The Online Photographer

How Many Is Just Right?

Before I get a reputation as a hair-shirt, two-prime ascetic, simon-pure—unless it's already to late—:

How many lenses would you have if you could have all the lenses you want?

You can just give us the number. You don't have to go into the whole grisly blow-by-blow.

I've always held that four is the max. But, incredible as it might sound, I'm really not sure if I've ever owned as many as four lenses for the main camera I was using at any given time in my life. Surely that must be wrong, but I can't think of an exception off the top of my head. I have three lenses for my X-T1 right now. Well, four, but two of them are the same lens (long story), so, really, three.

Of course, I also have an Apo-Sironar 5x7 lens, a normal 80mm ƒ/2.8 Schneider for a Rolleiflex 6008AF, a Konica M-Hexanon 35mm ƒ/2 for Leica M mount, and a Panasonic-Leica 45mm ƒ/2.8 Macro for Micro 4/3—among other things—but let's not get into my psychological issues, eh?  ;-)

Mike

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Tom: "Five. I'd have what was the standard photojournalist's bagful from the beginning of my career, 24mm, 35mm, 55mm-ish Micro, 85mm and 70–200mm. Day-to-day I'd carry the 35mm and 85mm. The older I get the more I realise where I started was the optimum place."

Jeff: "Three or four, maximum, per camera. All native lenses, which is a critical part of the camera system purchase decision."

Eolake: "I’ve been selling lenses left and right in the past year, so now I’m down to.... Uhm, not sure, thirteen? Well, if you count the lenses on my vintage cameras (Pentax Spotmatic, Nikon F2, etc), then maybe twenty-nine."

Dennis Mook: "Five. Fujifilm...10–24mm ƒ/4, 16–55mm ƒ/2.8, 23mm ƒ/1.4, 50–140mm ƒ/2.8, and 100–400mm ƒ/4.5–5.6. Need the versatility for stock photography."

Kalli: "If I could have all the lenses I want, I'd have a metric ton of lenses. And I'd probably still use my current primary lens well over 90% of the time, so that'd be a LOT of glass gathering dust around my flat."

Jim Simmons: "That's easy—I'd want every lens Fuji makes for the X system. I'd trial them all and narrow it down to whichever ones I fell in love with."

marcin wuu: "I take photos of faces. I only want one—the 85mm ƒ/1.4 equivalent for any given film/sensor size."

Mike replies: People who know what their subject is are the happiest people.

Michael H: "I currently have nine...but three are for sale...so that I can afford to buy another.  :-) "

John: "There is no just right number if you shoot multiple genres. I could easily get rid of some of my lenses if I gave up bird photography. Likewise, despite the many lenses I do own, I realized today that I don’t have the right lens to shoot a high school theater performance. It’s horses for courses."

Peter: "One prime."

SF Murph: "One more."

Kenneth Tanaka: "(No comment.)"

Ken's Canon drawer

Ken Bennett: "Oh, wow, that is a difficult question. I'd have to ask, what's the purpose of owning the camera and lenses? Why are we making these photos? When I grab a bag for personal work, or travel, or fun, I usually have three or four lenses. But for actual work, I feel like I need to own most or all of the lenses in a system. That's how it is with the Fuji system right now, and I had a very large collection of Canon lenses when that was my primary system."

Mike replies: Did you by any chance sell all your Canon lenses to another guy named Ken?

Adrian: "Eight. The viewing and taking lenses for the wide, normal and tele Rolleiflexes, and the two on my iPhone X."

Mike replies: That's hardcore!

Matt: "Two. I have more but don't care about carrying more than two. One is restrictive, three a hassle."

John Car: "20, 35, 85, 180mm."

Mike replies: That happens to be just about exactly the classic photojournalist's kit, c. 1970s in the US.

Rod S.: "In architectural photography, one quickly realises that buildings are surrounded by immovable obstacles such as streets, walls and other buildings and, consequently, the available vantage points for a successful photograph are often limited and close. That means you need wide angle lenses having the largest available image circles, permitting lots of lens rise, to get it all in. For my 4x5 tool of choice my standard walk-around lenses are the Schneider Super Angulon XL 72mm (21 mm-e) and 90mm (28mm-e). I've just added a Super Symmar XL 110mm (35mm-e) on the long end so I can back off a bit more (when there's sufficient space to do so) and reduce the 'ship's prow' distortion that creeps in when one is too close to the corner of a building. Occasionally the 58mm (15mm-e) and 150mm 45mm-e) are useful to have in the car or hotel.

"So for my architecture on 4x5, the answer is five."

scott kirkpatrick: "Fewer than Ken Tanaka, at least."

Joe Kashi: "I'm taking the Fifth Amendment!"

Mike replies: You'd better confess. I'm a pretty nice guy, but my partner here....

For Further Reading

...On some of the reasoning behind owning a "kit" of only a couple of good prime lenses:

The Case Against Zooms (2003)

Why 40mm? (2005)

I should also point out that the case for getting to know a few prime lenses well was exponentially easier to make back in the days of film, because a great many of the most serious and ambitious photographers back then photographed mainly with one of these three types of camera: a rangefinder 35mm like a Leica; a medium-format camera like a Hasselblad or Rolleiflex; or a view camera. With very few exceptions (a few multi-focal-length lenses for Leica M mount, a few very heavy, slow, expensive zooms of limited range for medium-format cameras), all those camera types used only prime lenses. And an overwhelming majority of photographers who used such cameras owned—yep—one, two, or three prime lenses.

Nowadays, I am bereft of most of these natural allies, because almost everyone has switched to digital*.  But the lessons of the past remain good ones, even as they are being lost.

Mike

*Although it's very ironic—and delightful!—that, as SteveW pointed out in the previous post, that the latest iPhones come equipped with the equivalent of two prime lenses.

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Michael Ferron: "A big yes on the 40mm. My Fuji lives with the 27mm pancake on it, my most used film camera an Olympus RC has a 42mm and my new A6000 has a Sigma 30mm ƒ/1.4 mounted that does not come off the camera often. So this gives me a range of approximately 40–45mm. 45mm is pushing the long end of the short normal for me but still doable; 50mm just starts looking too damn long for all around one lens work. My two cents."

More on a Two-Lens Kit: The Classic Variant

Of course there are many ways to construct one's own arsenal of lenses. (No one—or very few people anyway—ever has all of them, so choices must be made.)

Two methods that are the farthest from the present topic might be: 1. To own many different cameras of many different brands, plus a few lenses for each, and choose which camera to use based on immediate need, mood, and whimsy; 2. To own a large selection of lenses for your camera of choice and decide what combination of lenses to take or pack on a day-by-day, assignment-by-assignment, or excursion-by-excursion basis. I do know a few well-heeled* amateurs who do the former, and most pros do the latter. (In the studio I was part of in the '90s, the Paul Kennedy Studio of Takoma Park, Maryland, Paul kept a 28mm Nikkor on hand, along with all his other lenses, despite his dislike of that focal length, just for when art directors would say, "Let's see that with a 28." He almost never used it for anything else.)

But being a teacher deep down, what I've always recommended is to get to know a few lenses well. How well? Well, as well as possible. One good way to do that is to own only one, or two, or three. And the first lenses you should master should be single-focal-length lenses, AKA "primes."**

Boiling all this down, we come to the most basic or classic form of the two-lens kit, which consists of a moderate wide-angle prime and a moderate telephoto prime. Of course, you can construct such a set of lenses for almost any lensmount. Here are a few nice examples:

For Micro 4/3:

Panasonic-Leica DG Summilux 15mm ƒ/1.7 ASPH.

Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 45mm ƒ/1.8

This is of course far from the only classic two-lens kit you could construct in Micro 4/3. There are many variants. But both of these lenses are light, tiny, quite adequately fast, and optically excellent.

It's odd to consider this, in these overheated consumerist times, but a person could quite conceivably be a fully committed and dedicated expressive photographer and use no lenses but these two little ones indefinitely.

From the high-value Sigma ART series for full-frame DSLRs:

Sigma 35mm ƒ/1.4 DG HSM Art

Sigma 85mm ƒ/1.4 DG HSM Art

And finally for Fuji X (APS-C), these two lovelies:

Fujifilm XF 23mm ƒ/1.4 R

Fujifilm XF 56mm ƒ/1.2 R

These two Fujis are both utterly lovely, brilliant lenses that will knock your socks off on a regular basis—they can do anything you ask of them and they have no weak points. This is as close as makes no difference to a theoretically perfect pair.

The above are only three example pairs among many, of course. Note that I'm not saying it's wrong or bad to own many lenses, and many experienced photographers can shoot with zooms successfully (another now-common type of two-lens kit is the wide-angle and telephoto zoom pair, the only one of the various two-lens kits mentioned thus far that is actually sometimes used by working pros). But for generalist expressive photography, it's quite possible to own and use only two primes. Just because you can photograph a critter or a linebacker at 300 paces and see the blood on its teeth, and just because you can take a tiny object like a gear in a watch movement and make it huge by photographing it from mere centimeters away—etc., etc.—doesn't mean every generalist has to equip herself to do so. Happy is the snapper who knows two primes like they knew their childhood backyard. Unless you're dealing with a specific, specialist assignment, it's all most people really need, if we're being honest.

Mike

*George Orwell mentions in Down and Out in Paris and London that you could usually tell the relative prosperity of a tramp by looking at his shoes. The expression dates from the mid-1800s, when how well a person dressed was an essential telltale of social status. Everyone wore leather shoes in those days, and maintained them by taking them to a cobbler for routine repair. A common failing of leather shoes was that the heel would come off; thus, someone who was forced to walk on shoes with no heels for reasons of penury was said to be "down at heel," and someone who was the opposite was said to be "well-heeled." It came to be a colloquial synonym for "wealthy."

**The actual original definition of "prime lens" isn't exactly just a single focal length lens, but that's the way it's now widely used, so we all must bow to common usage. The original meaning—the principle or basic component in a set of convertible element groups—has become a "retronym."

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SteveW: "I agree with this. Lately I've been shooting with 28mm/58mm on a Nikon D750. I'm happy as a clam with these two lenses. (Coincidentally, this pair is similar to my iPhone Plus 28/56)."

Nguyenhm16: You know I actually had the Sigma 35mm/85mm combo (well, it was the prior version of the 85mm), but found myself never using or bringing along the 85mm because it crossed the line into too heavy. This is on Nikon. When I had Canon I had the 35mmL/85mmL combo, and got rid of the 85mmL for the same reason, and got a 85mm ƒ/1.8 instead. Might try again with the Tamron 85mm ƒ/1.8 VC. To me the image stabilization plus lighter weight would be more useful than ƒ/1.4."

Dave Stewart replies to Nguyenhm16: "That 85mm Tamron is a big and heavy beast, at 700g (1.54lb). Both Nikon's current and previous ƒ/1.8 versions are almost half that, and both the current and previous ƒ/1.4 versions are lighter. Tamron's VC is very good though. Side-by-side comparison tool courtesy of DP Review."

Eolake: "Good picks. I don’t have a favorite Micro 4/3 wideangle lens, but I really love the Oly 45mm. It’s tiny, reasonably priced, and beautiful optically. Outstanding lens."

xfmj: "For Micro 4/3rds I have a Panny 20mm and that Oly 45mm. Both are great. I've in particular grown very fond of the look the 45mm provides, so much so that for landscapes I have a 'two lenses with one' (a TLwO?) kit: I just turn the 45mm's view vertical, take three or four shots, then stitch them together for that moderate wide view. The resulting print is just brighter with detail than what you get with any of the 28–40mm-e lenses, even in the grizzled northwest US. I recommend the TLwO kit for extreme portability, should a person happen to enjoy fussing with computers a little after a long hike."

Dean Forbes: "The Fuji pair are what I regularly have attached to a pair of X-T2s. Love them!"

Kalli: "Alternative two-lens kit: iPhone X."

John Krumm: "I definitely agree with you here about lenses. Relatedly, I find I enjoy printing more if I stick to a couple sizes and mostly one paper. I print a lot of 4x6 photos as a growing 'proof' stack (just the ones I like). Then every once in a great while I have one I want larger. My wife helps me weed out the proof stack (usually my landscapes fall victim to her editing)."

The Two Most Important Things About Photography Equipment

 

The two most important things
about photo equipment:

How the lens sees the world, and
how well you see what the lens sees.

In other words, your understanding of how the lens will render the "pretext," AKA the reality in front of the camera; and, how well the camera lets you aim the lens, i.e., the viewfinder and your skill using it.

That's according to me, anyway.

Note that, importantly, this definition doesn't specify either how the lens renders, or what kind of viewfinder the camera has to have or how you will use it. It's always been an article of faith with me that you can take good pictures with any kind of camera, no matter how bad, and you can take bad pictures with any kind of camera, no matter how good.

But to me, the lens's characteristics and the viewfinder are the most important things about photo equipment. YMMV of course!

Mike

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marcin wuu: "Viewfinder was one of the two main reasons I switched to mirrorless. Being able to see the photo exactly (well, almost) as it will be taken beforehand is simply mindblowing. (The other reason is the ability to mount just about any existing lens. Geekery exquisite.)"

Jim Simmons: "The best combo of lens and viewfinder I've ever used: Leicaflex SL and 50mm Summicron (and 90mm Summicron). The viewfinder screen had a circular semi-coarse microprism in the centre, surrounded by what looked like a matte screen, but was actually a micro-prism surface so fine you could not see the texture. But when you focus the image, it 'snaps' into focus like no other viewfinder experience I've ever seen. The viewfinder's only drawback is that it shows a 92% view, not 100%, as it was designed to simulate what you would get from a mounted transparency, right down to the rounded corners."

A 'Nested' Two-Lens Kit for the Pentax K-1

[First of all, I think I'll name the idea we've been talking about, and called it a "nested" tw0-lens kit. Definition: One big heavy do-everything zoom and a small, light, portable lens with a focal length inside the focal-length range of the zoom. Just so we know what we're talking about and I don't have to redefine it every time I mention it. If you don't like the name, fret not, as my names for things never catch on. Well, except for "bokeh" and "OC/OL/OY."]

Now then, moving on: the Pentax K-1 is, as you know, The Perfect Enthusiast Camera. Here's a comprehensive list of what it has that enthusiasts want:

1. Everything

And here's the comprehensive accounting of its drawbacks, shortcomings, and weaknesses:

1.

So now that's done, then the question is, what's a great "nested" two-lens kit for it? Submitted for your consideration:

HD Pentax-D FA 28–105mm ƒ/3.5–5.6 ED DC WR

SMC Pentax-FA 43mm ƒ/1.9 Limited

Pentax lenses, unfortunately, do have a drawback. Damn things are just too sharp. Have a look. Am I right?

Mike

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Book of Interest

This almost cannot fail to be interesting. Turns out that Michael Kenna, known since forever for his exquisite work with a Hasselblad on a tripod, has been photographing on the side for many years with...Holgas. The yin of the yang, the other end of the stick, the lo-fi to his usual hi-fi. And he's finally putting out a book of his best Holga images from over the years.

At the very least, the man is the master of the square composition, which should be fully on display in his Holga work. And his work is all about mysterious, impressionistic simplicity, and I don't see how a Holga would be in conflict with that, either.

This will be a must-see for all Michael Kenna fans, I would guess, as well as fans of toy camera work.

Mike
(Thanks to Ken Tanaka)

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Nigel: "I bought this wonderful monograph today as a matter of coincidence. On a first viewing I was knocked out by this wonderful poetic series of pictures. I love the work of Michel Kenna. He took a series of landscape pictures up in the hills above my town, in a place I know well and have photographed many times. Seeing his pictures of Canossa made me realise, unfortunately, the mediocrity of my own photography. He recently held an exhibition here in Reggio Emilia of a series of photographs he took of 'confessionals' in a series of local churches. Despite the offbeat subject, the exhibition was most engaging. The camera might be primitive, but the darkroom skills used to create these photographs are definitely not. This is one of those books like my tattered Kertesz 50 years monograph that I will reach for when I need to cheer myself up."

TC: "I was visiting Luang Prabang, Laos, several years back, and I went up to the small hill with a temple on top of at the center of town. It was crowded with tourists wanting to take photos on the sunset, while I, to their apparent dismay, took pictures of the tourists. After the sun slipped below the horizon, everyone left, but I stuck around. After everyone else had left, a photographer showed up with a tripod and began setting it up facing the temple. It was Michael Kenna. He looked at me, the sole remaining person on the hill, grinned, and said, 'Wait for the light. It's about to get really nice.' And it was. Not my type of shot, personally, but really nice."

Michelle Bates: "This is so exciting! I met Michael at an opening in Seattle years ago and noticed one of the images in his calendar looked familiar. I asked (tentatively) if it was a Holga photo and he said (with mock horror) 'Would I use a Holga?!' 'I don't know, would you?' 'Yes—I love Holgas!' Such a fun moment! I convinced him to be part of my book, and featured his Holga images in the second edition of Plastic Cameras: Toying with Creativity. I was always hoping he would do an exhibition of the images, and I'm thrilled that he's doing a book—I can't wait to add it to my toy camera library!"

Mike replies: Great to hear from you Michelle—it's been quite a while since we featured the first edition of your book.

What Range Zoom Should You Buy?

This morning, beuler wrote:

A long time ago I read somewhere on the young Internet that you shouldn't think of a zoom lens as several primes in one lens. Instead, you should think of it as a prime lens with flexible framing. Thus a 24–70mm lens is really a 41mm that allows framing to be adjusted. Why 41mm? The square root of the product of 24 and 70 is ~41. An example from the wide end of the focal spectrum would be an 16–35mm lens replacing a 24mm by adding framing adjustment.

Indeed. That's the reasoning behind the excellent Pentax HD DA 20–40mm ƒ/2.8–4 ED Limited DC WR zoom lens—it's a tweakable, or adjustable, normal. The equivalent is given as 30.5mm to 61.5mm; having one means you don't have to decide between the common short-to-normal prime options. Playing beuler's trick of the square root of the product, rounding up just slightly, the Pentax 20–40mm is really best thought of as an adjustable 50mm.

It takes a pretty subtle enthusiast to realize that. Ordinary consumers just see a zoom without enough range. But that's a disservice to the product in this case.

One of the most interesting zooms you can buy,
but you have to realize what it's meant to be.

Long ago, Pentax prototyped a zoom with an even narrower range, but numbers typically don't stick in my memory. It was something like a 32–39mm, and was meant to be an adjustable 35mm. Maybe a deep Pentaxian can provide the actual information. I think it exists somewhere on Boz Dimitrov's site. (Oracular and all-knowing Oren might be able to delve into the relevant archive at Stately Oren Manor. I'll try to remember to ask.)

Using a zoom as an "adjustable prime" takes a little deliberate self-training, I would guess. You need to get comfortable starting out with it in a middle position. It has to do with your mental conception of the tool you're using, rather than being a matter of the equipment itself.

Whack that conception as with a stout cudgel
Now then—laying devil's advocate, let's look at this the other way around. I recall reading somewhere on the young Internet—or even before that, in those antiquated information delivery systems we used to use called "magazines"—that most photographers actually use zoom lenses by slamming them to either the short end or the long end, seldom landing in the middle anywhere. That is, they used them like two primes.

That suggests a good way to decide what zoom lens to buy. You could just ask yourself, would I be happy with [prime on the short end] and [prime on the long end]? That is, if you were considering a 24–70mm, you would ask yourself how comfortable you'd be shooting with a two-lens kit that consisted of a 24mm single-focal-length lens and a 70mm single-focal-length lens.

Right away that would suggest a problem to me. Because 70mm, as a prime, just isn't long enough to suit my tastes.

Since I believe I have a little more discipline than to use any zoom only at its extremes, the question I'd ask myself would be, if the wide end were a prime, would it be wide enough for what I like to do with it? And similarly, if the long end were a long prime, would it be long enough to do what I want to do with that?

Based on long experience being me, I know that, for myself (please do note the qualifications, they do mean what they say) generally a 24mm is as wide as I ever need to go, but that I like to be able to go to 85mm on the long end (and 35mm–40mm is my "home" or comfort area). I can get by with just a 35mm or 40mm. The second lens I would need, historically, is an 85mm or 90mm. The third is a wide angle, but it doesn't need to be wider than 24mm because I just don't usually see pictures that way. (And yes, I've explored that—a year or two back, I photographed a lot with the XF 14mm ƒ/2.8 (21mm-e) glued to my Fuji. I grew to love that lens—it's an absolute honey—but I still don't think I need anything that wide. With the 14mm off the camera, I very seldom feel the need to put it back on.

And sure enough, the lens I've ended up using, albeit for different reasons (image stabilization), is the Fuji 18–55mm. (By happenstance I've ended up with two of them.) The equivalent focal-length range is 27–84mm, and, true to predictions, I'm pretty comfortable with that. I don't think 24–85mm-e is a very common lens spec for small-than-FF-sensor cameras, though.

It's always fun to speculate about lens choices. The only trouble with it is that the actual lenses cost money, and, thinking we "need" something somewhat different than what you have, some of us tend to spend more than we should. (We hate it when that happens, but we can usually rationalize doing it anyway.) The next lens I need to experiment with is a long zoom, but I can't afford another lens right at the moment.

So if you're buying an all-purpose zoom to use as your main normal lens, just ask yourself, if the short end were a prime, would it be short enough? And, if the long end were a prime, would it be long enough? That should take you a long way toward identifying what focal length range you should be looking at.

Mike

UPDATE: Boz's site lists the "exact name" of the Flexi prototype as "smc PENTAX-M FLEXI 1:2.8 35mm." If that's true, it was actually going to called a "35mm" lens. It was indeed a very short-range 32–39mm ƒ/2.8 zoom. It was shown at Photokina 1978 but never made it into production. (Thanks to Oren Grad and Iñaki Arbelaiz.)

And from our friend Ned Bunnell, who as you know is the former president of Pentax USA:

"Good memory Mike. The Pentax lens you referred to was the 'M 32–39mm ƒ/2.8 Flexi.' It was shown at Photokina in '78, but it never produced.

"The only reason I remember this is on one of my many trips to Pentax Japan, one of their lens designers (who knew I was a avid photographer) showed me the final handmade prototype that was buried in the back of a display. It was called a flexi because it was primarily a 35mm lens with the ability to adjust the lens focal length slightly to 32 or 39. I took a photo of it, but have no idea where it is now. However, I recall the zoom collar was clearly marked 35 with a white line on either side giving you an indication of how far you could zoom either way. The zoom action was precise but smooth and I thought the concept was really nice. Rather than move the camera slightly back and forth to make that final composition tweak, or worst case step back or forward, a simple adjustment to the zoom collar gave you the exact image frame you wanted.

"I told the designer I would have bought one, which prompted a big smile from him."

Mike replies: You should have bought that prototype...!

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Mark Roberts: "Some manufacturer should take the 'flexi' zoom/prime concept to the ~100mm macro. In outdoor macro work, a little reframing capability without moving your entire tripod around would be wonderful. (Yes, macro focusing rails exist, but that's just one more piece of kit to have to carry into the field.) A 90–100mm macro zoom would be sweet.  :-)  "

Barry Reid: "Way back all the top manufacturers had 28–85-ish zooms and I really prefer that extra range at the long end over the now standard 24–70mm. Mine was the Canon FD 28–85/4 and I still think it’s a pretty decent Zoom on an FF mirrorless body."

Two-Lens Kit II

Another utterly lovely two-lens kit...for a full-frame Canon:

Canon EF 24–70mm ƒ/2.8L II USM

Canon EF 40mm ƒ/2.8 STM

Mike

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Mus Aziz: "Adaptable to the Sony A7 Mark II series too. The 40mm STM works very well with the A7RII.  :-)  "

Michael: "As an aging shooter with a love for simplicity (read fewer lenses), I have chosen my primary kit to be a Canon full-frame 5Ds, 35mm ƒ/2 IS, and 24–105mm ƒ/4 IS. My logic when I assembled this trio was: A camera large enough that I can use the controls easily with my large, not-so-flexible aging hands; two lenses, IS in both; lots of pixels with the ability to crop-a-lot, and not a ton of weight so as to allow me to carry the three pieces without leaving my shoulder in pain.😓 After about a year, this combination is working quite well for my photographic needs as an 853-month-old geezer! I am not a pro, I just love to take pictures (and read TOP)!"

Mike replies: An excellent example of this kind of two-lens kit. Christopher Crawford mentioned that he liked that zoom too.

Geoff Wittig: "What Christopher [and Michael] said. I actually own too many lenses for my Canon system; can't help myself. When I'm out photographing seriously, I bring a huge backpack full of stuff with the 24–70 ƒ/2.8 II and the 70–200 ƒ/2.8 II serving for about 90% of what I shoot. The 24–70mm has no optical flaws that I can find. But the 24–105mm is waaaaay more useful if you have just one lens; that extra focal length at the long end makes all the difference. The 24–105 isn't quite as good optically—you'll see more vignetting and the edges aren't as sharp, which is very relevant for me shooting detailed landscapes I anticipate printing to very large sizes. The one stop smaller aperture matters little since I'm usually stopping down a lot anyway.

"Good thing Canon doesn't make a 24–105 ƒ/2.8, because then I'd be tempted to buy that too."

Wayne: "The 40mm ƒ/2.8 has a very strange impact on me. I have never owned it. In fact, I have never owned a Canon DSLR...although, I do regularly shoot my old F-1. But every time I see the 40mm ƒ/2.8 I get this strange compulsion to go to B&H, buy a Canon DSLR and get the lens. I have been fighting the urge for years now. Please stop mentioning this lens.  :-) "

The Perfect Two-Lens Kit

Speaking of the Olympus 12–100mm ƒ/4, here's a strategy I've written about before that I've always liked but that has never caught on. Nobody ever talks about it, and it's not considered go-to or default equipment-purchasing advice. The idea have never gone viral. It is anti-viral.

The idea is this: a two-lens kit, with one lens being a big, heavy, expensive but wide-range zoom you can do everything with, and the other being a small, light prime lens, the focal length of which is at the sweet spot for you inside the range of the zoom.

The Olympus 12–100mm would be perfect for that, paired with your choice of a small, light Olympus prime with a focal length between 12mm and 100mm. For example, the 34mm angle-of-view equivalent 17mm.

Moose says that the Panasonic 12–60mm is just as good as the Oly 12–100mm, down to the bokeh. (You can read his comment here.) Since I don't need anything quite that long, an ideal two-lens kit, Micro 4/3 variation*, might be:

Panasonic-Leica DG Vario-Elmarit 12–60mm ƒ/2.8–4 ASPH. POWER O.I.S.

Panasonic Lumix G 20mm ƒ/1.7 II ASPH.

Crucial to the concept is that you use the two lenses in the OPPOSITE way from how people usually think of zooms and primes. You use the zoom when you're photographing purposefully, when photographing is absorbing your whole attention and concentration; and you use the little prime as a "do-everything" lens when you're just carrying the camera along with you in order to have it along, as you go about your other business or your daily life. The reason for that is that when you're photographing deliberately, you don't mind extra weight; when you're just carrying a camera along for fun is when you want it to be light and handy.

It has the added advantage that you don't want to skimp when it comes to a zoom. The better ones are better. But they're big and heavy.

As I say, no one else likes this idea but me, so you can ignore this post if you want to. I still say it's a nice way to think about a two-lens kit.

Mike

*You can construct a version of this two-lens kit in any equipment line, obviously. Canon, Fuji. Except Leica M maybe.

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Jeff: "Many Leica SL users carry the superb 24–90mm weather-sealed zoom with OIS for general purpose photography, and substitute their favorite M lens, which is effectively adapted, for a smaller, lighter option."

Ken James: "I personally very much like your idea. I do with the Olympus 12–40mm ƒ/2.8 pro and the Panasonic 25mm ƒ/1.7. I would like to replace the 25mm with your recommended 20mm. Someday."

Henning Wulff: "This is actually the way I do use two lenses quite often. The 12–100mm ƒ/4 is the main one on my camera, and the Olympus 17mm ƒ/1.8 comes along, as I'm first and foremost a 35mm kind of guy if I'm using one lens. Sometimes, if I want to extend my range a bit, I'll include the Laowa 7.5mm ƒ/2. The downside to the 20mm ƒ/1.7 (both versions) is that it uses an older focusing technology, and is annoyingly slower in that regard. [Very true, and something to be considered. —MJ.] Optically, it's possibly a bit better than the 17mm ƒ/1.8 Olympus. Speaking of the Panasonic 12–60mm ƒ/2.8–4; it's a very good lens, but the performance sags noticeably at the long end. The good thing is that it's a lot lighter than the 12–100mm."

Rene Theberge: "Well, this is exactly what I use, but I do violate one of Mike's rules which is that my prime lens is outside the zoom range. And, I cheat somewhat in that I carry two cameras. These days the majority of my photography is at demonstrations and events which can be fast moving with action appearing suddenly, hence the need for two cameras at different focus lengths. So one Olympus E-M5 Mark II has the wonderful 12–40mm and the other E-M5 MArk II has the superb 75mm (Can you tell I like Oly lenses?). This gives me good range to cover crowds with the zoom and a very sharp longer focal length to pick out people from the crowd.

"Yes, it's more than I'd like to carry, but it works."

Hisham Zerriffi: "Count me as another who does exactly this. Fuji 27mm pancake on my X-E2 most of the time. This time of year it actually fits in my winter coat pocket nicely. 18–55mm for specific work when I want to go longer or working inside and need a bit wider angle. Would love something a bit nicer but that Fuji 'kit' lens is still pretty great."

Open Mike: Be Prepared

The Boy Scout motto is "Be Prepared." The Johnston clan motto is Nunquam non Paratus, never unprepared.*

I set out to take Butters on a short walk yesterday, with the sky clear and the sun shining. Less than a mile from home, a giant mass of dark cloud hove up from behind the Bluff. The wind freshened, the cloud mass loomed, the sky darkened, the temperature dropped ten degrees, and just as I decided I ought to turn for home, big raindrops began to smack into the pavement in a random staccato. As I looked around for places where we might take cover, I found myself thinking, "good thing I don't have a camera with me."

(Is that the kind of thing I should be thinking?)

But the big black cloud mass blew over us, the sky brightened again, and by the time we got home again...the sky was clear and the sun was shining.

Life in the Finger Lakes.

The reason this came up is that Amazon's "Deal of the Day" today was a Dyson Animal DC65 vacuum cleaner, a product I own and am still impressed with. So I was going to link to it. But by the time I had the post ready to go, at 10:38 a.m., I checked again, and they were all gone.

So much for that.

Was I ready with something else? No. Maybe my motto should be nunquam paratus.

Mike

"Open Mike" is the off-topic Editorial Page of TOP. It appears on Wednesday if Yr. Hmbl. Ed., a trusted man of Clan Johnston, is ready aye ready.

*In 1307, to furnish himself with a pretext for war, the new King Edward II of England sent a message to the Scottish clans through their king, John Baliol, demanding that the clans swear fealty to him. He knew they never would, and was already preparing to attack across the border. King Baliol, needing to get the all-important message to the previously exiled Robert the Bruce, picked a trusted aide, a man of Clan Johnston, to deliver the message. He wanted to send the message in "code" to avoid interception by English spies, so he picked up a pair of grouse wings from the forest floor, a symbol of swiftness, and tied them to a spur, the symbol of war. When he asked the Johnston if he was ready to depart, the Johnston replied "ready, aye ready." He delivered the message to Robert the Bruce, who understood the implication of the grouse wings and spur immediately. He went on to defeat Edward II's lieutenant Aymer de Valence at the Battle of Loudon Hill. It was Robert the Bruce's first major victory in a series of wars which eventually established the independence of Scotland.

In gratitude, as King of Scotland, Robert the Bruce allowed Clan Johnston to use as its shield a spur with grouse wings, and as its motto "Nunquam Non Paratus," intended as a formalized version of "Ready, aye ready."

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Nigli: "'Hold fast' there Mike. From a McLeod."

Steven Willard: "My personal motto is 'prepared but not for this.' I can’t find a good Latin translation."

Mike replies: Try Paratus, sed non propter hoc.

David Brookes: "My mother was a Johnstone, born in Scotstoun on Clydebank. The motto probably explains why my camera bag has so much in it, and is getting too heavy!"

scott kirkpatrick: "There's a lot of pride involved in coming from the Borders, which does tend to obscure the things that went on there. The Kirkpatricks have as their motto 'I mak siccar' ['I make sure' —Ed.], which Roger Kirkpatrick uttered before confirming the kill of the Red Comyn, a contender for the crown which Robert the Bruce held, with a few thrusts of his own."

Thank You

I'm not complaining—I have the world's best job, or second-best as I now conceive it—but sometimes the relentless pace of blogging, and more especially trying to remain mentally nimble enough to keep all the plates spinning at once, can get a Dawg downpressed*. Floating in the sea of all that, to suddenly get to see 300+ "It Must Be Color" submissions from so many wonderful people is just a treat. I really enjoyed it. I can only use 13, but it was a true pleasure seeing every one of them, and hearing from so many readers.

Photo by Rory O'Toole, who does weddings out of Cork, Ireland

This didn't make the final 13 (I suspect it would work nicely in B&W too), but isn't it a treat to get to see it? Multiply by 300 and you see what I mean. Many thanks, sincerely. These Baker's Dozen things just lift my spirits and make my day, day after day.

Mike

*Word courtesy of Peter Tosh.

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Richard Man: "Excellent photo! The use of space is exquisite!"

The Olympus Do-Everything Lens

One of the surprises that emerged from the many (143) comments on the "Itch" post the other day was the multiple mentions given to the Olympus 12–100mm ƒ/4 lens. As Yoda might put it, compliments lots, that one got.

As longtime readers know I'm not the biggest fan of zooms, at least for the early years of anyone's photography, and I've got an older Photo-Dawg's prejudice against the "do-everything" wide-range zooms, only because the early ones were so atrocious. But that was then; now it's now. Having never used one, a few things I can say about the 24–200mm-equivalent M.Zuiko (formally the M.Zuiko ED 12–100mm ƒ/4 IS PRO): It's not very big or heavy for a lens of its range and capabilities (not even 20 oz., less than 5" long, stabilized, weatherproof*) although it might seem so on small Micro 4/3 bodies; and, it's got plenty nice bokeh for an all-purpose zoom. The kind of bokeh I like, anyway, smooth but not too smooth, not "fuzzy," just a little bit of bite left in. YMMV, but you can get a reasonable idea of bokeh from online samples.

By chance, B&H Photo has it on sale today along with the (deep breath) OM-D E-M1 Mark II body. The pair is still pretty breathtakingly expensive in the modest financial neighborhood where I reside, but hey, for some people anyway, it's only money. You get the body, lens, and battery grip, and save $350. Glad I don't have the wherewithal to be tempted, because otherwise that would be tempting, determined as I am to get a long lens for my new surroundings in the Finger Lakes. As I've mentioned, many pictures I "see" seem farther away up here. You can also get the camera and grip and 12–40mm ƒ/2.8, or just the body. Or, if you really want to spend almost nothing, you can get the body, battery grip, 12–40mm, and the awesome 40–150mm ƒ/2.8 (seriously, it's awesome, brilliant if you're from the UK). You save $650. Okay, you won't spend nothing, joshing just was I.

...But back to the 12–100mm. Got one? Like yours? Us tell.

Yod...er, Mike

*Although we'll let John Lehet be the final judge of that. The 12–40mm is supposed to be "weatherproof" too, but, as John demonstrated, it's not waterproof.

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Eli Burakian: "I've got the 12–100mm. Still not 100% convinced on the Micro 4/3rds quality but the lens is exceedingly good. Every aperture, every focal length and incredible stabilization. For backpacking, the OM-D EM-1 Mark II with this lens is perfect for every condition. (That being said, on the hikes where I have brought my A7rII and 24–70mm, I'm consistently blown away by the quality compared to the Micro 4/3rd format when I get back to the computer to process the images. I enjoy using the Micro 4/3 stuff more, but the dynamic range and detail of the full format keeps me wavering between the two. Using both systems right now.)"

David: "I’ve got one, and I love it. I have a range of Micro 4/3 lenses, but the 12–100mm has become my primary travel lens, despite its relative (in Micro 4/3 terms) bulk, because of its range, IQ and weather sealing. I think I’m one of those folk who ‘see pictures further away.’ Prior to this lens, the 40–150mm Pro lived on my camera. I still love that lens, but also appreciate wider view angles when I travel. This lens is the best of both worlds. As a travel lens it’s perfect for me, and on occasions when I needs a little more light/lite, I throw in the Panasonic 20mm for good measure."

Charlie Ewers: "My favorite lens for Olympus, period. I had and loved the 12–40mm, but I sold my copy of that one soon after I got the 12–100mm, which has been on my #1 Olympus body without removal ever since."

kirk tuck: "I bought the 12–100mm early on in my switch to Micro 4/3 and was almost shocked at how good this particular lens is. I use it for so many types of work that I'm questioning why I would ever need anything else. But then there are days when one likes more depth of field control and one finds oneself glancing at the other, faster Pro Olympus lenses. The 12–100mm ƒ/4 Pro is definitely a 'gateway' lens into the format. Even wide open it's near perfect."

Jim Richardson: "Yes, the Olympus 12–100 ƒ/4 is just pretty brilliant. I got one to be my travel lens. Usually you expect these extended range lens to be just good enough on the long end and you accept the compromise for the convenience, but that's not the case here. It's really good. Also you soon get used to the Micro 4/3 lenses being effortlessly sharp out to the edges, something you can't take for granted on full frame bodies. Then there is the crazy-good IBIS combo that links the lens stabilization with the in-body in tandem so that you can do really, really long exposures. (I've done up to five seconds but that was sitting down.) Hence I've tended to leave the tripod at home more on the trips where I take this combo. Also, less known is that at 12mm the lens will focus down to several millimeters from the front element! (If that appeals to you). And the camera/lens combo is so water resistant that I take it out in the rain with no covering, no qualms. But...it does not work with the Olympus focus stacking. Too bad."

Peter Wright: "12–100 Pro? Think I, this lens get, I won't. 12–40 Pro have I. And 40–150 enough is."

Yellow Over Dark Blue

As I said yesterday, the deadline for the Baker's Dozen "It Must Be Color" feature is Tuesday night at 11:59 p.m. I've already received enough submissions to build the feature.

I'm having a bit of a conceptual mindlock about the concept, though. Many people are simply sending in pictures that are of strong colors. I'm not sure that's the same thing as a picture that needs to be in color in order to work.

Pictures that are purely of colors or a color are descendants of things like Eggleston's seminal "Red Ceiling," simplistic advertising and photo-magazine clichés, and the American hard edge / color field painter Ellsworth Kelly. Of course they "must be in color," though, because the color is the point and without the color they lose all trace of meaning or attractiveness. So I will include some photographs of that type in the set. But you're unlikely to do it better than people who have committed their creative lives to it, such as Pete Turner or Harald Mante.

But consider the difference between Ellsworth Kelly and Mark Rothko:

Ellsworth Kelly, Yellow over Dark Blue, 1964–5

Mark Rothko, Untitled (yellow and blue), 1954

Very similar motifs, but to me, the Rothko painting is art and the Kelly print is just colors. (I've never cared for Kelly. I hope his fans will pardon me.)

I'm aware that color affects people differently, and although I'm sensitive to it, I have suspicions of it and misgivings about it. There's something knee-jerk about it, a potential toward some base animal instinctual trigger that I don't trust.

Consider what the English composer Benjamin Britten said of Beethoven, in an interview:

A certain rot, if that isn't too strong a word, set in with Beethoven. Before Beethoven, music served things greater than itself. For example, the glory of God, the greatest glory of all. Or the glory of the state. Or the composer's social environment. After Beethoven the composer became the center of his own universe. Hence the Romantic school.

I think you could say the same thing about Eggleston's "The Red Ceiling." A great deal of reverent verbiage has been piled up at the foot of that photograph, but really, the idea became debased, morphing into the cliché that if you want to be sure of appealing to viewers, "make it big and make it red."

And then consider (in light of the Rothko and the Kelly) this photograph by John Crowley of Clonmel, Ireland:

Photo by John Crowley

Human beings are intensely sensitive to hierarchies of status, and I'm well aware that all Rothkos and most Kellys are "better" or "worth more" than any photograph and you're not supposed to (perhaps not even allowed to) think otherwise. (Ve haff experts.) But I think it's instructive to try to set aside received hierarchies of status and received assumptions about value once in a while, just as a mental exercise; and in that sense I'd say John Crowley's photograph is better and worth more than either the Kelly or the Rothko, as outrageous and contrary as such a claim might be. (At least when all three are democratized to small JPEGs—Rothkos have real presence in person that almost no photograph can match. You can't make a one-of-a-kind photograph, even if you do.) It's just that there's a certain rot in modern art's addiction to color for its own sake. Yeah, yeah, blue and yellow are opposites, wow, and putting them next to each other strikes a certain emotional chord down in the lizard-brain, the amygdala down by the brain stem. We geddit. The Crowley has blue and yellow too, but does more with it, plays with it more, certainly than that simplistic thought-free Kelly print. It gives you a real sense of place and light, and isn't even less lovely.

I've no doubt that most people are going to love the next Baker's Dozen. The submission count is up to 205, approximately. That's going to make it a whole lot easier to edit than the black-and-white set was!

Although I don't think I've received one single "bad" photograph yet.

Mike

P.S. Here's a great photo of Ellsworth Kelly by Sebastian Kim. (Heh.)

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scott kirkpatrick: "That's a powerful Ellsworth Kelly picture. It didn't need color."

Ellsworth Kelly, Yellow over Dark Blue, 1964–5 (original in color)

Tex Andrews: "I kinda felt the same way about Kelly (although I loved his drawings), until I saw a works on paper show of his at the National Gallery sometime back in the late '80s or early '90s. It was revelatory—and he was doing it in the '40s, which surprised the heck out of me. I've thought a lot more of him since. That said, I can see why you seem...'suspicious'? But there really is a zen to his work. The challenge to the viewer is sort of seeing beyond that first smack of color."

Eolake: "Funny, I had the opposite reaction to the two paintings. I love the Ellsworth Kelly one, it really moves me. But of course art is subjective, and the more abstract it is, the more subjective it is, surely."

Mark: "Here’s a true story. Husband and wife buy a Rothko painting many years ago and loan it to a museum. I won’t identify it precisely as I was an ancillary part of the litigation later surrounding it. Husband takes ill and dies. Widow discovers soon thereafter their liquid cash for living was nowhere near what she thought it was and needed money. Gets the Rothko back from the museum to sell. But being embarrassed about her financial position, does this on the QT. She’s advised auction will bring the best return, but she just can’t allow her high society friends to know she’s in difficult straits requiring this sale. So she contacts the art dealer they originally bought it from. He finds a buyer who signs a non-disclosure agreement and an agreement not to resell, all of which is probably not worth the paper it’s printed on, so it turned out. He paid her $9 million for it. Within a year or two he places it up for auction and it sells for $29 million. She then sues the art dealer and the buyer/seller. That was my intro to Rothko, never having heard or seen anything of his before. The photo you display above is much nicer. The fact anyone feels a square or rectangle or two can possibly be worth that kind of dough boggles my simple mind."

Mike relies: What happened with the suit? Seems to me like it was her own fault; she could have put it up for auction herself. It was her own desire to keep it quiet that cost her the extra $20 million. If you want the best price for something, you have to make the product available to the greatest number of potential buyers. Or was she just angry that by having it put up for auction, her own financial position was advertised to her social connections, despite her intentions?

As for the agreement not to resell, I think it's difficult to a.) control events from beyond the grave, b.) control events past your own ownership. I have an acquaintance, a childhood friend who is very wealthy, who bought a large farm property north of Milwaukee on which to build a house and use as a private estate. The farmer had been having a bitter battle as he wished to keep the land out of the grasp of developers. She apparently made him some assurance that she would not resell the land for some period of time—under what exact conditions I do not know; or else he just assumed she would not. I don't know the details. She then found a nicer piece of property not far away, bought that, and sold the first. The farmer was apoplectic. My feeling at the time is, if he wanted to control the land, he shouldn't have sold it. Once it belongs to someone else, he and his demands are out of the picture.

Robin Dreyer: "Although I love representational art as much as anyone (I'm a photographer, after all), it was a room full of Rothkos at the National Gallery that produced one of the strongest emotional responses I've ever had in the presence of art. No JPEG on a screen or even a well-printed image in a large-format book can reproduce the effect of being in the presence of those paintings—especially if they are arranged and lit as well as the were in that room."

Mike replies: I'll second that. I find Rothko's best work very moving in person, almost ineffably so.

William Langford: "To me Art is never a thing hanging on a wall. Art is what happens between the thing and the viewer. As seen in reproductions a Rothko painting is not very interesting. The real thing, seen under the prescribed lighting, with limited seating, and cordoned off for a personal experience...now that is when Art can happen."

Mike replies: I agree with that, but for devil's advocacy, there is John Berger's Marxist critique of the "aura" of the original object in his four-part documentary "Ways of Seeing." "If Sister Wendy Beckett is the kindly grandmother who takes you by the hand, and leads you, beatifically, through the wonders of art history," writes Carolina A. Miranda, "John Berger was the hippie-Marxist uncle who gave you the red pill and told you it was all a mirage." ("Art's red pill: An appreciation of critic John Berger," L.A. Times, Jan. 5, 2017.)

The Olympus E-M5 Mark II Torture Test, Part II

Introduction: You probably remember the last time our friend John Lehet abused his Olympus E-M5 Mark II...by losing it in a snowbank in the dead of Winter in Vermont and finding it four and a half months later. And discovering to his amazement that it still worked fine.

Well, he obviously wasn't done torture-testing the Olympus...read on.

Words and picture by John Lehet

I've walked along rivers and brooks in the Winter here in Vermont since the early '80s, back then with a big tripod and a view camera in a backpack. I've fallen in boot- or knee-deep many times over the years. Frequently I keep working and walking even if I have filled my boot with Winter water. I shrug it off.

This time was much more serious. I was walking along a little brook last week to photograph ice and water. Here's a photo of a little waterfall upstream from where I fell through, an exposure from early December:

I fell through ice into a fast-running brook at about 15°F air temperature, which I often do—but this time I was chest deep. I had a lot of gear on me: three cameras and a lot of lenses, some of them quite expensive. My first thought when I fell through was, "OK, I guess I'm done for the day." Second thought was, "Oh my god, my gear!" Third thought was: "Nothing matters except I have to climb out of this. I'm not dead yet, and that's lucky."

This time I was probably even more laden than in the view camera days. I had my Tenba DNA 13 bag, which I love a lot, as a side bag. It was bobbing on the water, floating. It was lucky I had zipped the top zipper, as I often work from it open. I also had on a Mindshift 180 Pro backpack, fully loaded. If you don't know those bags, they have a regular interior backpack compartment, but then also a sliding belt pack on the bottom that rotates; it can snug into the bottom of the pack then slide around to the front for quick access. I had that snugged into the backpack as I stepped onto the bad ice.

After I climbed out I found the bottom part of the Mindshift bag dangling from its safety strap, and unzipped. I don't know how the main strap got unbuckled from my waist, but I know it was buckled before. It doesn't unbuckle any more easily than any backpack waist band. However the fastener to keep the belt back inside its compartment had not been latched.

On the shore I did a quick inventory. Inside the Tenba bag looked pretty dry, if not impeccably so. The dangling bottom of the Mindshift pack was also pretty dry. I guess it hadn't opened up underwater, but had stayed in its compartment. I started climbing the long way up the bank to the car and did a quick inventory while I was walking. There was an empty spot in the Mindshift bag. Something missing. I went back to the stream and looked down into the flowing water to see the Olympus E-M5 Mark II with the 12–40mm ƒ/2.8 Pro lens on it. Maybe silver cameras are better than black ones in cases like this—very visible! I fished it out, and pulled the battery.

My car is an 18-year-old turbodiesel VW, which has been having reliability issues since about October. I've had to walk home from some photo outings since then. As I climbed up through the snow toward the car, dripping and freezing cold, I was not 100% sure the car was going to start. All the attachment that's been keeping me from moving on from that car melted away that morning. Sometimes it's not OK if the car might not start.

At home, still hypothermic, I inventoried all the other lenses, and the A7RII, and the infrared Micro 4/3 camera—many had a few drops on them but everything was perfectly fine and functional.

I took the lens off the E-M5 Mark II that I fished out of the stream. The body looked OK, but the lens had actually taken on water—there was water inside it. Not good.

After a day in a jar with desiccant, I tried the E-M5 Mark II with a different lens, and...

Perfect. No issues.

I'm bummed out about my 12–40mm lens. I'm attempting to dry it using desiccant and a warm-ish oven. It does seem to be slowly drying out. Not sure if it will ever work again, or what I'll do with it if it doesn't.

The Sony body and all my vintage and Zeiss and Voigtländer lenses were only protected by the bags and would not have lasted a second in the stream. The Olympus body survived being submerged in a rushing stream at a depth of a couple of feet for, I guess, a full minute or more. My sense of time was quite broken by the time I pulled it out.

The Olympus is not my main camera, but it's easy enough to carry, and tough enough for anything, versatile enough to bring home the best photos of all the gear sometimes.

And it's definitely waterproof.

John

Here's John's website.

©2018 by John Lehet, all rights reserved

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Jack Stivers: "Enough already! I was quite convinced about the Olympus's water resistance with the lost-in-a-snowbank experiment. This latest baptism by liquid ice was unneeded additional proof. I think we all get it. You've been quite fortunate to date to survive these mishaps, but to continue on this way could amount to treading on thin ice. Again."

Kate [John's wife]: "John's wife strongly agrees!"

Deadline for "It Must Be Color"

...Is tomorrow (Tuesday) night at midnight. I've gotten enough submissions for a great feature and then some, so it just seems greedy to keep soliciting more. I sure have been enjoying seeing all of them, though. A lot of enjoyable, wonderful and interesting shots.

In other news, I just got a chance to play some pool! And hot diggety, did I ever have fun. I was the baby of the group by a long way—the guy who won, Loyle, is 89 years old, and the guy who came in second, Norm, is 93 and a WWII vet. Great bunch of guys, and collectively they made me feel just fine about the prospects of old age. The next-youngest, Jerry, is fifteen years my senior and could pass for my age. Freemont used his walker to get to the table and sank some fine shots. I think most if not all of them are veterans, and we played "pea pool" (also called kelly pool) on a Dynamo coin-op 7-footer at the local Moose Lodge, and how much more American can you get? (Aw, I should have taken a group portrait. Didn't think of it till just now.) All I can say for myself is that I didn't embarrass myself, which was good. I got invited back, even.

I had a great time. First time I've touched a pool cue in more than three years. I really miss it.

Keep those cards and letters coming, till tomorrow night.

Mike

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Itch

Every now and then I just get the itch to chat gear. I can't seem to help this. The primary symptom is that I start rummaging around again in what I used to call, in the Stone Age at the Dawn of Time, "The World-Wide Brochure Bin."

Secondary symptom, I start jonesing for something I can't have. In this case, I want a Panasonic GX9, which would be the GX8 with the latest tech from the G9. Now that the G9 is here, however, hopes for a GX9 are fading. I would now give even odds that the GX8 will be an only child in the lineup, never to be reiterated. Why? Because I want it to be reiterated, and that's historically been a very good indicator that any given product, no matter what it is, never will be. Forgive my cynicism, but I'm not just a Photo-Dawg, I'm an old grizzled-muzzle Photo-Dawg. Been running up to kick the football since forever.

So here's a scratch-the-itch question for you: Say you won a contest and you can have any camera you want, plus three lenses for it, but the company wants the promotional value and you have to use that camera for the next two years and nothing else. Which format would you choose? —"Medium" format, "full" frame, APS-C, Micro 4/3, 1-inch, or smartphone?

Answering my own question, I think I'd a.) torture myself for three weeks over the Fuji GFX 50S, driving myself just short of insane, then b.), in a puddle of my own neurotic sweat, get a Micro 4/3 camera with IBIS. (Or this one.) Because, really, Micro 4/3 is all I need.

Scratch my itch, please...discuss! What's good enough, c. 2018?

Have a nice weekend. It's going to be warm here, which I dread...it's been such delightful Winter weather. We'll be back on Monday morn.

Mike

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JOHN GILLOOLY: "Well, since you want a camera that doesn't exist, I'll do the same. I want a Nikon M850. The D850 but mirrorless. Very simple."

Mike replies: Well....

Victor Huang: "I am guilty of being a gear hog. I am also lucky enough to have just about any of the current camera and lens combinations you can think of. Nikon D850; Canon 5D Mark IV; Sony A9, A7RIII, A6500; Olympus E-M1 Mark II; Panasonic G9; Leica M240, M246; Fuji X-T2, X-Pro2, X100F, GFX 50s, and on and on. Not to mention a ton of medium- and large-format film cameras.

"But if I have to pick just one camera and three lenses, it would be the Sony A9 with 24–105mm ƒ/4, Canon 85mm ƒ/1.2 adapted using the Sigma MC11 adapter, and Sony 100–400mm.

"My reason is simple. The Sony A9 is small enough to travel, which I do a lot. It is a fantastic video camera. But as a still camera, it is crazy fast and responsive. You feel like you can throw anything at it and it will handle just fine. The 24–105 ƒ/4 lens from Sony is good enough for most situations and it is very compact. If I want to do portraits, the Canon 85mm ƒ/1.2 has the medium-format look and it focuses fast enough via the Sigma MC11 adapter on Sony. Lastly, the Sony 100–400mm zoom is the size and weight of a 70–200mm ƒ/2.8 yet it covers the range of sports and wildlife.

"With the A9, I wouldn't worry about poor lighting or camera shake. The combo allows me to shoot handheld down to 1/15 of a second."

Benjamin Marks: I am intrigued by all those who responded to the prompt 'any' with the words 'good enough.' C'mon people! Dare to dream! Or to covet.  ;-)  I am not sure which.

"To go to 10,000 feet: I'd like to start with two premises. In the tradition of Saturday-morning Internet posters everywhere, I have no idea whether or not they are true. They are these:

"Two fundamental shifts have occurred in photography since 1985, the year the bug bit me. The first is that the default mode of display/consumption of photography for most of us has moved from paper to pixels. The second is that as the the gear has become a consumer good, the cost gap between the 'entry fee' and the 'pro ticket' has widened by an order of magnitude. I think this because the short product cycle has required manufacturers to recoup product development investments over a much shorter product life and a correspondingly small number of units sold. So I would use the 'wish' that our resident djinn has granted us to bridge the financial gap that I cannot traverse myself.

"For example, if I wanted to get into medium format, or large format photography in, say 1991, there were many paths to do so, including participation of the thriving market in decades-old used pro gear. If I want to get into gigapixel photography now (or whatever it is that the new Hasselblad 6HD-400C produces) there are really only a couple of paths—all very, very expensive. Or put another way, you could always spend a lot on top gear, but the cost now is measured in multiples of my annual gross income rather than in big, troublesome fractions.

"With all this in mind, I am dreaming big: put me down for the above-mentioned Hassie with whatever fits in the box for wide, medium, and mild-tele lenses.

"BUT...

"...As I address the what-would-you-purchase question, I would also like to address the persistent irony that despite the default viewing mode being digital there is almost no digital display venue—or practical bandwidth wide and fast enough—that is a good practical match for the wonkta-pixels that top cameras now produce. Crazy!

"So: in this I-won-the-lottery fantasy, you also have to arrange for delivery of a computer spec'd to deal with the files, storage for the monster files, a monster printer (à la Graham Nash) worth of printing the monster files and a small heated building over by the barn to house the printer and workstation. Oh and a storage system for the large, large prints. And I would like a studio big enough to do group portraiture comfortably indoors (you can tack that on to the printing studio). On this last, please include north-facing skylights/sliding floor-to-ceiling windows and a way to screen off light from the same.

"OK. I'm good now. Once, you pry the lid off the yawning chasm of material desire...(or give a photo mouse a cookie) there is just no telling where you might wind up. Now: Djinn, get on back in that lamp!"

Mike replies: OK, as soon as the song is over.

Hugh: "Three lenses is the key...35mm ƒ/1.4, 85mm ƒ/1.2, 135mm ƒ/2. Which means it has to be Canon. I’ve used those (or the FD equivalents) for over 30 years. I’ve used a 5D since the first one came out. They may not be perfect, but they always do the job. I’ve had expensive flirtations with Olympus and Sony in the quest for something smaller and lighter. Never happy. I want the 'full frame, wide-open lens' look. I’ve got a phone for snapshots.

"By coincidence, I sold everything except those three lenses, and bought a 5D Mark IV last week. The decrease in stress from simplifying my choices is incredible. If I want less weight, I just carry the camera and 35mm lens. If Canon offered me the new 5DM (mirrorless) body I’d give it a try for two years...."

John Camp: "I'd go for the GX9, which I have to believe is coming, because why would any camera company stop on an...8? Think about it. You'd stop on a 9. Then, instead of going to double digits, you'd come up with some other designation for your ongoing rangefinder lookalikes. Like the Roman numeral X, followed by XI. The G9 is really nothing like the GX series—it's wider, taller, fatter and quite a bit heavier. So I'm looking forward to seeing the Great Pumpkin...I mean, the GX9. (See what I did there, the clever reference to Peanuts?)"

George Andros: "I retired two years ago and made two changes to my photography. As per your suggestion I went to OC/OL/OY: one camera, one lens, one year (now in my second year). Leica M240 MP and 35mm ƒ/1.4 Summilux. When I review my pictures it's sometimes hard to believe that they are all made with one lens. No regrets."

Mats: "The problem with choosing a system and lenses is that I always end up changing my mind and deciding that there were some other characteristics that I really needed (wanted), that would make me happier...to make the point, I currently have a Hasselblad X1D with 45mm and 90mm lenses. Yet if I were to choose one camera and three lenses today it would be a Nikon D850 with 28mm ƒ/1.4, 105mm ƒ/1.4 and 200mmm ƒ/2."

Tom Hassler: "Great thought experiment! It's always fascinating to read what people choose and why. And also interesting how removing the money component has such an influence.

"For myself, the immediate reaction was to swing for the seats—get something that I could never afford on my own. But as I mulled it over I realized that 'more camera' wouldn't really make me happier.

"So to the gear: I think Micro 4/3 hits a lot of sweet spots for most of us. And the classic three lens kit is hard to beat (35mm, 50mm, and 90mm equivalents). So for me it's an Olympus E-M1 Mark II, and 17mm, 25mm and 45mm primes. Now, the new Oly Pro ƒ/1.2 primes look to be fantastic, but they are big and bulky (for Micro 4/3.) So it's the small, outstanding ƒ/1.8 primes that do it for me.

"And here's the real surprise: I already shoot this exact kit on a regular basis. It's compact, discreet, makes great-looking files and my back and shoulders thank me daily.

"When I retired a couple of years ago I vowed to try harder to 'want what I have.' Your post helped me realize that maybe it's working!"

Apple Syracuse Photo Walks

This is a sign o' the times they are a-changin', if I can mashup a Prince song title with a Dylan song title. Apple Syracuse is hosting "Photo Walks"—mini-workshops meant to "Explore the world around you and level up your iPhone photography skills on an inspiring photo walk. We'll take you to new places, show you how to create stunning shots, experiment with the latest accessories, and share our best photography and editing tips." There's one called "Developing Your Style," and another is "Framing Architecture and Details." The rest include "Capturing Action and Video," "Manipulating Light and Shadow," and "Portraits and People."

All of them caution participants to "Wear comfortable shoes and bring only what you need—including a fully charged device"...which, come to think of it, is advice I should should tape to my computer, if not my forehead.

Are other Apple stores doing this?

Can't be bad for future photographers. Good on Apple Syracuse for reaching out.

Mike
(Thanks to Gordon Lewis)

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KeithB: "They are doing it in Albuquerque."

Updates

Book: I'm making good progress on my book. I've missed a couple of days, but I typically write much more than 237 words (or whatever it was) when I do "touch it." I've been carving out the middle of every day to put in a few hours on it. I'm now up to chapter four and 9,500 words of draft (and another 15,000 words of notes, "skeletons" of later chapters I guess you could call them). It's just first draft so I'm not too worried yet about the excessive word count. There's a lot to the story and I already see I might have trouble fitting it all into one book of normal length (an ordinary hardback is in the range of 80–120,000 words).

I'm starting to feel that it's not all that hard to write a book. You just have to know where you're going and keep after it. Brave words, maybe, considering it's still early going.

'It Must Be Color': I'm getting a lot of great submissions. Such a pleasure. I wonder if I've adequately conveyed how very nice it is for me to see your work. I probably haven't gotten more than 40 submissions or so thus far, but it's just a joy to open the email every morning and be able to see more pictures. Big thanks. I like cameras, but I've always liked pictures more.

Print sale: I've been talking to Matt Weber, street photographer extraordinaire, about a Winter print sale, and it looks like it might happen. We're still trying to work out a way to offer signed, artist-printed gelatin-silver prints. This might be a week or three away as yet, but watch this space. This sale will be different and distinctive, I think. Here's Matt's website, and here's his book (or buy it directly from him at his website).

Mike

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Mike Peters: "Matt Weber! YES!!! I'm so happy to see that you're working with him to make a print sale. Matt is truly the embodiment of what a NYC street photographer is. His body of work is surely the deepest I've ever seen, and he's very prolific. He's been making amazing images for a very long time. TOP readers are in for a treat!"

[Mike Peters is no slouch as a photographer, either.

P.S. It probably seems like this post has gotten few comments, but the number of submissions for "It Must Be Color" just about doubled overnight. —Ed.]

Two New (Photo) Books to Read

Geoff Dyer, The Street Philosophy of Garry Winogrand. University of Texas Press, 240 pages, $60. (links to other Amazons at the bottom of this post)

From the publisher's promo: "Award-winning writer Geoff Dyer has admired Winogrand’s work for many years. Modeled on John Szarkowski’s classic book Atget, The Street Philosophy of Garry Winogrand is a masterfully curated selection of one hundred photographs from the Winogrand archive at the Center for Creative Photography, with each image accompanied by an original essay.

"Dyer takes the viewer/reader on a wildly original journey through both iconic and unseen images from the archive, including eighteen previously unpublished color photographs. The book encompasses most of Winogrand’s themes and subjects and remains broadly faithful to the chronological and geographical facts of his life, but Dyer’s responses to the photographs are unorthodox, eye-opening, and often hilarious. This inimitable combination of photographer and writer, images and text, itself offers what Dyer claims for Winogrand’s photography—an education in seeing."

Robert Adams, Art Can Help. Yale University Art Gallery, 92 pages, $17.85 (links to other Amazons at the bottom of this post)

From the publisher's promo: "Following an introduction, the book begins with two short essays on the works of the American painter Edward Hopper, an artist venerated by Adams. The rest of this compilation contains texts—more than half of which have never before been published—that contemplate one or two works by an individual artist. The pictures discussed are by noted photographers such as Julia Margaret Cameron, Emmet Gowin, Dorothea Lange, Abelardo Morell, Edward Ranney, Judith Joy Ross, John Szarkowski, and Garry Winogrand. Several essays summon the words of literary figures, including Virginia Woolf and Czeslaw Milosz. Adams’s voice is at once intimate and accessible, and is imbued with the accumulated wisdom of a long career devoted to making and viewing art. This eloquent and moving book champions art that fights against disillusionment and despair."

Mike

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JG: "Maybe it's just me, but the words 'with each image accompanied by an original essay' pretty much killed any interest I might have had in the Winogrand book. Personally, I buy photography books to look at the photos, not to read about them (or worse, essays inspired by them.) Of the 400 or so books in my modest collection, the number of times I have found the accompanying essays or texts to be a significant factor in my enjoyment of them can easily be counted using fewer than ten fingers."

Ed Hawco responds to JG: "I'm the complete opposite of JG; the words 'with each image accompanied by an original essay' pretty much sealed the deal for me, even though it's $84 up here in the great white north (Canada). To each their own."

David Boyce: "I'm certainly going to check out the Dyer/Winogrand book. Don't think I have ever read anything by Dyer that hasn't either improved my knowledge and understanding or got me thinking about the meaning of life/existence/art. Such a great writer. Otherwise Known as the Human Condition should be on everyone's reading list, along with But Beautiful."

Wednesday Open Mike: Football!* And S.C. Gwynne

["Open Mike" is the often off-topic, anything-goes editorial page of TOP. TOP is based in the United States. The feature appears on Wednesdays, because Yr. Hmbl. Ed. is super-organized and able to do things on schedules**.]

Two words: Saints Vikings. AKA "The Minnesota Miracle." Google that term and you'll get 2,760,000 results.

Wow. What a spectacular, epochal game. The whole game was superbly well played, had a distinct narrative, and featured one of the most amazing finishes in the history of the game. It deserves to be remembered with The Immaculate Reception and other legendary finishes. It will be remembered for a long time.

I didn't actually see the game; I just watched the digest version. Which, by the way, is a great way to watch a football game.

Narrative: Vikings shut out Saints in the first half; Saints mount a comeback and take the lead; the lead changes FOUR TIMES in the last 3:01, and is decided when a pass to the sidelines to stop the clock goes bad...and results in an improbable, unforeseeable touchdown with zero seconds left on the clock. "The first postseason game in NFL history that ended with a winning touchdown on the final play of the fourth quarter" (Dan Hanzus of NFL.com). Spec-tac-u-lar.

S.C. Gwynne
I love the craft of photography and I love the craft of writing, too. I have favorite writings and favorite writers. I seek them out.

A guy who is emerging as one of my favorite authors is S.C. (Sam) Gwynne, who wasted*** a good portion of his life doing things other than writing books. But, really, for the good of society and culture and everyone, someone or something should intervene and force him to write books for the rest of his life. If you only ever read one book about the American West****, it should be Sam Gwynne's wonderful Empire of the Summer Moon, nominally a history of the Comanche tribe but actually a collection of about seven wonderful and amazing stories and themes, any one of which could make a good book all by itself. If Empire doesn't fire your imagination, something is wrong with your imagination and you should do something about that, like change your diet or sign up for a meditation retreat.

Most lately, Sam Gwynne has written a history of (American) football. Or, more precisely, a history of the forward pass. Not interesting, you say? Too granular? Think again, pigskin-breath. In the hands of a masterful writer, a dirt-encrusted, painted-shut window is thrown open wide to reveal a spectacular and entirely unusual view of the game, its people, and its peculiar mass psychology. If you love football, you will love The Perfect Pass. It casts back all the way to the very first time a quarterback hit a receiver in stride (Gus Dorais to Knute Rockne, Army vs. Notre Dame, November 1, 1913) and shocked the world. That pass was the start of the game we know today, not to mention the many-times-great-grandfather of that pass last Sunday from Case Keenum to Stefon Diggs. The book is the ideal complement to games like Saints-Vikings, or the other way around.

Sam's other book is a biography of Stonewall Jackson. Am I going to read that, sooner or later? You bet. The man could write about teacups or why bird plumage is colorful and I'd read it. The Perfect Pass is a great one. I want a full shelf of books from this guy. Go, Sam.

Mike
(Thanks to Hugh Crawford)

*...Oh, all right...AMERICAN football.

**Sarcasm alert

***Not really.

****Well, actually if you read only one book about the American West, it should be Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. No, not Son of the Morning Star or When the Legends Die. But Empire is in the top five.

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shooter: "I'd second the recommendation for Empire of the Summer Moon. It is an absolutely stunning book, beautifully written and totally addictive, an epic tale in every sense."

Steve Rosenblum: "I agree that Empire of the Summer Moon is one of the three best books that I have read about the American West. The other two are: Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose, about the Lewis and Clark expedition, and Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis, by Timothy Egan. The stories told in all of these books are amazing, as is the writing. They read like novels. These authors make history come alive!"

David Raboin: "Empire of the Summer Moon was my favorite book about the American West until I read Astoria by Peter Stark. Now they're tied for first place. Both tell epic stories and are hard to put down."