The 85mm f/1.8 may just be the bargain of the century.
OK, admit it. At least some of you thought “Any lens is good stopped down” when you read this piece. Fair enough.
So here is a little bit of nonsense, taken at dusk yesterday, with some rather quirky statistics. ISO 50 as I want to force full aperture use, and 1/2000th for the same reason. Aperture? Why, f/1.8 of course, for all those of you thinking “F/1.8 can’t be any good for $350”.
Wrong!
Finally, she does it right.
I have avoided reference to Annie Leibovitz’s photography in this journal, finding her work so over the top and in such poor taste that the less said the better. She is very much of the “put a famous face in a ridiculous situation and fame and fortune follows” school. That doesn’t make her work good photography.
So it give me considerable pleasure to relate that the annual VF Hollywood Issue (March) has a 33 page film noir portfolio of her latest work which is an absolute cracker.
As I mentioned before do not buy this magazine for its editorial views unless you are one of those poor, foolish conspiracy theorists who believes the administration is responsible for all the ills of the world while solely interested in enriching itself. No, you are not going to find rational, objective political analysis anywhere near the pages of Vanity Fair – the content is by loonies for losers.
But you will find cutting edge photography which inspires and teaches – not a bad reason to subscribe.
Rush out and get the March issue and you will see some great photography by Leibovitz, meticulously directed and with lots and lots of top notch actors posing in the pictures – the likes of Amy Adams, Ben Affleck, Jessica Alba, Pedro Almodóvar, Alec Baldwin, Adam Beach, Jessica Biel, Abigail Breslin, Jennifer Connelly, Penélope Cruz, Judi Dench, Robert De Niro, Robert Downey Jr., Kirsten Dunst, Aaron Eckhart, James Franco, Djimon Hounsou, Jennifer Hudson, Anjelica Huston, Rinko Kikuchi, Diane Lane, Derek Luke, Tobey Maguire, James McAvoy, Helen Mirren, Julianne Moore, Jack Nicholson, Bill Nighy, Ed Norton, Peter O’Toole, Sylvester Stallone, Sharon Stone, Kerry Washington, Naomi Watts, Forest Whitaker, Bruce Willis, Patrick Wilson, Kate Winslet and Evan Rachel Wood.
Quite a list, huh?
You don’t have to pay ridiculous Leica prices for Leica quality.
All the talk in yesterday’s column about Canon’s superb 85mm f/1.8 lens got me to thinking about how lens technologies have changed in the fifty or so years since the Canon was first designed – good designs do not die!
Multicoating was added maybe twenty years ago, brass gave way to alloys and then machined focusing helixes gave way to nylon gears and miniscule stepper motors in the lens mount. Materials got lighter and cheap aspherical surfaces (resulting from casting rather than polishing) became the norm is more specialized lenses. Exotic high diffraction glasses of yesteryear became commonplace.
So how is the user experience when comparing what I think is the finest portrait lenses ever made, the 90mm Leica Apo-Summicron Aspherical with the much less costly Canon at not much more than one eighth of the cost!
You would think the handling experience of the Leica optic on an M body would blow anything out of the water, and you would be close. The compact lines and very short throw of the focus collar on the Apo make for a sweet handling lens. All Leica Ms handle the 90mm focal length well when it comes to viewfinding, the result being that the M with the Apo is a sweet package.
Now the Canon is light for its bulk which surfaces the old prejudice that it cannot be durable. Time will tell. A surprising benefit of this bulk is that the camera and lens are very comfortable to hold, especially when oriented vertically which is the norm for most portrait pictures. Hand held the Canon has it all over the Leica in this orientation. Add the vertical grip and things probably improve further.
Then it comes to focusing and here, again, the conclusion is surprising. Nothing beats a Leica M3 rangefinder for manual focusing in the poor light of a studio environment. Nothing except for the 85mm Canon on a 5D with focusing on the central rectangle only. The old trick of focusing on the eyes then quickly recomposing was simple enough with the M3. With the 5D it’s a dream. Camera up, part depress the shutter button, recompose, click. Takes about a half second once you get into it. And it’s so dead right every time you begin to wonder how you lived without it. Depth of field is a scarcity in the portrait studio so focusing errors are cruelly revealed. Especially when you like to make 18†x 24†prints like I do.
So the new world of electronics and micromotors and LEDs and contrast sensors and on and on really has left the old world of mechanical-everything behind. Charming as that world seems, it no longer offers the best tool for the job.
They are almost giving these away.
Even if you don’t bother with Canon’s sleazy rebate deals – sleazy because your chances of actually getting your rebate are something of a crapshoot and it is a lousy way for Canon to treat its cusomers by trying to trip them up with endless paperwork – the 85mm f/1.8 lens is a superb bargain. B&H lists it for $340 before rebate.
I had toyed with the idea of one for a while, having used a 90mm – first an Elmar, then a Tele Elmarit, then an Elmarit-M and finally the ne plus ultra Asph Apo-Summicron on my M2 and M3 Leicas – for years. $2,800! It’s an ideal length for head and shoulder portraits in the studio on a full frame 35mm camera. Forget all that rot about the perspective being better than with a 50mm – in reality the differences are not noticeable. No, what makes a difference is the fast maximum aperture, which is nice for composition after the f/4 of the 24-105mm L zoom, as the viewfinder is quite a bit brighter. It doesn’t hurt that the lens is a fraction of the weight and bulk of the zoom.
Using my portable Novatron gear and the background-in-a-bag, my little portable studio dictates an aperture of f/5.6 at ISO 100 with the two Novatron heads in reflective umbrellas at 1/2 and 1/4 power, respectively. With the Canon 5D it’s more like f/6.3 as Canon is very conservative about its ISO rating. The LCD screen and a couple of test shots obsolete the electronic flash meter. The sensor in the camera is about 1/2 stop more sensitive than indicated. So when our son’s fifth birthday rolled around, it was the perfect opportunity to give the 85mm an outing, and all I can report is that the results are indistinguishable from the 90mm Apo Summicron on my M3. Well, actually better, as the definition is as good but with the 5D’s wonderful full frame sensor, there is simply no grain visible even in 18x enlargements. None. And that makes for wonderfully smooth skin tones compared with 35mm film. A fairer comparison would be with clunky medium format film gear as far as grain is concerned. Trust me. You do not want grain in studio portraits.
Some user reports on the web suggest the lens is a dog, focusing incorrectly. I can only think that these comments reflect poor technique. You need to switch off all that silly matrix focusing or whatever it’s called, make the center rectangle the sole focus point, and focus on the eyes. Half depress the shutter release to lock focus, recompose and click. The short duration flash puts paid to any camera shake and the Novatron has a 1/2 second recycle time on these power settings, meaning you can take pictures as fast as you can compose and press the button.
And with children, that’s a good thing as it’s simply impossible to predict moods and expressions. One of the few instances where machine-gun shooting is justified. I managed to bang off some ninety picture in 5 minutes (at which point my ‘model’ was getting pooped) and four were really good. One of those, as I flipped though them on the iMac, made me go ‘WOW’ and here it is:
Resolving power? How about this – the silvered umbrella and flash head are clearly visible:
The 18″ x 24″ print is printing right now on the HP DJ90.
Processing? Simplicity itself. Drop the originals in Aperture, warm up the color temperature a tad – the Novatrons are on the cool side – and press the Print button. Beauty needs no retouching.
If you are serious about studio snaps get one of these or, if your DSLR uses a cropped sensor, then a 50mm will do as well. The f/1.4 version from Canon is as cheap as the 85mm and is very special; I have little doubt that the offerings from the competition lack anything by comparison – that’s competition for you.
And Shakespeare had an expensive pen.
That’s what I heard when a friend (?) was looking at some of my photos on the wall the other day and I confess it’s not the first time I have heard this sort of silliness. (Not the ‘Great pictures’ bit – I can live with that).
And while I continue to maintain that good gear makes a good photographer better, it will never save a bad one.
Well, this time I did respond with the Shakespeare crack but it was lost on my audience, which probably begs the question why I was showing this person my snaps in the first place. Then again, you cannot control your audience, and I suppose all publicity is good.
Great car. You must be a great driver.
Great woman. You must be a great lover.
Great kitchen. You must be a fabulous cook.
Oh! dear….
