Monthly Archives: June 2007

Keld and I

Memory is a strange thing

I wrote about the photography of the Dane Keld Helmer-Petersen here. His work deeply affected my sense of color and line when I was a boy and I had occasion to reflect on this when processing a batch of snaps from Laguna Seca racetrack, where I spent a pleasant day this week.

This was not one of those big events with high entry costs and unwashed, polyester-clad crowds emblazoned with Ferrari logos. Rather, this weekday event was purely amateur (though some of the budgets are far from amateur) and afforded the chance of getting close to drivers and cars, the latter mostly from the ’60s and ’70s. Back from the days when men were men and knew how to die in a race car.

Anyway, after sifting through my snaps, I came across one I rather liked:


Shell.

Now where had I seen this before? Ah, yes, KH-P did it some sixty years ago:


Texaco

Memory is a strange thing ….

Canon 20mm – some further thoughts

Not perfect – you get what you pay for, I suppose.

I wrote in somewhat lukewarm terms of the underwhelming definition of the Canon 20mm lens here.

I took a more objective view of the vignetting issue by banging out four snaps on the old estate, camera and lens dutifully mounted on a tripod, at the four largest apertures:

To best assess vignetting, look at the bottom right corner. The sky is misleading as the changing azimuth angle will provide some natural vignetting with any lens this wide. You can see that at full aperture, f/2.8, the vigneting is pretty awful, but rapidly falls by f/4 with full coverage at f/5.6 and below.

So unless you want to use the Photoshop CS2 Filter->Distort->LensCorrection->Vignette->Amount, (does anyone at Adobe have the remotest iota of common sense when it comes to designing menus – who would guess it’s under ‘Distort’?) f/2.8 is simply not useable. Realistically, if it’s a low light situation, vignetting is no big deal and tends to enhance the drama of a picture. But if you want full coverage to the corners, forget it. Regard the maximum aperture as useful for focusing only.

How about definition? Well, I concluded that my first sample was just not good enough, especially after nothing but great experiences with the 15mm fisheye, the 85mm f/1.8, the 200mm f/2.8 and the 24-105mm zoom. If I can get way better definition from the fisheye after doing all that pixel stretching with ImageAlign (making the lens like a 12mm rectilinear hyper-wide) then all cannot be right with my 20mm sample which clearly has poorer definition than the fisheye. So I bit the bullet and returned the lens to B&H. Moses, of that estimable store, didn’t understand when I explained the lens sucked, but when I pulled Schlecht on him he cottoned on and was very good about it. I had a replacement (with an older serial number, strangely) in my hands in seven business days. Thank you, B&H. Was the result a quantum leap in definition? No. However, overall the ‘bite’ of the image is improved, if still not up to any of the other lenses which, frankly, easily surpass it in this regard. Vignetting in both samples at full aperture is just awful.

The right answer, I suppose, is to get a used Leica 21mm Super Angulon R and adapt it to the 5D. That lens may only be f/4 but it’s fabulous, like all Leica glass. I used one on my Leicaflex SL for years. Unfortunately, the sheer bulk of the lens, compounded by a heavy brass mount and a huge front element, not to mention a complete lack of focus or aperture and exposure automation on the 5D, rules it out. The M Elmarit will not, of course, achieve infinity focus owing to the need for a short flange-to-sensor distance mandated by the rangefinder design. Plus, it’s way overpriced.

So mediocre definition would seem to be the Achilles Heel of this optic – that or I have been an unlucky victim of poor quality control. Canon has little incentive for improving the lens, with everyone being sold on bulky, slow zooms. Shame. Still, at f/8 it’s decent and it’s dirt cheap, too, at $400. If it was much more I would return it.

You can get an idea of the relative size of the 20mm in this picture where it is side by side with the 50mm f/1.4 – it’s not too bulky.

Notice that the 72mm Canon UV filter on the 20mm lens says ‘Sharp Cut’, implying a sharp cut off prior to the infra red range of the spectrum. By contrast the 58mm filter on the 50mm lens bears no such designation. This is rather mystifying (the 77mm filter for the 24-105mm is also ‘Sharp Cut’) as the sensor in the 5D (and probably in their other DSLR offferings) has a built in IR filter – something Leica should have learned before mistakenly releasing the M8 with no IR sensor filter, only to have to issue free lens filters to all buyers as IR rays wreaked havoc with color accuracy. No biggie – Canon’s filters are inexpensive and do the job of protecting my lens’ front elements.

Update: I ended up selling the lens – too much bulk for too little performance. Read all about it here.

About the Snap: Holocaust memorial

Holocaust memorial, Paris


Date: September, 1974
Place: Holocaust memorial, Paris
Modus operandi: Waiting a long time for this moment
Weather: Sunny
Time: 11 am
Gear: Leica M3, 35mm Summaron
Medium: Kodak TriX
Me: Really wanting to get this right
My age: 23

Unlike the warm and welcoming architecture of Paris, with its mansard roofs and lovely light, the Holocaust memorial is, appropriately, an ugly, spiky, unwelcoming place. Even the light seems harsher.

The old man on crutches had come to revisit bad times, maybe commune with lost friends. He walked about with difficulty, yet with consummate dignity.

I waited a long time. Eventually, this scene presented itself and the moment was right. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

Robert Doisneau

Book review

Pure joy.

That’s what I’m feeling, looking at Robert Doisneau’s magnificent pictures of Paris.

It’s impossible to adequately convey the pure joy of his photography. So many scenes from the Tuileries, goodness. A setting that elevates all those who traverse its perfection. I’m not well travelled enough to pontificate on its world standing but I fancy one might be hard pressed to find its equal in any city anywhere. I can state with certainty that New York isn’t in the running. New York is about money. Paris is about beauty.

And the passionate quality of his writing. He speaks of cameras as “Machines with insect eyes that are hostile to bombast”.

Of the Eiffel Tower he writes: “Going up the Eiffel Tower offers a panoramic view of Paris, which itself is no longer recognizable, since it lacks the all-important silhouette of the Eiffel Tower”.

Betraying his Marxist sensibilities (which in no way encroach on the pictures) he says: “I don’t much like the ritzy neighborhoods, where rebel barricades have never been erected”.

Just a very special photographer. Where, with Elliot Erwitt you smile to yourself often, enjoying the champagne in his vision, with Doisneau most of what you hear is your own belly laughs as another shot of tequila vision invades your brain.

No street photographer can live without this joyous book on his shelf. Next time you feel down, just pick it up. Cheap psychoanalysis.

The Tuileries garden

Maybe the most perfect urban space on earth

Young or old, happy or sad, no visit to this most perfect formal garden in central Paris is ever a disappointment. With the Louvre at one end and the Orangerie and Jeu de Paume at the other, what could be more perfect in the most beautiful of Western cities?

These snaps date from September, 1974 when as the archetypal, impoverished student I made my way for a week to Paris and back to London for some $150. Transport, lodging and food included. Six rolls of TriX and the M3 with the 35mm Summaron was my baggage.

These are pictures of a very special place.