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Canon 200mm f/2.8 ‘L’ lens

Lenses

Finally, a replacement for the magnificent Leica Apo-Telyt-R

Mention of the fabulous Leica Apo-Telyt-R lens in my column on the Leicaflex SL the other day prompts mention of its replacement which I have been using for a few weeks now on the Canon EOS 5D.

Available during the period 1975-98, the 180mm f/3.4 Apo-Telyt was one of the first Apochromatic lenses available for 35mm cameras, meaning there was no color fringing to be seen no matter how big the enlarged print. It was a surprisingly compact lens, weighing in at 1.65 lbs with its built in lens hood. Full aperture definition was as good as that at any other aperture, meaning superb, or as good as your ability to hold it steady.


The fabulous Leitz 180mm Apo-Telyt R

While cursed with yet another clunky lens hood (why on earth did Canon abandon the earlier sliding lens hood? Another Canon lens hood in the garbage can), the Apo’s replacement on the EOS 5D is Canon’s superb 200mm f/2.8 ‘L’ lens. The ‘L’ lens adds the benefit of automatic focus, to boot. As I sold the Apo-Telyt in a moment of foolishness a few years back, I have been using the fully manual Leitz 200mm f/4 Telyt on the 5D where it works well, but you have to stop down and focus manually. A legacy of my Leica M/Visoflex housing days. Closest focus with the Canon is down to 4.9 feet (compared to a rather poor 8.2 feet for the Apo-Telyt) and can be limited to 8.2 feet in the interest of faster performance when the close-up range is not needed. Weights of the two lenses are 1.65 lbs for the Apo and 1.68 lbs for the Canon, meaning the latter uses plastics where possible as it has automatic diaphragm and focus motors to conceal in its somewhat bulkier body.

Automatic focus speed on the 5D is simply startling. So fast you don’t even think of it, though I have taken the precaution of limiting auto focus area selection to the center focus rectangle in the interests of accuracy. There’s not much depth of field at 200mm and f/2.8! The only thing missing is vibration reduction. Now that would be nice to have!

Consistent with my commitment not to get loaded down with gear, I purchased a small cylindrical soft case for the lens which attaches to my belt and, because its overall dimensions are similar to the 24-105mm f/4 ‘L’ , when one lens is on the camera the other makes its home in the belt case. Each is fitted with a clear UV filter, so only a rear cap need be used – I would dispense with that also, but the rear lens element on the zoom is too exposed to take that risk, given my proclivity to thumbprint everything.


The Canon 200mm f/2.8 and 24-105mm f/4 lenses. The zoom (right) is at its longest setting.

Why a prime lens rather than another zoom? Two reasons – weight and maximum aperture. Performance is less of a concern given the high optical standards of Canon’s ‘L’ lenses. I really do not need focal lengths between 105mm and 200mm and the 5D’s sensor allows image enlargement in this intermediate range without compromising definition. Further, any lens with a half-decent maximum aperture that zooms beyond 200mm is impossibly bulky. On the very rare occasions I need something longer I have my 400mm f/6.8 Leitz Telyt to fall back on.

The 200mm is a fine landscape lens, compressing perspective and focusing on essentials.


Canon EOS 5D, 200mm f/2.8 ‘L’, probably at f/5.6.

Best of all, as ‘L’ glass goes it’s positively a bargain, and chump change compared to the Leitz lens which it so ably replaces.


Canon EOS 5D, 200mm f/2.8 ‘L’, at f/3.5. No problem with background clutter!

The Leicaflex SL

Cameras, Leica

Simple, sturdy and with great lenses, you can pick up this behemoth for very little

While classic rangefinder Leicas continue to appreciate as doctors, dentists and investment bankers fill their display cases, fine cameras like the Leicaflex SL, which never really caught on, can be had very inexpensively.

I used one for many years, during the period 1977 though 1990, starting with a 50mm Summicron lens, adding a 21mm, a 90mm Summicron for portraits and the superb 180mm Apo-Telyt R for landscape pictures. As good an optic as I have ever used.

Provided you were in no great hurry and didn’t mind the noise, it was hard to take a bad picture with this camera. The camera was big and rather clunky, the wind lever had way too long an arc but the controls were nice and large meaning use with gloves on was no problem.

What I liked most was the semi-spot meter. The excellent microprism focusing circle also defined the exact area of measurement for the meter and was large enough that you didn’t get all nervy the way you do with a spot meter. It was a match needle design, meaning you had to align two needles, visible only in the viewfinder. Adding or deducting a stop for light correction was very easy with the camera at eye level, as the viewfinder displayed the selected shutter speed and was very easy to see with or without eyeglasses.

This was one of the last of the all mechanical cameras which have now largely disappeared, but proved very reliable in all weather conditions. True, the camera had looks only a mother could love but the lenses were superb regardless of focal length.

As Leica has since added all sorts of electronic gizmo connections in its SLR lenses in a futile attempt to keep up with the times, the earlier two cam mechanical lenses can be had very inexpensively. While the build quality never felt up to early Leica M standards (meaning M2, M3 and M4), I had no reliability problems, and the uncluttered viewfinder was a joy to use. A great starter camera for someone getting serious and willing to put up with the shortcomings of film.

Anchorage, Alaska. 1978. Leicaflex SL, 50mm Summicron R, Kodachrome 64

New York City. 1985. Leicaflex SL, 21mm Super-Angulon R, Kodachrome 64

Lake Elizabeth, California. 1990. Leicaflex SL, 180mm Apo-Telyt R, Kodachrome 64

The Leica DP – Part VI

Panasonic

Vibration reduction at work

The Lumix LX1 uses two motion sensors, one for vertical and the other for hoizontal motion. These feed the opposite of any motion they detect to the lens assembly to reduce the effects of definition-robbing camera shake on the image. Panasonic calls it ‘Mega OIS’ which sounds rather grand, no? A related benefit is that with the two shutter speeds thus gained – meaning you can use 1/15th where 1/60th was safe before – is that ISO 100 becomes in effect ISO 400, with attendant benefits on reduced sensor noise; as I illustrated earlier, the camera’s sensor is somewhat noisy at ISO 400.

Sceptical?

Here are two pictures, taken seconds apart, of one of my bookshelves, hand held, taken at the longest lens setting (to emphasize shake) and 1/4 second at ISO 100. Care to guess which one had vibration reduction switched on?

I use Mode 2 OIS, meaning the OIS is switched on the moment the shutter is pressed; I have no need of Mode 1 – on all the time – as I use my glued on 28mm Voigtlander optical viewfinder to compose, not the LCD screen. And as the camera always starts with the lens at 28mm no matter where it was when switched off or powered down, there is no risk of using an optical viewfinder not matched to the lens.

This wonderful vibration reduction system will add more quality to a picture than any amount spent on expensive glass without this feature. I like to think that my 28mm f/2.8 Lumix Leica lens has just become an f/1.4, which, in effect, it has. Anyone with a 28mm f/2 Leica Aspherical Summicron on their Leica care to challenge me at 1/4 second? 13″ x 19″ prints at two paces. And by the way, your competing camera and lens will have cost some ten times the price of the Lumix LX1. Too bad. Someone steals your rig and you have a problem. They can’t steal mine unless they requisition my jeans, because that’s where this little jewel resides.

Oh! and did I mention the widescreen capabilty you see above?

Shutter lag

Cameras

It takes the Wall Street Journal to surface the issue

Not only is America afflicted with some of the world’s worst television – from situation comedy to news reporting, though it’s often difficult to distinguish the two – it can also lay claim to having the worst newspapers. As often as not, these mistake editorial opinion for news, so you end up reading some leftie’s opinion about put-upon losers as news reporting. Write enough of this sort of thing and you get a Pulitzer Prize.

In the digital photography world, the worst reporting involves avoidance of mention of a near universal problem in modern cameras. Shutter lag. The time it takes between pressing the button to recording the image. Read any number of reviews of digital cameras and chances are you will see no mention of this defect. I can only guess that this is either because of conflicts of interest (journalists accepting bribes in the form of free equipment or pushing advertising in their magazine) or because the reviewer hasn’t the faintest idea how to take a photograph.

So it was welcome news indeed to open the Wall Street Journal this morning – a fine newspaper which keeps its opinions on the editorial page – to see an article on shutter lag, of all things. They quoted some poor schnuck who blew big coin on a digital camera to record the whales on his Mexican vacation, but managed to record only sterile images of the sea, the leaping whale having just departed owing to shutter lag. What’s interesting about the piece is that it takes a business newspaper to disclose a design defect which makes most digital cameras worthless for all except maybe landscape photographers and realtors. Let’s face it, neither is exactly dealing with moving subjects. Earlier reporting by the Journal confirms that the primary use of digital cameras hasn’t changed from that for film cameras, meaning pictures of one’s family. Especially of the kids. Ever tried to catch that fleeting moment on your baby’s face with a modern digital point-and-shoot camera?

The Journal gets it wrong in saying this is a digital camera problem, citing the good old days of fast film cameras. As the latter developed more automation – focus, exposure and so on – shutter lag was already beginning to raise its ugly head. Simple cameras like rangefinder Leicas and better SLRs never had the problem, and it was one of the major causes for concern I had when waiting to go digital. With the Canon EOS 5D there is no shutter lag, but then you should expect no less from a camera that runs close to $5,000 with a decent lens attached. I was more than aware of the issue having used an Olympus C5050Z for three years or so, and learned early on not to use it to photograph anything that moved.

The Olympus C5050Z – a very competent camera for static recording, but useless for moving subjects because of horrid shutter lag

So it’s satisfying to report that Panasonic cured the issue in a point-and-shoot digital in the LX1. Unfortunately, they made two boo-boos. First, they never advertised this ‘feature’ which I discovered after much research. Second, they have just discontinued the camera. So if you want a fast, small digital point-and-shoot, now is the time to get an LX1. Read more by clicking on the ‘Leica DP’ entry on the left.

Meanwhile, kudos to the Wall Street Journal for good reporting.

Pentax does it right

Cameras

How vibration reduction should be done

I have made no secret of my admiration for the camera designers at Pentax, having owned a Pentax ME Super and a Pentax 6×7 over the years.

The ME Super was my New York street camera during the years 1980-1987, when I lived in what was then a pretty dangerous New York City. Not caring to lose my Leica M3 to a chain snatcher, I acquired an inexpensive ME Super and a couple of lenses – a very compact 20mm ultra-wide, a 28mm wide and that miniscule 40mm ‘Pancake’ standard. A sweet outfit, with the added benefit of exposure automation.

The 6×7 represented my first foray into landscape photography and while it went off like Dirty Harry’s Magnum when you pressed the button, there was no arguing with the quality of the negatives that resulted.

The other day I was thinking about changes in camera design which made things so much easier for today’s picture taker. Small 35mm cameras, greatly improved film emulsions, ever better lenses and that sort of thing. But clearly digital imaging was the watershed that made everything much faster yet, to my mind, vibration reduction has saved more snaps from the reject bin than any feature since automatic exposure and focus. If your goal in life is big prints, then the old saw that the slowest shutter speed should be no slower than the reciprocal of the focal length for hand held pictures is simply wrong. You think you can get shake free pictures with your standard lens at 1/50th second good enough for an 18” x 24” print? I don’t think so.

I don’t know who came up with the idea of vibration compensating mechanisms and circuitry in still cameras – the Steadicam for film makers, after all, has been around for some 25 years, famously used by Stanley Kubrick in ‘The Shining’ in 1980 – but I was very conscious of its availability in some Canon lenses when I sprung for the EOS 5D. Most importantly, the ‘standard’ lens I chose – the 24-105mm ‘L’ – has this feature and it adds wonderfully to definition. Canon says it’s good for three shutter speeds slower than normal, meaning that the modest f/4 maximum aperture of the lens is not as limiting as you might think.

Similarly, my Panasonic LX-1 comes with Panasonic’s version of vibration reduction in a very compact package and Nikon has offered the feature on some of its more exotic lenses for a while. However, with both Nikon and Canon, the execution is not well thought out when it comes to their interchangeable lens cameras. The problem is that the vibration reduction circuitry is part of the lens, not the camera, meaning only certain lenses have it.

It took a smart designer at Pentax to finally get this right. His answer? Simple. Build the circuitry into the body, not the lens, which they have just done with the newly announced K100D.

In this way, any lens, however adapted to the camera’s body, benefits from this wonderful feature, and you don’t have to double up on lens bulk as no lens contains any related mechanisms or circuitry. Now is that clever or what?