The Online Photographer

Blog Note

[Yr. Hmbl. Ed. is taking a few days off for battery rechargement. Back soon!]

The Appetite for Work

[Editorial note: that "Angry Mob" post was a joke, just so everyone understands. However, it's going to take me a little longer to finish the "Baker's Dozen At the Museum" post. I'll continue to work on it over the weekend, I promise. —Mike the Ed.]

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I've learned a lot about photography from Carl Weese. He should write a book.

Carl's the one who first explained bokeh to me (bo-ke aji or "bokeh" being the visual quality or qualities of out-of-focus blur). He also said, in the '90s, that "digital is the coming-of-age of color; black and white was already perfect," or words to that effect, something I still believe is true.

When I wanted to start a portrait photography business in the early '90s—I liked doing portraits, and I was good at it—Carl's the one who made me think it through. He told me to work the numbers.

I took his advice. I worked 'em. Numbers flew every which way, densely covering sheets of paper.

When the dust cleared, it became clear that I would have to do three portrait sittings a day, five or six days a week, to make a reasonable living at it—and not only do the sittings and all the follow-up work, but find the customers in the first place. There isn't a magical supply of customers just because you want to do a certain kind of work. You've got to get out there and market yourself.

The question revealed was stark: I liked doing portraits, and I was good at it. But did I really like doing portraits that much?

The answer was no. I wouldn't mind doing three portraits a week. But three a day? Ew.

Paul Newman the...
Malcolm Gladwell's "10,000 hours to expertise" idea, from his book Outliers: The Story of Success, which we've discussed several times before, has come under scrutiny again as a new study either partially replicated or partially refuted the original 1993 study on which Gladwell based his theory (depending on which way you look at it). The upshot seems to be that lots of "deliberate practice" is essential to mastery in most fields involving "talent," but that other factors matter too. Which is sort of a ho-hum conclusion, since it's about what you would expect.

To me, though, the key is something else. Only people who have talent, aptitude, or affection for a certain skill are likely to be motivated to practice it to the degree that mastery requires.

Think of something you really enjoy doing. Now try to imagine how much could you actually do it.

For example, some people really love hitting the links and playing golf on a beautiful Summer's day. They look forward to it all Winter. Even so, 18 holes a few times a week is enough for all but the most avid diehards. Amateur golfers often think professionals live the life of Riley—they get to play all day, every day! Not so fast, li'l tiger. If you're a golfer, ask yourself this: would you really enjoy practicing golf for between five and ten hours every day like a professional, seldom taking more than a few days off in a year? Really? Those guys grind to a degree you probably can't comprehend. As an amateur, if you retired rich to a balmy clime with a house at the fringe of a course, would you have the drive (no pun intended) to play a round every single day—and then practice for a couple of hours every evening on the range and the putting green as well?

I'm not a golfer. Pool's my game. I love it. I watch a lot of it, and look forward to the occasions every week when I get to play. But an hour of practice a couple of times a week is plenty for me. After that, I've had it. (My buddies think even that much is cheating.) Could I practice my break for five hours straight like five-time U.S. Open 9-ball Champion Shane Van Boening does, and then do the same thing again the next day and the day after that and the day after that? I think I'd sooner whack myself over the head repeatedly with a house cue.

Many times in my life I've come across people who are gung-ho to master something or other (not just photography). They're extremely determined, and at first they're very focused and work very hard. But as time goes on, their interest fades, and that focus dissipates. The truth is revealed: they just don't have the appetite for working that hard, that long, on that thing.

No amount of determination helps. You can keep it up for a while, but you can't fake the interest and appetite necessary to work on something obsessively.

Actor Paul Newman was introduced to racing while filming the 1972 movie Winning, about auto racing, for which he and Robert Wagner attended the Bob Bondurant Racing School. For Wagner, that was that. But not for Newman. For Newman, it was just the beginning. His friends initially thought he had gotten temporarily distracted by race-car driving—it was a dalliance, a lark. But the truth turned out to be that he found the thing he really liked to do. Acting quickly took second place. "I had a great deal of fun filming ['Winning'] but I never really had a chance to stretch my legs out and find out what I could do in a car," Newman told writer John Oreovicz in 2004. "It actually took me three years of rearranging my schedule before I could find time to get my license and everything. After that, I never did a film between April and September or October. [Racing] was all I did."

My brother Scott had a high-school buddy who was the same way. Jimmy-James Rollins started out as a terrible banjo player—when he and Scott were teenagers I used to dread being forced to listen when he came to the house and got his banjo out. But he loved banjo, and he loved to practice, and he practiced and practiced, and he got better and better and better. It was a beautiful thing to watch. Eventually he toured Europe with a bluegrass band, among many other accomplishments on the scene.

Which came first for Jimmy-James, the 10,000-hours cart or the I-love-banjo horse?

You can work this premise backwards, too. In my favorite essay about writing, "The Getaway Car," the novelist Ann Patchett points out that most people who say they pine to be novelists either cannot or will not write for one hour a day for thirty days without a break. So the question becomes, what exactly is it that you can practice endlessly and have it make you happier rather than driving you crazy? That's the thing you should do.

That's the real key to the whole "10,000 hours" idea, if you ask me. You have to find the thing you enjoy enough such that deliberate practice doesn't seem like a chore, but is more of a pleasure. Don't pick the thing first and then get all determined to practice it until you master it. Just find the thing you enjoy doing enough that you could do it for hours and hours every day and not get tired of it.

That's how I realized photography was for me. I'd start working in the darkroom at eight or nine in the evening and then, after I knocked off, I'd be totally surprised that it was getting light out and I had worked all night long.

The key isn't the hours per se. The key is having enough appetite for something that you can put the hours in.

Off he goes
Carl's a good writer, and no doubt he could write that book summarizing his many insights into photography. But he'd probably rather load all his view cameras into the car and set out on another of his epic journeys in search of pictures. That's what he really likes to do.

Mike
(Thanks to Terry Letton)

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Flash in the Pan

Guest post by Jay Burleson

Jay Burleson, Flash in the Pan, 1756 French Infantry
Musket Demonstration, Fort Ticonderoga, New York

This photograph is, for several reasons, one of my favorites. Taken in 2015 with a Leica M9 and 75mm ƒ/2, the exposure, composition, and timing were all done well; the subjects are isolated from the background; and all three reenactors express varied and intriguing facial expressions. Most of all, you are seeing a demonstration of an extremely geeky process, frozen in the midst of happening—the firing of a flintlock musket. (Yes, referencing the recent TOP article, firearms aficionados also fit the definition of "geeks." Often right out to the extreme edge of the bell curve.)

The firearms pictured are modern reproductions of the French Charleville musket, first manufactured in 1717. Its production ended sometime during the 1840s. It was a .69 caliber smoothbore flintlock muzzle-loading musket used by French infantry forces around the world, including in many battles at and around Fort Ticonderoga in the mid-18th century. The flintlock mechanism was developed in the early 16th century and was pretty much the standard for firearms until the early 19th century.

The basic working of a flintlock is simple: the hammer, under spring tension, is holding a piece of flint, and when the trigger is pulled, the flint pivots forward forcefully and scrapes the flint against the frizzen or steel, resulting in a shower of sparks that ignites a small amount of black powder in the pan. From an engineering standpoint, the entire system is elegant in its robustness and simplicity.

When the black powder in the pan is ignited, some of the flame created by the burning powder enters a small hole, called the touch hole, drilled through the side of the barrel into the barrel's chamber, which subsequently ignites the main charge of powder in the barrel. The lead-ball projectile, which is seated into the barrel on top of the black powder, is then propelled out of the barrel.

If, under the stress of reloading your musket in a life-or-death situation, you forget to put a charge of black powder in the barrel, the flame from the pan has nothing to ignite, hence it's just a "flash in the pan." Most reference authorities agree that this—as illustrated in the photograph—is the origin of that phrase "flash in the pan," meaning "something which disappoints by failing to deliver anything of value, despite a showy beginning."

Despite my title, I do like to think that this photograph does deliver something of value, after its showy beginning!

Jay

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Keith: "An interesting side note regarding flintlocks; unlike the primer-based ignition in modern firearms, there is a noticeable delay between pulling the trigger and the actual firing of the gun, requiring a 'follow through' of maintaining the sights on target for an additional second after pulling the trigger. Failure to do so would yield a shot way off target. This delay earned the mechanism the alternative name of 'flinchlock,' because any flinching by the shooter is greatly exaggerated by the delay."

David Dyer-Bennet: "Very nice! Getting the priming charge so clearly is fairly rare."

Print Sale Ends Soon

Our current TOP Print Offer, "Car Park" by reader Leigh Perry from Australia, ends today at noon Pacific Time, only a few hours from now. Last chance! [UPDATE: Sale ended at 12 noon Pacific Time on August 20th. Thanks to everyone who participated! —Ed.].

I'd like to thank Leigh and Ctein, as well as those who have ordered prints so far. This is one of my favorites. It has the clean, enigmatic graphism and color sophistication of a modernist painting. To my eye it morphs between a distant view of a seascape and the gritty close-in reality of what it is. It's definitely evocative of the horizon; the picture implies a lot more than it contains, and I like that. A brilliant photograph, and a fine, sardonic joke. The print is elegant. I'm pleased to be able to make this available to you, at least during this brief opportunity.

We have one more print sale scheduled in 2019.

Mike

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Angry Mob

These people came to the door. They want me to go work on the Baker's Dozen "In the Museum" portfolio. They seem like they mean it. So I think I'd better go work on that. I'll be back soon....

Mike

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Mysterious Missing Airplanes

Amelia Earhart in 1937 in front of her Lockheed Electra

Using the faintest of photographic clues as inspiration, one of history's greatest treasure hunters may be on the brink of explaining one of the 20th century's enduring mysteries. Robert Ballard, the man who found the Titanic, is hot on the case of the mysterious disappearance of aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, looking for her Lockheed on the slope of an underwater volcanic mountain.

People like mysteries, but people especially like it when mysteries are solved. For instance, the world's attention was transfixed when Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared from radar without apparent explanation en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in 2014. Many people (among them comedian Kathleen Madigan, who has made Flight 370 a staple of her stage act) became obsessed with the case. That one is all but solved now—although the main part of the plane hasn't been found, the circumstantial evidence is very strong that it was a case of mass murder / suicide by the plane's "sad and lonely" pilot in command, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, and was planned carefully in cold blood. The evidence is set forth in a June, 2019 article by William Langewiesche in The Atlantic. [UPDATE: There are alternative theories, including the ones set out by Jeff Wise, who has written a book about Flight 370 and thinks the Russians were behind it. The problem with Wise's thesis as I read it is "...the inevitable question: Why? The unsatisfying answer is, we just don’t know." The foundation of my belief system is psychological, so motive tends to loom large in the avenues by which I typically try to get at truth. If I can't even imagine a motive and/or no one can propose one, then piles of Lincoln-Kennedy-type evidence really start to look circumstantial to me. But who knows what really happened? I certainly don't. (Thanks to Jonathan Murray for this.)  —MJ.]

Many theories about Earhart's fate have been put forward over the years, ranging from the plausible to the fantastical. One hangs on very slender evidence—a photograph taken near a tiny remote island by a man named Eric Bevington in 1937 (that date is per Wikipedia; an article on Artnet has it as 1940). Then called Gardner Island and now known as Nikumaroro, it is in the Phoenix Islands, lying Southeast of Earhart's intended target, Howland Island. A tiny, blurry object in a corner of the photograph, known as "The Bevington Object," is believed by a group called The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) to be the landing gear of Earhart's Lockheed Electra. TIGHAR has enthusiastically endorsed the possibility that Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan landed on the island, were marooned, and perished there.

According to that Artnet article, "In order to enhance the blurry speck on the old photograph, TIGHAR’s Jeff Glickman, a forensic imaging expert, reached out to the government for help. The image ended up at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which employed classified technology to better see what Bevington had captured with his lens. An independent review by intelligence analysts at the Pentagon agreed with TIGHAR’s conclusion that the indistinct object looked like the plane’s landing gear."*

The Nikumaroro hypothesis is considered the most plausible of the "landed and survived" theories. Most experts and analysts believe the pair ran out of fuel over the tractless reaches of the Pacific and simply crashed into the ocean, and such "crashed and sank" theories perhaps have greater plausibility. TIGHAR's claims that sundry objects discovered on Nikumaroro—including a skeleton and scraps of aircraft aluminum and Plexiglas—could have belonged to Earhart have so far not risen to the standard of proof.

But TIGHAR's numerous search expeditions were not very well funded, and its efforts at underwater searches were hampered by technical difficulties. Enter the celebrated Ballard, whose backer is none other than The National Geographic Society. His search will be very well funded indeed...the "landed and survived" Nikumaroro Theory put to the acid test. Meanwhile, TIGHAR has gone silent. What do they know?

They'll tell us soon...in a National Geographic Special, naturally, set to air on October 20th.

My guess, and of course it's only a guess, is that it will be fascinating as well as entertaining to revisit the great Earhart saga. It always is. She's become a staple of dramatic narrative biographies for young adults, such as Candace Fleming's Amelia Lost**, not to mention the inspiration for romantic pop-culture masterpieces like Joni Mitchell's stunning "Amelia." But it's probably most likely that no new light will be shed on the fate of the woman whom Tom D. Couch, Senior Curator at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum, once called "our favorite missing person." The vast Pacific has swallowed her up, along with all the other mysteries it holds.

Mike

*Quite a stretch to use "the" as the fourth-to-last word in that last sentence rather than "a." Seems to me like just another incidence of that popular trope about photographs, found in numerous television show plots, that you just need to "enlarge" photographs more and more to see effectively infinitely more information, or "enhance" an image infinitely to uncover endless additional information...that is, you can start with a little blurry speck that is not even clearly part of an airplane, then determine that it is part of an airplane, then determine that it is part of a 1930s airplane, then determine that it is part of a Lockheed Electra, then determine that it looks like part of "the" plane's landing gear...that is, part of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan's plane's landing gear. I'm not a "forensic imaging expert," but I know enough about photography to call big fat BS on that one. And incidentally, this whole quotation, just by itself, is a sterling example of a logical fallacy called "appeal to authority."

**Unlike most adults, I don't scorn to read books for young adults occasionally—they are often excellent brief primers and are usually better illustrated than books aimed at adults. As I mentioned recently, my favorite biography of Mathew Brady is a young adult book, albeit one written by a Brady expert and scholar, George Sullivan.

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Severian: "Mike wrote: 'Unlike most adults, I don't scorn to read books for young adults occasionally....' Good company you are keeping, Mike. The recent massive winner on Jeopardy, James Holzhauer, claimed that children's books were a key part of his strategy to learn a decent amount about a lot of subjects. According to James, 'They are chock-full of infographics, pictures and all kinds of stuff to keep the reader engaged.' Mike, hopefully your reading also leads you to a $2,462,216 payday.  :-) "

Rob White: "I was privileged to be visiting the wonderful Naval Air Museum in Pensacola, Florida, about 10 years ago when they introduced a fully restored Lockheed Electra like the one Amelia Earhart flew on that fateful mission, and I saw a presentation by TIGHAR on their search efforts, including archival movies of the actual start of her mission. One of the intriguing parts showed what they believe was damage to the radio wires as the plane took off from the airport on the final leg. The theory then was that this hampered the ability to communicate their location and may have contributed to the failure to find them."

Chuck Albertson: "I would much rather that Ballard and Nat Geo take a look for MH370. I fly 777s all the time."

Fuji Fire Sale

Here I was, contemplating the notion of writing a post about the Fuji X-H1 possibly being my favorite camera of any kind, ever, and now this. From a fire sale price of $1,299 that I kept harping on and on about as a great whopping bargain—which it was—the Fuji X-H1 and the battery back / vertical grip is suddenly an unbelievable $999.95. (Here it is on Amazon, and at Adorama.)

For a camera/grip combination that debuted at $2,199 a year and a half ago!

Granted, this could well mean that an X-H2 is sitting on the runway waiting to launch. Always a risk.

Regardless of what it means, purely on a "lotta camera for little dollars" basis this is tough to top.

Mike
(Thanks to Dennis Mook)

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Sunday Support Group: The Meatitarian Diet (OT)

People need to eat plants (hear me out. I'm going somewhere with this). We were evolved to eat plants. Our teeth and intestines are formed so we can eat plants. Our nearest animal relatives eat almost nothing but plants. Our bodies function best on plants. Study after study after study closely correlates the health of populations to the percentages of plant food in their diets. All manner of medical outcomes—from the incidence of diabetes, to the health of our veins and arteries, to sleep, to headaches, to joint aches, to longevity—all improve when we eat plants. Plants contain hundreds and hundreds of chemicals that are important or critical to health beyond youth (they're important when we're young too, but, when we're young, the vitality of youth itself often "masks" the health risks and dangers of dietary foolishness). The scientific evidence is growing fast that cancer cells pop up in your body all the time, and that phytochemicals give it the vital ammunition it needs to crush them. If you aren't eating mostly plants, you are not as healthy as you could be. Most humans can survive and thrive indefinitely ingesting nothing but plants and water—a statement that can be made for no other category of food or "foodlike substance."

But it turns out that on a diet adequate in essential plant foods, you can also eat...well, meat.

Make no mistake, meat is poor food. It has low nutritional value. It is high in fat of the worst kind. Of the dietary essential in shortest supply in the appropriately abbreviated SAD—the standard American diet—namely, fiber—meat has none. (Fiber comes from plants.) People like meat because it's savory and it's got all that fat and, as recently as the post-war era, it was still a high-status food enjoyed frequently only by the well-off, and that status lingers in the culture. But it's not healthy. About the only things meat supplies that are good for you are things that the animal itself got from plants and concentrated in its own tissues—such as protein, a nutrient Americans already get way too much of to the detriment of our liver and kidney health. (One cup of broccoli has only 31 calories but 2.6 grams of protein; spinach contains every essential amino acid; etc. You cannot eat a sensible variety of plants and not get enough protein. You'll just get more, faster, from a steak.)

Pam Popper's latest book

But here's the thing. If you are eating a wide range of plants and vegetables and starches and are getting all of the phytonutrients your body needs, a few servings of meat a week won't kill you. Dr. Pam Popper (she is a Ph.D., not an M.D.) is the founder and President of Wellness Forum Health, "a company that offers educational programs to both consumers and providers that facilitate informed medical decision-making, diet and lifestyle intervention, and improved long-term health outcomes." Dr. Popper, who happens to eat no meat herself, defines "a few servings" as up to four ounces of high-quality, organic, non-processed (i.e., not bologna or sausage or Slim Jims!) meat up to three times a week. People who eat meat in low doses like that, as a group, have about the same health outcomes as vegans and people who eat WFPB (whole-food plant-based) diets.

...Which is a notion that is not very popular among vegans and people who eat WFPB diets.

That's rather an understatement, actually. The idea offends many of them. Well, "horrifies" is a word that also works, shall we just admit. Partly that's because "the V-words," vegetarian and vegan, often define not just a diet but an ethical stance toward animals and/or an environmental position...the production of meat, collectively speaking, being among our poor planet's worst environmental nightmares. There is certainly strong merit in those ideas. Partly, also, it might be because people love being true believer types. Most people who believe in plant diets don't see any sense or sanity in not going cold turkey, excuse the term.

In truth, though, the least worst thing about low-dose meat as part of a plant-based diet is merely that it displaces better foods. That is, the more prime rib you eat, the less spinach you'll have room for. The more pork tenderloin you pig out on, the more likely you are to skip seconds of green beans. The more shrimps you scarf down, the more blackberries you'll be deprived of forever.

But it won't hurt you.

Food by itself is not ideology. If you eat for health rather than ethics or ecology, then you can have good-quality meat in sensible amounts now and then if you enjoy it. It's not ideal food, no, and you could do better for your health just upping your portion of watermelon or watercress or yellow split pea soup. But you'll be fine. Your militant vegetarian friends won't like this at all ("never eat anything with a face!"), but, as long as you get all your plants down, you can be a low-dose meatitarian if you want to, and, at the statistical level at least, your health outcomes will still remain as good as theirs.

Mike

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John Krumm: "Been doing full vegan Greger ( more or less) for a couple months now. Greger takes pains to emphasize that he’s not really advocating veganism, but of course if you make it through the daily dozen you likely won’t have room for much meat. Sometimes in a world where meat and other bad options surround you almost everywhere, it’s easier stick to full vegan rather than always 'moderating' something I’d like to stuff myself with. Same with cheese especially, my true weakness."

Mike replies: Cheese is the #1 unhealthy food. And it's mildly addictive. Check out Neal Barnard's The Cheese Trap. Or watch How to Magnetize a Baby.  :-)

Jim Pilcher: "Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! This may be the most sensible post you've made in eons, or at least this week. I'm a 95% vegan by choice since 2012 (no agenda other than health) who enjoys a bit of king salmon once or twice a week. I feel great, much better than when I ate a lot of meats. I don't begrudge others having their meat; I just don't do it any longer. Thank you again, Mike. I did not expect such a sane dietary post mixed in among the gear, billiards, photographic philosophies and sensibilities, and print talk."

A Play on Seascapes

Leigh Perry, Car Park

Here's the commentary posted when we first published this week's print sale picture, way back in 2011. The first sentence by Mike, the rest by Leigh:

Leigh, of Sydney, Australia, shot his minimalist masterpiece with an Ebony 45SU 4x5-inch view camera on Fuji Astia, his favorite transparency film, under "glorious fluorescent lighting."

"The commenters who speculated that my photograph was a joke were right," writes Leigh. "It was conceived as a pun on the minimal seascapes I had taken before it. The idea gradually formed itself while I stood for a couple of minutes each day waiting for my car to come out of a car stacker. I eventually became aware that the carpark contained all the elements that would have attracted me to a composition on the coast in the early morning.

"The photograph is typical and atypical of my work in equal measure. I've always been obsessed with symmetry (as a kid, if I stubbed a toe, I'd have to do the same on the other foot!), and this reveals itself in my compositions. You'll see from my other portfolios on my website a consistent obsession with geometric layers splitting the frame into halves or thirds. I can't ascribe any credit to [Andreas] Gursky, although I am a fan of the Düsseldorf School. [Hiroshi] Sugimoto, however, was an influence on the seascapes of mine that morphed into this.

"Although most of my subject matter involves landscape, particularly on the coast, I don't particularly consider myself a landscape photographer. I just shoot what is to hand here in Sydney."

When I asked him to share a bit more about who he is for us, he wrote, "I have worked as a software engineer in Sydney for over 30 years. I find that software creation shares some of the same features as the other obsessions of my life—music and photography. Each of these involves aspects of science and art—both sides of the brain—although some people might be surprised to hear that software does too."

[UPDATE: Sale ended at 12 noon Pacific Time on August 20th. Thanks to everyone who participated! —Ed.]

Mike

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Chas: "While I’ve frequently been tempted to comment on this site—long time lurker, as they say—I’m moved to do so, having viewed Leigh’s seascapes (through the link provided). Simply beautiful! Although I too gravitate towards symmetry, it’s the wonderful, soft pastel colours and the abstract elements (if you will) that knocked my socks off! Nothing but admiration here."

Lunatic

On August 12th, in the post about the Fuji 100–400mm, I said I once wrote in a magazine article that "there is nothing far enough away to take pictures of with a 180mm—I said even the moon was too close, because the moon filled too much of the frame with the 180mm." So someone suggested that I should take a shot of the moon as one of my test shots with the 100–400mm.

Thursday the 15th was the full moon, so I figured I'd wait. But I'm getting wise to the ways of the weather here—I went out the night before—the 14th—when the moon was visible, in case of clouds on the 15th. And sure enough, I never saw the moon on Thursday. Clouded over.

So here's the almost-full moon on Wednesday.

This is at 400mm (600mm-e), handheld.

The file retained detail in the moon and also in the sparse clouds in the sky, but of course the visual impression is of a brilliantly bright circle against a featureless black sky. The latter would not work in a pictorial representation, with its much lower range of luminances, so I tried to leave just a little cloud detail in the surrounding sky and a little detail on the surface of the moon. Are you seeing that? No idea if you're seeing it that way, because I don't know how your monitor is calibrated, but that's the choice I went with on my monitor.

Here's a detail ("detail" in art means a smaller segment of an image*) of the surface of the moon with the sliders set to show what the sensor recorded. This should be 100% on your monitor after you click on the image to open it.

That's probably not the best picture you ever saw of the surface of the moon, but once again, that's at 600mm-e, handheld.

I'll say again, I lived at just the right time to do what I do. I'm so grateful I started my career practicing basically a variation of 19th-century photography and ended up in the 21st. Because otherwise this might not amaze me so much. And I'm grateful to be amazed. Just blows me away, as we used to say back in the 20th.

Mike

*I've been making an effort to define terms and write out abbreviations occasionally for readers who might not be familiar with them. Don't forget only about 3–5% of readers ever comment. I want to remember as well those who might be quietly lurking.

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Math Problem (OT)

Actually, I'm not even sure this is mathematics. I don't even know what discipline it is. I realize this might be trivial to a lot of you, but my brain has never gotten along with numbers. (We all have weaknesses. The key to success in life is to know how to ask for help with the things we're not good at.)

Say you have four pool players—call them 1, 2, 3 and 4. The person who pays breaks, and each player pays and breaks in a fixed sequence, 1-2-3-4. Each game is two against two, but the teams rotate so that each person takes turns playing with the others. How do you arrange this so both sequences work?

It seems to me that there are four possible breakers, 1-2-3-4, but only three possible teams—that is, 1 plays with 2, then with 3, then with 4. How can both sequences continue? Sitting at the Moose the other day trying to bodge up a score sheet while the others were saying "come on, it's your turn!", I couldn't quite get there. To me it's like one of those odd time signatures that only jazz drummers know how to play.

Mike

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Mark Roberts (and the PDML)

TOP reader and old photo-friend Mark Roberts stopped by Penn Yan for lunch today. He was en route to Rochester on a very red and swoopy motorcycle. I first met Mark in person years ago at Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina. Actually I "e-met" him long before that on the PDML, the Pentax-Discuss Mailing List, where he was one of the most measured, friendly and knowledgeable voices among that chorus of measured, friendly and knowledgeable voices.

I spoke at Grandfather Mountain, at the Camera Clinic, one of two summer PDML group gatherings at the landmark park. I always figured I didn't do a very good job—my talk, about "reification and redacting," was a little dry and short on entertainment—but Mark told me at lunch that some of my comments were part of the inspiration for the PDML Photo Annuals, printed collections of participants' pictures that the mailing group produces every year. That make me feel better. I got to look through three of the recent annuals, and it was both nice looking at so many fine pictures and also seeing names still familiar from my years on the PDML. Back issues are available, and sales benefit the Global Health Initiative of Boston Children's Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

The PDML is the nicest forum you'll ever hang out on, and I mean it. And I'll give you a little secret tip—don't tell anyone there I told you—you don't actually need to be shooting Pentax currently to participate. Some PDML denizens are people who just appreciate the low-key, accepting and courteous online community and are only Pentax sympathizers or former Pentax shooters. (You do have to use either a Pentax body or lens to get a picture into the Annual, however. Seems fair.)

As you can see from the picture of Mark, "former Pentax shooter" doesn't describe him. First time I've seen a real K-1 in person so to speak. There's a nice new 35mm lens for that camera, too, I learned just recently.

Anyway, if you'd like to join yourself or just test the waters, the address is PDML.net. It's a nice community.

Mark teaches Photoshop, among other arty and design-y subjects, at Lasell University in Newton, Massachussetts, and he's doing some fascinating and impressive work right now with blended and merged non-HDR HDR images. Good to see you again Mark!

Mike

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Ned Bunnell: "For those who don’t know Mark, he has some wonderful photographs on his Instagram account."

The Case Against Zooms

I’m well known for having a prejudice against zoom lenses. I generally don’t like them, generally don’t shoot with them, and generally don’t recommend them. Again and again, I’m asked to explain this, usually in a sort of bemused way, as if I’m some sort of strange curiosity who can’t get along with the other kids on the playground. Everybody uses zooms, right? Why “limit” yourself? As if I suffer from some sort of cantankerous hard-heartedness and haven’t thought out my opinion. So here, once again, is my case against zooms.

Learning How to Visualize
The only reason not to shoot with a zoom lens is this: a zoom lens has no point of view. A fixed-focal length (a.k.a. "prime") lens imposes its point of view on you, and, consequently, you can learn to impose its point of view on the world. If you routinely photograph with a fixed-focal-length lens, sooner or later you will not need to look through your camera to know what the lens will see—your eyes will know, your mind will know. You won't even need to have your camera with you to organize pictures out of the visual chaos of the world. Your eyes and your brain will be able to visualize without aid from the viewfinder. A zoom is a crutch to aid visualization, but, ironically, it is an impediment to learning how to visualize. If one wants to learn how a camera sees, the best and easiest way is to deal with a lens you can learn, instead of a lens that's a chameleon.

Are there other disadvantages of zooms? Of course. For one, they are usually as large as the largest focal length lens they replace, and as slow as the slowest focal length lens they replace. Plus, they add another control which must be manipulated in between two events that ought to be linked as closely as possible: recognizing a picture and taking the picture. Many times, one might have time for this. But maybe not.

Can good photographers who know how to visualize already use zooms effectively? The answer has to be yes. Are zooms often useful when you can't choose your standpoint, as when you're behind a barricade at a sporting event, or one one side of a mountainous valley taking pictures of the other side? Of course.

Zooms are most especially useful, I think, at the telephoto end of the focal length range—because the longer the lens, the more difficult and time-consuming it is to change your framing by moving yourself.

I've reviewed hundreds of photographers' portfolios, and if I had to guess, I would say that generally, photographers who use zooms don't frame pictures as well as photographers who don't. Does this mean this generalization is true in every instance? Naturally not. Some photographers have such skill or experience that none of this matters much. Just because I say that zooms encourage some students of the art to be sloppy and prevent them from learning visualization easily, can we extrapolate from that that zooms are bad and no photographer can make a good photograph with a zoom? That would be an egregious logical fallacy, of course, and I would never claim such a thing.

I do have a prejudice against zooms, though, for this very simple reason: I don't think they help most photographers do better work. I think they are an impediment to learning how to see better. But do I have a prejudice against people who use zooms, or pictures made with zooms? Not at all. Those two things don’t logically follow one from the other.

Exercises
So how can you tell for yourself? Easy: try it. I don’t know if you’re in the habit of giving yourself exercises, and maybe it betrays my fundamentally teacherish nature that I like 'em. But I do think that exercises help. They help get us in shape, help us "tone our muscles" as it were, help us hone our skills. One great advantage of DSLRs over digicams is that we can choose which lens we want to use. Zooms, found on most (all?) digicams, are perfectly appropriate for them—they add more flexibility into a small, all-in-one package. (A digicam is like a jackknife—useful for many things, perfect for very few.) And a DSLR allows us to add lens capability, it’s true—and this is what most people are concerned about. Can you photograph a gnat’s tooth at one knuckle’s distance? Can you get everything into the picture from one side of a broad room to the other? Can you zoom in on a distant squirrel and cut out all the surrounding clutter? Can you handle every possible situation? That’s what most people think about. And let’s face it, it’s more fun to buy new lenses than it is to learn to use the ones you already have.

A zoom makes sense on 'em since you can’t change lenses. But a DSLR also allows us to limit lens capability, too—if for no other reason than as an exercise. You can pick one single-focal-length lens and use it for a week, a month, or a year, and really learn how to see with it. Try it. I can virtually guarantee it will improve your eye. It’s probably true that we shouldn’t be doctrinaire, and that letting preferences harden into prejudices isn’t a good thing. Even for a photographer who uses mostly primes, one zoom might come in handy sometimes. (I keep meaning to get one.) But, just as surely, every photographer ought to have at least one fixed-focal-length lens in his or her bag.

Mike

This was first published on The Luminous-Landscape in 2003, sixteen years ago, hence the discussion of "digicams" and "DSLRs" which seems a little dated now.

When I grew up, there were two highly prestigious kinds of cameras, both of which were prized and used by serious and ambitious photographers, and neither of which used zoom lenses: Leica rangefinders and view cameras. Professional photographers also widely used medium-format film cameras, and zooms were broadly unsuited for those as well. The attitude was pretty set and widespread in those days: zooms were for amateurs.

It's underappreciated now that Leica film rangefinders and view cameras imparted a certain salutary discipline on lens choice. Leicas were best when used with fixed-focal-length lenses for which the cameras had framelines: 28mm, 35mm, 50mm, 75mm, 90mm and 135mm in the case of the M6. Of those, 135mm was of limited usefulness because the rangefinder wasn't very good at focusing it. In fact, the major reason 135mm is a standard focal length at all is that it was the longest lens that could reasonably be focused on a rangefinder. Of course, humans being humans, people immediately demanded that the Leica be adaptable for things it didn't naturally do well, so various wide-angle lenses were made for it that required the use of external viewfinders temporarily attached to the flash shoe, and various kludges for close-up work were cobbled up.

But really, Leicas were good for focusing five "prime" lenses at distances of a meter or more: 28mm, 35mm, 50mm, 75mm, and 90mm. And you didn't even need all five; two or three would usually serve.

Same thing with view cameras: there was a limited range of fixed-focal-length lenses that made sense on them. Professionals are generally the most competent photographers, but they are also not free: they make their livings solving problems put to them by their clients. So studio pros who shot with view cameras might need a variety of lenses for a variety of purposes. But among view camera photographers who are free to do whatever they want, many own only one lens, and few (except for gearheads) own more than three or regularly carry more than three in the field. Of course some aficionados own view cameras of many formats and enjoy owning big collections of lenses for them, but, given that Edward Weston and Walker Evans each used only one lens for long stretches of their most productive periods as photographers, it's difficult to argue that lots of gear is actually needed.

Cut to now (leaving out a lot of intervening history): many peoples' "cameras" (that is, smartphones) come with...one lens of fixed focal length! Usually 28mm. My two-lensed iPhone 7+ has two modules; one, 28mm, and the other 56mm. It might be surprising that 28mm(-e) isn't noticeably growing in popularity for ILC's, but maybe smartphone shooters are just unaware that that's the focal length they use, or are just unaware of FOV and focal lengths period. I guess the latter is more likely.

One thing I'll bet is true, though: that while many people taking pictures with phones use a fixed 28mm-e now, they're also becoming extremely fluent with cropping. My 13-year-old niece takes a picture and then almost instantly crops it to just the portion of it she wants using a few quick flicks of her fingers. When I remember laboriously cropping yearbook photos with cropping angles and wax crayons it seems positively prehistoric, and surely my high-school students in the 1980s were less practiced at cropping—and less good at it—than my niece and her peers are today.

By the way, I'm sure a case can be made for zooms as well—it's just that I'm not the guy who's going to make it. And naturally, everyone should use what they're most comfortable with and what they like best. There is no right way and wrong way here. But if you've always used zooms and don't know what the fuss is about primes, do try it sometime—use one prime until you really get to know it well. I can almost guarantee you'll learn from the experience, even if you go back to zooms later. —MJ, 2019

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Stan B.: "Can't agree more. I spent at least a year shooting with each focal length between (and including) 50mm through 20mm. As a result, I know how each 'sees,' and what is usually 'best' for the given situation. It's an invaluable tool in your skill set—one that also helps hone the other most important practice in helping one see...cropping in camera."

Michael Perini: "If you are talking mostly about the best way to learn photography, and develop an 'eye,' I agree. Because, I learned that way, when I use a zoom, I tend to use them as two primes—24mm or 70mm, etc. But I now have lots of zooms because modern ones are so good, and they are necessary for lots of professional work. I'm happy to have them."

Mike replies: Yes, it's fair to say I am (or was, in 2003) indeed "talking mostly about the best way to learn photography, and develop an 'eye.'"

rick schermerhorn: "My Panasonic LX5 had defined stops for the common e-focal lengths covered by its zoom. I shot at 28mm-e for one year and 35mm-e for the rest of the years until it broke. I then opted for a Fuji X100S rather than the Ricoh GR. I wish all zooms had these defined stops."

trecento: "I think I've told this story before, but I learned photography—or at least, took my first photography class—using a Soligor 28mm–300m ƒ/3.5–6.8 It worked better than you would think! I learned to compose at 28mm and ƒ/3.5, because that was where I needed to be to get high enough shutter speeds! So it was a very large, very heavy, slow, 28mm prime. Yes, I did other stuff with it, and I learned a bit about the 300mm perspective.

"Years later, when I got my first digicam, a 28mm-e to 85mm-e zoom, I once again parked it at 28mm-e, since it had a blazingly fast ƒ/2.4 aperture, and of course, I was really familiar with that viewpoint. It was a 4MP Canon, and at base ISO, turned out some really nice photos. Likewise, when I got my first DSLR, and later, first mirrorless, I had the same experience: the best grain quality was going to be at 28mm, so I better get in close.

"I can't say what life would have been like with constant ƒ/2.8 lenses, but for me, cheap consumer zooms taught me a lot about framing and the importance of being involved in the picture. Today, I use a 40mm-e prime, but I'm thinking of switching to a 28mm-e for most of my family and friend photography. It's a nice point of view."

JohnW: "To paraphrase the great late Michael Reichmann of LuLa, 'No one ever looked at one of my images and said "You should have used a prime!"' It doesn't matter whether you learn to see with primes or with zooms...as long as you learn to see with the tools you have. I haven't owned a prime in 31 years...though, I keep meaning to get one."

JimH (partial comment): "[I've been] zoom-zoom for 50 years."

Maris Rusis: "After 50 years in photography using view cameras I've never made an exposure with a zoom lens. But zoom I do. First there is foot-zoom: walk to the place where everything lines up right and set the camera there. Then pick a lens that gets everything in and shoot. For the final picture I cut out what I don't want. That's crop-zoom. Big film can be quite generous."

Martin D: "Re: Walker Evans. I don't think it's right to think of him as a one-lens photographer. Many LF shooters are, but Evans not. The archetypical Evans 8-by-10 was produced with one variant or another of a triple convertible, giving him a spectrum from I think around 290mm to 690mm, or roughly 40mm-e to 105mm-e. The introduction to the excellent Walker Evans at Work looks at detailed examples, including cases where he worked with multiple focal lengths on the same object in the same session. The text mentions a Zeiss Protar, and Evans' own equipment list on p. 183 lists both the Protar and a Turner Reich Anastigmat ƒ/7.5 II 15''. He certainly was sparse in the range of perspectives that he adopted, but with Evans there always is the just-about tamed battle between the eye of a slight wide angle and that of a narrower light tele. Incidentally, those triple convertibles really are the forerunners of the Tri-Elmars, aren't they."

Reader Print Offer: Leigh Perry

Leigh Perry, Car Park

I'm very, very happy to bring you this as our Summer Reader Print Sale. For a mere $195, inexpensive for fine art by any measure these days, we're offering this wonderfully subtle signed print by TOP reader Leigh Perry from Australia.

[UPDATE: Sale ended at 12 noon Pacific Time on August 20th. Thanks to everyone who participated! —Ed.]

Leigh's picture made an indelible impression on me when I first saw it and I've never forgotten it since. It's become one of my favorite "abstract" photographs ever, by anyone; it's also among the top handful of my favorite finds on TOP in its soon-to-be 14-year history. Part of the reason for this sale is selfish: I just wanted a print of it for myself.  :-)

The colors are lovely. Ctein worked with Leigh on the print; I wasn't part of that process. They got it just right as far as I can see. I wouldn't change a thing.

The irony, of course, is that the photograph isn't abstract at all—it's a straight photograph of the wall and floor of a car park (parking lot) that just happened to have those two wonderful echoing marks arranged as if by an artist's hand. That it's also our second straight (!!) sale of pictures of concrete just makes me laugh, that's all. (It just worked out that way. Please don't think this is going to be the policy for all print sales from now on!)

I suppose you'll either like this or you won't. I think it's elegant and evocative and subtle, sere and plain and exquisite. I love it. I'd rather have this on my wall than a Sugimoto (not to detract anything from his accomplishment). 

Here's how it works
You probably already know how our sales work. We take orders for five days, then close the orders, and then the prints are made at one time to fulfill the orders that we've already received and that are already paid for. This way we can keep the prices low for you but still reward the photographer with a nice return.

Let's see, any more details? The image size is right around 15x19 inches (38x48 cm) on 17x22" paper. The shipping price is the same to anywhere in the world. Damaged or missing prints will be replaced at our expense, and you have a complete guarantee—if you don't like it once you see it, we'll send you a 100% refund (minus shipping).

More about Leigh, and the print, in days to come.

Note: Unless you need to take your time for some reason, please don't wait to order—the pictures have to go to Leigh in Australia for signatures, and PayPal mandates that we start shipping to customers within 30 days. That's kinda tight. It will be much easier for us if we have a significant number of orders to ship out to him in the first batch. If you order early you'll be doing us a big favor. Many thanks!

Mike
(Thanks to Leigh and Ctein)

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Bandbox: "It looks like a color field painting with a couple of scuff marks."

K4kafka: "Like Mark Rothko, on a happy day...."

Mike Potter (partial comment): "That photo really doesn't speak to me. At all."

Peter Gilbert: "That's what I call Wabi-sabi at its best. Great shot."

 

Open Mike: A New Favorite Lens?

Fuji X-H1 with XF 35mm ƒ/1.4 (52mm-e)

I've been off trying some more of these Fuji lenses.

For a while there I thought I had a new favorite lens...I tried the new-to-me (but old, almost legacy at this point) Fujifilm XF 35mm ƒ/1.4, and I liked it almost instantly. This isn't too surprising, as it's a modified Planar-type but without the cemented flat surfaces between 4 and 5 that I usually associate with less appealing out-of-focus blur (bokeh). The lens is small and light—barely heavier than the XF 35mm ƒ/2 which I also own—and has a compact lens hood, and makes a very nice combination mounted on the X-H1.

I've used many, many 50mm's (or their equivalents) over the years and don't like very many of them. It's difficult to find a good 50mm(-e). They're typically flawed in some way or another—some have flare or odd ghosting that shows up in certain situations but not others, some render highlights harshly, some have curvature of field that most people can't see in pictures but I can, some have a sort of cold analytical look. Et cetera. I've seen it all. Most have problems at least somewhere with bokeh. My favorites historically (on B&W film!) have been the seven-element Pentax ƒ/1.4's from the Super-Takumar to the SCMP-FA, the OM Zuiko 50mm ƒ/2 Macro, and the 55mm-filter 50mm Leica Summilux-R among others. Have I used 50 50's? Possibly. Am I a completely over-the-top, hopeless, OCD-afflicted connoisseur? Yep. Or at least I was.

It doesn't take me long to get a handle on a lens for myself. It takes longer to put a lens through its paces in order to present review conclusions formally to others, but I've been doing this so long and I know these designs so well that, for my own satisfaction, I can almost intuit what's going on with a lens after a relatively short trial.

The Fuji XF 35mm ƒ/1.4 is gaaaaah. First of all it's got that typical Planar-type variation between the open apertures (ƒ/1.4–ƒ/2.8) and the optimum apertures (ƒ/4–ƒ/8 in this case). The open apertures retain some classic softness in the corners that I think improves pictures taken in "available darkness," the very situations in which you want to use open apertures. Most reviewers treat that like a bug but to me it's a feature. Stopped down it's magnificently sharp—not that razory, analytical, flat, hard, wiry sharpness people are impressed by these days, but the full-bodied, dimensional sharpness you get from lenses with good large-structure contrast and exceptional coatings. In character, this lens most resembles an excellent older Zeiss. I just love it when you're looking at a picture of a thing and your brain can suddenly shift from looking at the properties of the image to the properties of the thing, or the light.

I usually press Mr. Handsome into service as a test-shot model, which is ironic as he actually doesn't like having his picture taken and is uncooperative. The whole file of this picture shows the classic technical beauty of the Planar-type. The Fuji XF 35mm ƒ/1.4 is a very beautiful lens. This could have been made with a Zeiss Contarex lens.

100% detail

It does have some distinct problems in the bokeh, typical of what I associate with single aspheric-element lenses, which this is. With high-contrast objects in the out-of-d.o.f. background, wide apertures at middle focus distances create distinctly ugly, "sick to your stomach" bokeh (anata no i ni byōki bo-ke). (That translation was a joke, son. I take full personal responsibility for all my zany descriptors of bokeh.) Yet the bokeh with softer contrast in the out-of-d.o.f areas and the focus set close is very nice. This is manageable, because you usually want the bokeh to be best when the focus is set close, but it's something you need to know when shooting with this lens. By the way, the modern hobbyist tendency to shoot everything wide open for "maximum bokeh" is mere depravity to any lens connoisseur. Ugh. "Depravity" is way too strong a word, but then, it's an exaggerated sentiment. Heh.

(100% detail after you click on it.) The bokeh shows some distinct bright-ring effects at ƒ/2.8 with the focus set to a middle distance and with a high contrast background. But then, why would anyone shoot a scenic in midday sunlight at ƒ/2.8 anyway?

At the same aperture, but focusing close and with a nearer and less contrasty background, the 35mm ƒ/1.4's bokeh behaves just like a Planar's—smooth but with just a little "interest." Nice. (This is the whole frame.)

So I thought, yeah. This is my lens. I can see why other people can't handle it—can't deploy it properly—but I can. I like a lens that fights back a little, that you have to get to know, that reveals its glories to those who understand it. I started thinking things like, this is the last of my Fuji lenses I would sell; I could do a OC/OL/OY project with this without any problem; etc., etc.

Could be a flaw in the ointment though
Then I started comparing it to the ƒ/2 lens...a lens I have owned for a while and had already decided I don't like very much. And...

...Well, objectively, when I take my connoisseur's [tinfoil] hat off and pretend I'm a normal reasonable human and compare one to the other, there's really...not a whole lot of difference. It's funny, but when you start writing about lenses and talking about this and this property and that quality, it's easy to think that there are huge differences in lenses...when actually, sometimes those differences are exceedingly small. Put up two pictures taken under controlled conditions, look at them next to each other, letting your eyes go back and forth, back and forth, and sometimes...well, there could be a little difference, but the difference doesn't make a difference, if ye ken.

Hmm. Anyway, this matter is going to require more study.

(After I wrote that, I went around the neighborhood and took two dozen pictures twice, once with each lens. I will say this for these lenses: as I switched back and forth, the lens I wasn't using could be temporarily stashed in the top pocket of my shirt when I didn't have it on the camera. Take that, users of this or this.)

One thing I will say, is that the operability of the newer ƒ/2 lens is much better. It doesn't focus all that much more quickly, but it does it with a modern whisper-quietness, and you're not really aware of it when it momentarily "hunts" or adjusts. The older lens seems to work with all the speed of a tall ship coming about into the wind—a great clanking of the wheel, cries from the deck commanders, minions clambering about the foretop, the spanker tugging her stern around into the wind's eye*. Clank, whir, grind, along with seemingly less than fully coordinated movements (the newer lens has internal focus and nothing visibly moves). The 35mm ƒ/1.4's AF is very '90s-ish in sound and gestalt. I really don't think the faster lens is that much slower to focus—a little, probably—it's just that it's louder and grinds and buzzes more and when it adjusts focus with a little secondary zup sound you're more aware of it, so that it seems more labored. Add the weather sealing and lower price of the XF 35mm ƒ/2 "Fujicron" and it becomes tough to prefer the older, faster lens.

Except I still do.

For now. More OCD perseverating to come**, once I get to those comparison pictures I just took.

Mike
(Thanks to JB)

*I can think of a forum where I'd get a very serious reply stating, "You don't know what you're talking about, the 35mm ƒ/1.4 sounds nothing like a square-rigged Napoleonic War frigate. How can we believe anything you say when you don't even know that?"

**But don't hold your breath waiting or you'll turn blue and and die.

Footnote: "flaw in the ointment" is a joke, son, a joke ah say. It's fly in the ointment.

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Bill: "I love that lens. Use it for 90% of my shots. I’ve had it since there were only four Fuji X lenses and never really tried the 35mm ƒ/2 (but I do have the 23mm and 50mm so I know they are 'smoother.' Since I have it, it is unlikely I will ever get the Fujicron; ignorance is bliss. I don’t like the way it grinds when focusing but loooove the way it renders. Enjoy it and the other; look forward to hearing how you feel down the road since you have the luxury of owning both."

Matt: "I have used both and in AFC mode or in eye-detect mode the XF 35mm ƒ/2 is much more reliable than ƒ/1.4. Even on the X-T2 and even with fw updates the ƒ/1.4 is lagging far behind. For stills or semi-stills it does not matter, but for action with continuous focus the ƒ/1.4 is a frustration. No matter how good the lens is, if it cannot nail focus, it's a liability. Therefore I do not follow the public love and adoration for the original 35mm ƒ/1.4. In terms of haptics I agree that the XF 35mm ƒ/2 feels more solid."

Christopher May: "Re '...Well, objectively, when I take my connoisseur's [tinfoil] hat off and pretend I'm a normal reasonable human and compare one to the other, there's really...not a whole lot of difference.' This reminded me of an article I read one time called 'The 50mm Lens and Metaphysical Doubt.'  ;-)  What's really funny about that article, this article and the seemingly infinite Internet lens discussion is that I understand and appreciate both sides of the whole lens connoisseur debate. I listen to the Classic Lenses Podcast where Simon, Johnny, Perry, the late Karl (may he rest in peace) and a host of guests can wax poetic about this characteristic or that look from some esoteric lens for hours. I like it. I enjoy it. But I also don't find myself going out and picking up every lens mentioned on the show. And sometimes I'm just plain backwards to prevailing sentiment. The old Sonnar version of the Nikkor 105mm ƒ/2.5 is all the rage among classic lens users. My humble Gauss version seems to get no love. The funny thing is, though, that it (and the rest of my relatively humble lens arsenal) produce results that I like even if they're not the latest and greatest or even the oldest and the coolest. I just like taking pictures with what I have. It's still fun to read this post and see echoes of both sides of the debate from your comparison of the Fujicron and the Fujiplanar. And if nothing else, it's got to be a unique opportunity to see one manufacturer manage to create a sort of Leica homage and a sort of Zeiss homage in the same lens lineup!"