and weight. It's so manageable. But it's partly because of how much I like the focal length and the smart compromise between focal length and moderate aperture. 

The lens is the TTArtisan's 75mm f2.0 Autofocus lens for the L mount camera systems. It's smaller than either of my similar aperture, big brand, 50mm AF lenses and about half the size and weight of the ponderous Sigma 85mm f1.4 Art lens (type2) that I bought years ago and only use when I have a very specific use in mind. Why do I mostly ignore the Sigma 85mm? Even though the optical performance is surely state of the art the darn thing is too kludgy and weighty to be a fun walking around lens. In studio or on a client project? We'll suck it up and bring it along but for a walk down Congress Avenue with a stop at Jo's for coffee? Nah. Not likely. But the TTArtisan? That's just the ticket. And it's a nice break from all the wide and semi-wide focal lengths that are ubiquitous out in the photo wild. 

Over the last decade or so people's tastes in lenses has changed. A lot, I think. Because of phone cameras and popular compact cameras like the Leica Q series and the Fuji X100 series people have become acculturated to seeing photographs that are mostly taken with wide angle and semi-wide angle lenses and largely presented un-cropped. The iPhone cameras for years sported a 26mm equivalent focal length and people seemed happy enough to use it for portraits and all kinds of documentation. 

I think the wide angle embrace moved the classic use of lenses into wider and wider zones. In the 1970s one of the most popular portrait focal lengths was the 100-105mm. Followed by the 85mm for people who wanted a bit more context in their portraits. Now lens makers are presenting 50mm lenses as "perfect portrait" lenses. I'm old school but I get the appeal of wider points of view than those we embraced earlier in our careers. For me 75mm is the new 85mm. 85mm is the new 105mm; and so on. 

As we progress I'm almost certain that we'll end up using the 50mm focal length on full frame cameras as the de facto "formal" portrait lens. But in the meantime I find that the 75 matches the way I like to see things very well. 

This TTArtisan lens is sharp enough at f2.0 and as sharp as anything out there at f4 and f5.6. I have no fear whatsoever using the lens wide open nearly all the time. Since it's an AF lens with electronic contacts for the L mount system (also available in lesser mounts as well....) it works and focuses well with all of my Leica SL and CL cameras as well as on my Panasonic S5 camera. With focus assist turned on and the camera set to manual focus when I touch the focusing ring the system punches in and shows me a highly magnified image with which to focus. Same as my Leica lenses, my Sigma lenses and my Panasonic lenses. 

The lens even has a USB-C port built into the mount to enable firmware updates. 

All of the images in this post were done with the combination of the 75mm f2.0 lens and a Leica SL2-S, 24 megapixel camera. A nice pairing for walking around making random photographs. 

I paid $185 for my brand new copy. After I bought one my friend, Andy, who is far more patient than I, picked up his brand new one during one of Amazon's sale days for a whopping $158. Amazing for a lens that works as well as this one does. Now we'll have to see about reliability, etc. But really? Can you go far wrong at that price???

Gone totally RED at Jo's Coffee on South Congress. Happy to have had my trusty Q2 at hand.

 

I've been hanging out with David Ingram at Jo's. David brings his very fast Canon camera and a longer lens and mostly catches great shots of motorcycles and fast, loud cars ripping by. But he also photographs lots of people as they drop by Jo's. Now, when I see someone interesting at this long lived, outdoor coffee venue I have no hesitancy about walking up and asking if it would be okay for me to make a photo of them. Nine times out of ten it's perfectly alright. That one out of ten that demurs? I totally respect that. 

I didn't catch this fellow's name but I wish I'd also included the red shoes on his feet. Next time...

OT: What the heck happened to the weather in Austin, Texas in July? Whatever! I'll take it.

The view out of my dining room doors. End of July.

Here in central Texas, for the last five or so years, we've been in droughts of all kinds. Severe droughts. Persistent droughts. Moderate droughts. And, just the plain ole Abnormally Dry kind of drought. By the first of July it's typical for high pressure systems to start hitting the area and locking in triple digit temperatures on an almost daily basis. With heat indexes as high as 114°.  In one recent July 28 days out of the month saw us in the triple digits --- that's 28 out of 31 days. Brutal. Not so much on most of the populace because we've become proficient at air conditioning the heck out of anything you can live in, work in or ride around in. But the heat and lack of moisture is murder on the vegetation/landscaping and also on the animals that live all around us --- but without the benefit of air conditioning. 

By this time every year we've been hearing dire warnings almost daily about the Hill  Country lakes being dangerously low. And they are a major source of the area's drinking water. Restrictions on watering are put into place and fines are levied against those who insist on watering their lawns more than once a week ---  on the day allotted to them. Most of us follow the rules and as a result the luscious green lawns of yesteryear (oh the luscious lawns of the 1970s) will, by this date each year, give up the ghost to turn brown and crunchy underfoot. Like a finely textured sepia desert.

If I were to have shown the image at the top of the blog in any of the previous half dozen August months I would quickly be pilloried by angry conservationists (and rightly so) and perhaps even turned into the authorities as a irrigation criminal. A water scofflaw. But not this year...

We have just gone through the coolest July in 20 years. Twenty Freakin Years! It rained on more days than we had days with sun shine. We had a full week of sub-90° temperatures combined with day after day of soaking rain. In areas to the West of Austin there were flash floods and much tragedy this July. Lives were lost. Properties gone. Houses and cars swept away. But we dodged that here. In my area we had mostly days of long, continuous rain but nothing too dramatic. Nothing unmanageable. 

And right now I can point to the yard over on the South side of the house and say, "See how green this all is? I haven't used a lawn sprinkler since the middle of June!!!!" And that may not seem like a big deal to folks who live in more moderate and wetter areas. But to us? It's almost like fantasy. 

Our major lake is within five feet of being at 100% full. It's amazing. And even this week, in the Dog Days of August, we've been close to 100° but not quite there yet. Not unbearable. Not subjected to the withering mercilessness of abnormal heat. It's amazing to me. And so far the high pressure systems have protected Texas from the smoke of the Canadian and US West coast wildfires. 

Someone asked us where we were going to go on vacation this Summer. B. and I both said, simultaneously, "This is the best Summer in Austin in decades. We're staying right here. We'll be at the pool, over at the club, about a mile and a half from the house. And the rest of the time we'll hit all the new restaurants we read about but which were too crowded to visit before everyone else left to go someplace hotter on vacation..." 

The electric bill for the month of July? To air condition several thousand square feet of house plus an office and studio? $119. Doing our part to save the environment. One Summer at a time.

Succulent gardens rim the house. Amazing. 

Even the secret pathway to downtown coffee is lush and green.

 

Back to Normal. Let's continue where we left off... What a great swim!

It was a textbook perfect morning. When I crawled out of bed at 7 a.m. it was 73° outside with relatively low humidity. Clear skies in every direction. I checked the blog stats and was happy to see a return to our long term normal numbers and visitors. Interested to see that in a one hour segment we get visitors to the blog from 18 or 19 different countries... But this morning there were no unusual anomalies. 

I succeeded in making perfect coffee today. I drank my coffee while working on my laptop to restore archived posts back to the blog. The Blogger program only allows publishing or re-publishing 50 posts at a time so 6110 takes a bit more time than I realized. I was happy to see, as I whipped through the content, that there are some posts that have stood up while over time. But then again there really some that really fall short in retrospect. 

I made it to the pool on time and found the parking lot absolutely full. But being a very entitled individual I went ahead and just made my own parking space... Coach Will was on deck today. I like his workouts. He was just back from the World Championships in Singapore. He saw some really great swims there. Check out NBC Sports on YouTube and look for the Katie Ladecky races, the Summer McIntosh races and the Leon Marchand races. I absolutely guarantee you that they will be way more exciting than anything you'll see watching tennis or some other TV sport.

I jumped into the pool and was thrilled that the water temperature was an absolutely perfect 78°. First week of August in Texas and we're able to keep the pool at competition temperatures. Now that's a wonderful scientific achievement. Will started us out with a typical warm up, and then switched gears and tossed out a set of 12 X100's on tight intervals. Sets of three with the third 100 of each set being I.M. (All four strokes). We moved on to another set with a mix of 150 yard swims interspersed with three 50 yard swims of strokes other than freestyle. 

On a non-swimming note the new Hoka running shoes are great. I laced up after swim practice and knocked out the three mile loop at the lake, trying to get a decent run in before the temperatures cross over into the high 90s°. No complaints whatsoever about the shoes. I could be faster but it's not the shoes' fault. 

I thought about doing some work today but quickly dismissed the idea as counter productive. Instead I have a lunch scheduled with my former ad agency CFO. Just a catch up lunch at our favorite Chinese food restaurant, Lotus Hunan. After that I think I'll take a nice, slow walk with one of the SL2 cameras and that 7Artisan 50mm f1.8 lens I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. I'd also like to see how well the combo works with the new, ivory colored, small, canvas camera bag I bought over the weekend. Nice stuff. 

There are several 50mm lenses coming from Chinese makers like TTArtisan, 7Artisan and Meke which seem to copy the Leica 50mm SL APO lens design, all using eleven elements in nine groups. All of which have specialized glass types in the formulae. These are not your old style "nifty-fifties." And, judging from my limited experience, they are really decent performers. Maybe not on par with the Leica lens of the same focal length and relative speed but available to mortal photographers at prices that are a tiny fraction of the cost of the Leica lenses....  I'm buying up this new crop as though they were candy. Delicious candy...

But one lens I've had my eyes on isn't as inexpensive and isn't made in China. It's the Voigtlander 35mm f2.0 APO lens for the M mount. I have the 50mm version and it's beyond superb. It's the best 50mm I've ever owned. And I've owned (and still own) a lot. I've gone back and forth about the 35mm since I already have that company's 35mm f1.4 Nokton MC and the Carl Zeiss ZM 35mm f2.0 M mount as well as a couple of 35mm lenses for the L mount cameras. I probably don't need the endless duplication but one of my friends has a duplicate of the Voigtlander 35 APO and he's indicated that he will sell it to me at a very low price. 

I was on the fence but yesterday I decided I should probably go for it. That lens, coupled with its sibling 50mm, and two M bodies to mount them on would make a perfect, medium small travel kit. At least that's my rationale. 

It looks to be a mellow but hot week. Kind of glad I dropped a fortune on a completely new air conditioning system for the house. There goes the cash I was saving up for a Hasselblad system. Oh well. It's better to be cool than over equipped.

The blog soldiers on. As complete with off topic ramblings as ever. 

Two of the stars of the International Swim Championships last week are coming here to UT to train under coach, Bob Bowman. They are Summer McIntosh and Leon Marchand. Can't wait for them to drop by the WHAC pool for a swim. I'll try to act nonchalant...

Ben. At an age group swim meet many years ago. 

Yes, he still swims at least two days a week but his 

default is running... Where did I go wrong?

Head gear for hot times. One of many options. 

this is where I swam all during high school. 

Alamo Heights High School students were fortunate to

have an indoor, state of the art, 25 yard pool right on 

campus. It was pretty fabulous. I hear a lot of people

hated their time in high school. Not me. I got to swim

with cool, smart people at 5:30 every morning and then

again at 3:30 every afternoon. All good memories.

We're back. But we really never left. I'm learning to ignore blog stats.

I think it's better that way. 

 

"Bags of indecision." "Choice paralysis." Minimize to liberate.

 

cool weather pictures chosen on purpose. 

Visualizing cooler weather....

In the recent past I've made a point of only taking one camera and one lens with me when shooting for fun in order to not be weighed down, literally, or figuratively. If I have only one camera and one lens with me I never have to hesitate and make choices. And, if I'm working on hot days, I don't have extra gear to carry around with sweaty hands and lower energy. 

In fact, except when I'm photographing for clients I rarely think about taking along a camera bag. I generally have the camera and lens hanging over one shoulder. I keep an extra battery, along with my car's key fob,  in my front left pants pocket, my wallet in my front right pocket, someone dollar bills in my left rear pocket and, if I want to further encumber myself then my cellphone goes in the right rear pocket. Done. No other stuff necessary. 

But I seem to be changing my mind and I blame it on the rising heat levels in the Summer. Yeah, climate change. Yeah, global warming. And, grudgingly, I find I want to take other stuff --- like lens cleaning clothes, a different lens, etc. But I recently realized that the one advantage I've been looking for is some discreet transport "mechanism" that keeps my mostly black cameras and my mostly black lenses out of the direct sun when they are not in use. Infrared warming on black metal camera bodies is a real thing. In Texas, in the Summer, the heat soaked up by an all black camera pushes the camera's electronics beyond their stated engineered-in limitations. Most cameras are heat-rated to about 104 or 105 degrees, max. If that's the same as the ambient temperature then a camera exposed to direct sun for even ten minutes can quickly climb in temperature to over 125°. At that point the internal electronics are prone to accelerated wear, early failure, and in the best case, just a bunch of noise added to the files. 

Many cameras I've used in previous Summers, like the Fuji GFX 50S and the Sony A7Rii, started giving me heat warnings after only five minutes of walking in sunlight on days when the ambient temperatures were just over 103°. And that sure puts a crimp in your day of photography. 

While I haven't had problems with most of my Leicas in Summer heat I did start to get some performance slowdowns with a Q2 recently. In its defense the symptoms started about an hour into a walk on an afternoon when the temps had crept about 100° and the humidity was plainly uncomfortable. 

The camera recovered quickly in the shade but it really started me thinking...

I wrote yesterday about my preparations for an outdoor shoot I'll be doing next Saturday. Here's a screen shot of the weather as predicted almost a week out::

The shoot is mostly exterior. I know pretty well how to work in this kind of weather. Lots of sunscreen. Hats with big brims. Neck wraps with evaporation gels. Frequent breaks in the shade. Access to air conditioning when things get dicey. But cameras can heat up quickly and they don't sweat or self cool. 

I'll mostly be working with a Leica SL2 and the big 24-90mm f2.8 Leica lens. All black. Both of them. I'll have a bunch of white cloths cut to 14 by 14 inches (Terrycloth) that I can keep damp to put on top of the cameras as needed but I decided that I wanted a light-to-white colored camera bag to dump the gear into while we're scouting or lining up talent or otherwise out in the sun but not quite ready to shoot. Most of the camera bags and backpacks we have in house are black or dark brown, etc. They were never engineered to reflect IR or to basically, breathe. They are made for folks working milder climates. That will change...

I wrote yesterday about an Ivory White photo backpack I bought from a company called, BagSmart. It's great bag and I can't wait to put it through its paces on the shoot. Whatever gear isn't in use will be in the confines of the white backpack. Once I sorted that out I felt really prepared to work with the black cameras in the heat. But I started thinking beyond the upcoming paid shoot to my day-to-day stuff. What would I like to change about the way I walk around with gear in the Summer when shooting just for fun? Just for myself?

Here's a typical scenario where the camera is exposed to excess heat: I park somewhere and decide to walk a route from North to South on a Summer day in mid-morning. Already in the mid-90s here. I have a camera over my left shoulder because....well, it always feels comfortable on my left shoulder. Strong habit. When I want to shoot with the camera I grab it with my right hand. But my left shoulder is facing nearly directly east. Directly into the sun. And I may walk for a mile or so before I see something that I want to photograph so the camera just dangles there getting toasty as I walk along. I try to shade it with my left arm but it doesn't usually work. The camera gets warm to the touch. A bit later it's uncomfortably hot to the touch and that's a warning sign for how high the temperature must be inside the camera body...

Ideally I'll break with my tradition of not bringing along a camera bag. I'll carry the camera, my phone, my house and studio keys, an extra battery, lens caps, lens wipes and some cash in a small, easy to carry bag that does its part to mitigate the heat issue. And the way a bag does that best is to be very light in color. Mostly like...white. 

Being a jaded, gear happy photographer I went to B&H and looked for white camera bags. I found stuff for the little Fuji and Leica Instax cameras but they were too small and looked like crap. I looked for Peak products or Think Tank or Tenba. Oh hell, I even looked for Billingham but it seems like the bag makers have uniformly decided that all photographers want dark gray or black bags. The closest to my color preference were the "sand" colored bags from Domke. But they were bigger than I wanted and too pricy for what the use case entailed. And "sand" isn't really that close to white. It's better than black but.... why settle for half way?

Since I'd had good luck with the ivory colored backpack from BagSmart I circled back to Amazon and searched for a small, but not too small, camera bag from the same company. And I found exactly what I wanted. It was $31 USD; less than a nice lunch out.  

It's called this: 

BAGSMART Camera Bag, SLR DSLR Canvas Crossbody Camera Case, Compact Camera Shoulder Bag with Rain Cover for Women and Men, Ivory White

 and here's a link if you are interested: Link-o-matic  No benefit to me.

I bought one and it came to the studio today. It is exactly, exactly what I was looking for. A bag big enough to drop the SL2 and the big lens into. A respite from the direct rays of the sun. Almost like the "ever ready" cases of old but more workable and less expensive now. The bag is well padded, comes with a very serviceable shoulder strap, compartment dividers, zippered pockets and a quick-to-access top flap. It even came with a rain cover. I love it. And it does not scream, "Camera Bag." 

I'll stuff it with a Leica M240 and a lens tomorrow, and all the stuff described above, and take it out for a spin to prove my concept to myself. If it works then I will have made a new "friend" to help me survive the ravages of the Summer. 

Why don't I like to carry cameras bags with more choices of lenses and stuff? Because, as the title to the blog says, the access to choices, and having to decide between two or more options, can  be paralytic to the process of engaging with photography. And really, no matter which lens you have on your camera you'll find yourself thinking, "Should I be using that cool 20mm I  brought along instead? Or is this the perfect shot for the 85mm?" And it's even worse if you are one of those "holy trinity of zooms" photographers and you have crammed the three cliché zooms into one overstuffed camera bag. "Do I need to zoom to 183mm or will 19.5mm work better for this subject?" No. None of them will work better....

Work is one thing but too much choice sucks the pleasure out of photography quickly when you are doing it just for fun. Two lenses at the maximum, each riding on an identical body if you must. But never anything more. You can always bring a different set the next time...

We can't really leave stuff in the cars in Texas unless we know we'll be parking in a secure parking garage. The heat in an exposed, parked car can quickly ruin just about everything you leave in it. I know. I've experienced it. Nothing like heat to mobilize the lubricants used in your lenses. Just thinking about the lubricant slowly spreading across an inner element in a prize lens is enough to dissuade most photographers from the practice. 

Stay safe and keep yourself and your gear cool.  Have a great Summer.

The studio is the place for lots of different lenses. Just leave em on a cart and grab what you need.

That day I went to the Pecan Street Festival with just a 28mmm on an M.

My Current Favorite Camera and Lens for just walking around soaking up life's images.

 

This is a Leica typ 240 M-E.

The lens is a Voigtlander 50mm APO. 

I imagine that everyone has a favorite camera that cycles back into play no matter how many other, newer cameras have joined the pack. For me, at least for the last year or so, it's been this particular combination. 

While the original M 240 camera was introduced in 2013 the M-E showed up much later; in 2019. One could conjecture that in the intervening years Leica had a lot of time to fine tune and perfect the operation of the camera and the firmware that runs everything. Of my three Ms it seems the most solid but that could just be a placebo effect given that I know it has a bigger buffer and a few other speed improvements. I'm sure it's the same 24 megapixels CMOS sensor found in all the other models but it shares some DNA with the P series. And given the pristine condition and later year of manufacturing I think it is almost unused compared to older Leicas.

Since I live in Texas I've come to prefer it for Summer use because of the industrial metal finish which should be less of a heat magnet than the usual (beautiful) black paint finish of the regular M 240 cameras. 

I've use this camera a lot but have yet to inflict a scrape, ding or insult to the finish. I tend to pay attention when I handle it. When I purchased my copy the price for these cameras, of which only about 600 were made, was $3200. Since that time the used price has skyrocketed to well over $4,000. Which basically means (for all the Leica deniers) that, should I sell mine today for around $4,000 I will have been paid a positive $800 for the privilege of using the camera for 18 months. That's a better rate of return by far than the S&P 500 Index Funds. Sadly though I doubt I'll ever exercise the gain since I find the camera irresistible and don't need the extra cash anymore. 

For a regular M shooter, not a collector, I think of the M or typ 240 cameras as the most practical and probably the most enjoyable of all the digital Ms. The batteries have incredible stamina. The full frame sensor has very nice, very individualist color rendering. The camera is built like a German tank and I rarely hear of them failing mechanically. I like that I can add an EVF if I need one. I imagine my only real need for the EVF would be when using wide and ultra wide lenses like the 24, 21 or 18mm varieties. For longer lenses I think other cameras are more convenient and effective. 

There are drawbacks, of course. Compared to later M cameras the sensor is noisier in low light. That might have been a bigger issue before Adobe came out with a great artificial intelligence noise reduction feature in Lightroom. I use it when I absolutely want to shoot at higher ISOs in low light. Works well. At least a two stop improvement for underserved files. 

The camera is also thicker front to back than the previous models or the models that follow it. Some have conjectured that it was to accommodate video capability by I think it was just good, basic engineering which was aimed at allowing for more space inside to deal with heat build up in rough climatic conditions. If one switches between this unit and older or newer models there is probably some friction that derives from the operational and hold-ability difference. And the M 240 was the heaviest of all the digital Ms. But that's never been an issue for me since I tend to use them one at a time and don't need to carry spare batteries. 

Whenever I am out and about with this camera I am asked by most people who are interested in cameras if this one (the M-E) is a film camera or a digital camera. It does have a unique, retro vibe. While the menus aren't the state of the art menus I've become accustomed to in the SL2 variants, or the Q2, or the new DLUX8 they are short, not overly detailed and easy to master in a day or so of use. 

When I see another M-E for sale I'll probably buy it if the prices stay reasonable. When it switches from being a "user" camera to a collectible camera I'll most probably consider myself priced out of the market. People scoff at special models and special editions from Leica but this M-E was first marketed as an economical way to enter into the system and priced that way. A final production run of the M 240 series to use up all the various parts on hand in manufacturing. I like that its interface matches my two other Ms and would love to have a travel system comprised of just two M-E bodies and a small selection lenses. With the black models at home as a redundancy. 

One could do a lot worse. 

I've been buying batteries as they become available. I have two on order at B&H and they have been on backorder for months. That's okay, I ordered two new batts last year and I also have five older batteries that came as part of deals on used camera bodies over the last few years. If you take good care of your batteries they can last a really long time. 

Blog note: I'm sorry I veered back into writing about cameras. I know you were desperate to hear more about my new running shoes. They seem very exotic to me. One of my friends who is a daily runner is a big believer in cycling through shoes. One day of running followed by several days "resting the foam and rubber".  Given that he runs every day he keeps a rotating stock of shoes to facilitate the process of cycling through the shoes and letting them rest between runs. He has seven or eight pairs of recent Hoka running shoes. He calls himself "the Imelda Marcos of Running Shoes." And he's proud of it. 

final note. When I said I didn't give a hoot about EV cars I was misunderstood. A reader (anonymous) had to leave a pithy comment. He wrote: "I feel sorry for you and for the climate." Now, I care about the environment, I really do. But EV cars don't fit every situation. Not by a long shot.

If I were a "high mileage commuter" I would probably have bought a hybrid or a fully electric car of some sort by now. But my average driving mileage is about half of the USA average and I don't commute at all. No real savings here since I'd need to change cars from some that's already paid for to accomplish EV theater and then drive the new car for years and years to hit some sort of practical inflection point.

Did I mention that we've still got  a ways to go on the Hoka Stinton 7 shoe reviews? We're just now past the unboxing episode..... Now I know that got your attention!!!!!

It's been month since I wrote this: THE HOMEOSTASIS OF JOY. It's still true...

 https://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2025/07/homeostasis-of-joy.html

"YOUR FOCUS DETERMINES YOUR REALITY." 

BE HAPPY