Monthly Archives: November 2006

A tale of two lenses

Lenses

Some empirical tests deliver surprising results.

Being the ‘serious’ photographer in the family, the sad responsibility of selling off everyone’s film cameras naturally falls on my shoulders as we all move on to the world of digital picture taking.

I made mention of my mother-in-law’s magnificent Kodak Medalist II earlier, at which time I also sold her film Canon Rebel, together with its cheesy 28-80mm ‘kit’ lens.

Years earlier I had bought the same Rebel but got so tired of the execrable quality of the kit lens that we sold it and replaced it with a better 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 Canon with improved optical and mechanical quality. When she decided to upgrade to the digital Rebel, we did the same, buying the pricey EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS in lieu of the 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 non-IS kit lens. A wise decision once you have handled the latter.

Anyway, I finally decided to sell the film Rebel and I dutifully listed it for sale. However, as the lens will cover a full 35mm frame I spent a few moments taking some pictures with it side by side with the costly 24-105mm f/4 L lens, both on my Canon 5D. You can get some sense of the relative sizes of the lenses here:


Both lenses at their shortest focal lengths


Both lenses fully extended

I took pictures at full aperture and f/8 with both, at 28mm, 50mm and the 105mm maximum.

Looking at the results, I must confess any differences are more imagined than real, and I know my 24-105mm L is good for enlargements to any size any rational user would want.

The L lens adds an Image Stabilizer, goes wider at a very handy 24mm, has lots of metal, very smooth controls no wobble anywhere plus …. lots of weight and bulk. By contrast, the 28-105mm lens is very light, although the mount is metal, has a horribly raspy, grabby zoom ring and the lens barrel wobbles about merrily when fully extended. Both have autofocus with the L marginally faster, but not enough to make any practical difference. Oh! and yes, before I forget, the L is $1,300 and the other is $230.

Now we may have been lucky and got a really good example of the cheaper lens, but based on this little exercise, I would recommend it without hesitation for anyone looking for light weight, fine resolution and a nice broad zoom range good for 95% of anything a regular photographer might need. You might not want to bash it about too much or expect it to last to the next millenium but, then again, you would also save a lot on chiropractor bills, not to mention over $1,000 on the lens.

HP ink costs

Printing

The old HP 12C helps out.

In my piece on framing Really Big Prints I guessed at the cost of ink used by that frugal beast, the Hewlett Packard DesignJet 90 printer.

Well, in the HP engineering spirit, I whipped out the old 12C and set to work.

Checking the ink levels on the printer showed the following:

Yellow 3/4 full
Black Full
Magenta 3/4
Cyan 3/4
Light Magenta 1/2
Light Cyan 1/2

Now as the level in each cartridge is reported in one quarter steps, I averaged 3/4 full to mean 5/8 full (i.e. half way between 3/4 and 1/2) and so on, making for ink use aggregating 2.5 cartridges.

Production?

13 18″ x 24″ prints and 27 13″ x 19″ prints, or 12,285 sq. in.

With cartridges averaging $35 (the prices differ, strangely, according to color), that works out to $87.50 in ink, or $1.75 for a 13″ x 19″ and $3.07 for an 18″ x 24″.

So my $4 ink cost-per-print estimate in that earlier journal entry was a tad high. You can make an 18″ x 24″ print with the HP DesignJet, paper included, for the price of a hamburger-and-fries at the local fast food joint.

The HP DesignJet dye-based series of printers (30, 90, 130) are frugal, indeed, when it comes to ink use. I cannot express how pleased I am with this large printer and, in truth, rather regret not having bought the 24″ carriage model, though how I would handle mounting and framing 24″ x 36″ monsters in 32″ x 42″ frames boggles the mind.

The Christmas snap

Photographs, Technique

It cannot get any simpler than this.

Almost a year ago I wrote why I believe it makes no sense for a photographer to process his own small prints.

I am more convinced than ever that this is true.

Here’s a time line for this year’s annual family picture mailed to all our friends:

11:30 am – Family commences donning decent clothing. No jeans allowed!
11:40 am – Old Olympus 5050 digital is placed on the tripod and a test shot is made. This camera, despite the horrible shutter lag, boasts a fine wireless remote which is easily hidden in the palm.
11:47 am – The first picture is taken
12:06 am – The last of 22 pictures is taken – you try to get all five people, including a dog and cat known to conspire, looking good at the same time
12:10 am – The best snap is chosen in iPhoto and cropped to 3:2 to match the 6″ x 4″ prints we will order
12:15 am – The picture of choice is uploaded to Walgreens and forty ordered at 19 cents a print
12:25 am – Walgreens emails that the prints are ready for collection
12:35 am – The family, having strolled down the road, picks up the pictures at Walgreens and hands over $8.23
12:36 am – We cross the road to the greasy spoon for lunch and share the pictures with the nice Koreans who run it so well

1 hour and 5 minutes start to end. Meanwhile, the home printer is wondering why his print heads are clogged, the colors are wrong, and then runs out of ink. Walgreens uses a superb Fuji printer which renders lovely skin tones and runs it with Kodak paper, interestingly. They told me it works better that way.


Sixty-five minutes, $8.23 and forty prints later

A fool and his money….

Photography

Don’t be a Red Dot Fool.

Despite all the publicity telling the world that all Leicas, save the M8, are made by Panasonic, there are still a lot of Red Dot Fools out there. You know, camera buyers who buy a Panasonic digital which Leica has emblazoned with its name and added a 2 cent red dot so that you can be sure everyone knows you are a Red Dot Fool. Both Panasonic and Leica buyers get to share the same excellent Leica designed (and Panasonic manufactured) lenses fitted to these cameras.

Here are the statistics on what that two cent red dot is costing these ill informed or delusional consumers:

So, even in the absence of any objective test data to indicate that the insides of these cameras differ one iota, consumers are willing to pay between $170 and $850 (!) for a two cent red sticker.

A fool and his money are easily parted.

I wish Leica lots of luck in selling these as they are going to need the money to fix all those faulty M8s they just had to recall, and they do actually assemble the M8 even if the only bit they make is the rangefinder. Maybe they should delegate manufacture of the M8 to Panasonic, though given that Panny would sell it for 50% less, maybe they couldn’t stand the cannibalization.

One hundred yards – Part III

Photographs

Some of the best pictures are one hundred yards from your doorstep. Or less..

Given how much time we spend in our homes, it’s surprising that many photographers feel they have to journey to remote, exotic locations in search of picture opportunities. They arrive tired, are in a strange location which they have no time to ‘learn’, and leave frustrated. You must make the return flight and have to make do with whatever weather is around at the time.

By contrast, the circle centered on your home, with a 100 yard radius, provides some of the best photographic opportunities. You know the area, are rested and have no deadlines. There is no return flight. And you can wait for the weather to come to you.

Here are a couple more snaps, taken over the years, all within 100 yards or less of where my bed was the previous night. More to come over the next few weekends.


6 yards. Templeton, California. 5D, 200mm.


20 yards. Templeton, California. Mamiya 6, 75mm.

For more on this theme, please click here.