A brief personal history.

This piece addresses macro lenses – those which provide significant image scale when focused close. Regard this as a teaser for the unfolding story of my macro photography experience.

In Themes have their uses I ruminated on the need for themes – goals if you like – in your photography, if quality results were to be the result. After thinking more about it, I decided to do something pretty foreign, photographically, (God knows, I am foreign enough ethnically) to my way of working. So somehow the idea of a series of macro photographs came to mind.

The earliest macro optic I recall knowledge of, as a teenager, is the Kilfitt Macro Kilar. It was for 35mm cameras and went to half or full life size, depending on the model. Given that it was 40mm in focal length, that would have made for pretty tight clearance between subject and lens, making lighting tricky, but it was beautifully made and an original idea. I don’t know, but I’ll bet the aperture was manually set or pre-set, so it must have been a real handful in use. But Kilfitt had a reputation for great optics. Famous bird photographer Eric Hosking frequently used a 400mm Kilfitt Tele-Kilar on his Contarex. A rare and costly beast, Kilfitt was known (like Novoflex) for making adapters for a wide range of cameras.

40mm Kilfitt Macro-Kilar

Many Alpa SLRs, beautifully made in Switzerland, came with Kilfitt lenses, so the name has a long and storied tradition of providing optics to the best. Others came with Swiss Kern lenses, most famously the 50mm f/1.9 Macro Switar which focused down to some 7 inches, so maybe 1:8. Gorgeous Swiss engineering, it had the coolest depth of field indicators – colored dots would show up on the barrel as the focus was changed. I can’t swear to this but I think the lens also opened its diaphragm as you focused closer. Optical laws dictate, after all, that at 1:1 a lens loses 2 stops of effective aperture, owing to the illumination drop off in the much extended optic, before light rays strike the film or sensor. Zeiss Ikon conferred this same feature – a piece of mechanical engineering genius – upon several of its lenses for the Contarex, most of which focused especially close, if not in the macro range.

Kern Macro-Switar

Macro range? Choose your definition. For me it’s where I start seeing things I otherwise missed, so I suppose 1:4 and larger.

The first macro lens I handled was a Nikon Micro-Nikkor (never did understand why it wasn’t named a macro-Nikkor) for the Nikon F SLR. It handled well and was made in the days when lens barrels were still metal rather than plastic. That feels good even though plastic makes far more sense when it comes to cost and impact resistance. Independent tests at the time raved about it. If I recall, it focused down to half-life size (1:2) and a 25mm extension tube got you to life size, or 1:1. By all accounts it was a decent all rounder, boasted a speedy f/3.5 aperture and decent resolution at infinity, with minimal field curvature.

Nikon 55mm Micro-Nikkor with 25mm extension tube

The first really close focusing lens I owned – hard to call it a macro – was the Corfield 45mm Lumax on my Periflex 2. While the camera accepted Leica rangefinder screw thread lenses, it dispensed with the usual cam coupled rangefinder mechanism, opting instead for a small drop down mirror, like an inverted periscope. This, through a separate eyepiece, provided a strongly magnified (if upside down) image of the center of the point of view. Great for focusing but there was no way on earth you could frame accurately at close distances, and the lens focused down to some nine inches. Nice idea though, and nicely made in Britain.

Periflex 2 with 45mm Lumax

After that the closest I got to anything was using the 50mm Dual Range Summicron with those funky clip on eyeglasses for the Leica M. That got you down to some 19.5 inches – close but hardly macro. No mean feat with a rangefinder body, though, especially when you realize that correct framing was maintained all the way to the closest focusing distance. To compensate for the extra extension in the helix, Leitz mounted the lens head in a truly massive, brass base. The eyeglasses clipped to the top of the lens and failsafes ensured you could only use them in the close-up range and that you also had to use them to get into the close-up range.

Leitz 50mm Dual Range Summicron

Macro lenses have changed quite a bit since the above and are now easier to use than ever, as my forthcoming pieces on my experiences will show.

If only ….

Which of us (us as you are a photographer if you are reading this) does not rue the what might have been?

You know, the moment that you missed.

The other day I found myself on one of those picture perfect days in America’s most beautiful city, camera in hand, and there it was. The picture.

But, boob that I am, I missed it.

Too old, too slack jawed, too slow.

I would love to blame the gear. Shutter lag, poor auto exposure, blah, blah, blah.

But age or equipment is no excuse.

Because, dear reader, I have been missing great snaps since I first held a camera. And the curse of it is that I can remember every one of those misses. Far more so than I recall the successes.

And while my interests in photography are fairly catholic, meaning genre is neither here nor there, it’s street photography that brought me to this wonderful place and it was a street snap that I missed.

My excuse is that I was simply in the wrong mindset for street work. Upset about this and that. Distracted. None of this conducive to street snaps.

In the studio you bang away and sooner or later get it. Still lives always behave. Landscapes are tricky but lighting generally gives you a second or two. But street snaps are the most unforgiving of taskmasters. Miss one and it never comes back. It is gone. For ever. Except in your mind’s eye, which vision you can share with no one.

But that only means I will be back. I’m no quitter. But I am upset.

The city? Why, San Francisco of course.

So, much as I hate to do so, I’ll share one of the also rans with you.

No, it’s not in Lens Work

All those free magazine subscriptions I am enjoying, courtesy of too many frequent flier miles on Delta, are beginning to be a mixed blessing.

First, two of the original twelve never arrived, yet Delta’s computer wrote me a polite note explaining they were no longer offering those, but please choose three more to make things hunky dory.

Then Condé Nast, whose splendid ‘Portfolio’ I am enjoying immensely, wrote with a free subscription to ‘Preservation’, a National Trust piece, and it is proving to be every bit as enjoyable. The current issue has a fine illustrated piece on Route 66.

So I’m seeing some fine photography in all of these, with none better than that found in Elle and Harper’s Bazaar. The latter is especially noteworthy for the cutting edge of their photographers’ work. Take a look at Peter Lindbergh’s superb portfolio of Julianne Moore in the current issue, interspersed with the great classical paintings (Modigiliani, Klimt, Schiele, etc.) which inspired the piece. It really seems that a high percentage of the newest, most exciting work is to be consistently found in fashion magazines – something I have been seeing since 1960 as a subscriber and well before that when perusing back issues at the local library.

Once place where you will rarely find good pictures is in photography magazines. Pseudo art for pseudo photographers invariably, of course, in tired old, over-processed black and white, masquerading as ‘art’. Large format, a beer belly and the obligatory artist’s beard are de rigeur for these pretenders, known largely only to those obsessed with gear and processing. It has to be black and white, you know because the people on display are clueless when it comes to seeing. They need the benefits of abstraction which monochrome confers, so limited is their skill and imagination. Why do these technicians – for they are rarely much more than that – always look to me as if they could use a good bath?

For more, just check in to Pseuds Corner.

Finally, once done, I have to schlepp all the magazines I’m done with to the curb every Tuesday, for recycling. Boy, do I miss the time when we just chucked stuff out and the hell with recycling and the sanctimonious green lobby driving around in SUVs (invariably emblazoned with a ‘Keep Tahoe blue’ bumper sticker). At least I tear out the really good work first as my nod to the environment.

Film really is dead.

From a recent reader’s email:

“I noticed on your last upload that you used a Mamiya for that particular photo – I’m experimenting with film myself recently as I’ve never owned a decent film camera until I bought a used eos-3 a few weeks ago. I’ve only shot digital since becoming an enthusiast, but because my camera is not full frame I don’t enjoy the full benefit of my wide angle lenses. Let me get to the point, where, in your opinion, is the best place to send film for processing and scanning? What is the best film to use?”

My reply:

“Clean negatives/slides:

Despair at getting clean processed negatives was just one of the reasons that drove me to digital, so I really cannot recommend a good place. Most seem to walk on your negatives with hob nailed boots before packaging them.

Film quality:

a – Slide:

In 35mm slides nothing beats Kodachrome for image quality but it’s rapidly dying and only one or two places remain that process it. (B&H in NYC send theirs to A&I in CA for processing – A&I has a good reputation but they are not cheap). Plus it was discontinued in 120 size a few years ago. Further, as Kodachrome is not a silver-based emulsion, scanning with dust removal software is impossible so that’s another strike against it. So if you see reference to technologies like Digital ICE, they will not work on Kodachrome, smart as they are.

b – Negative:

In color negative I found the best 35mm combination of fine grain and color palette was in common or garden Kodak Gold 100, available in any drug store. In 6×6 and 4″ x 5″ I used Kodak Portra and loved it. These are 100-160 ISO, so not good for low light use, but perfect for landscapes and skin tones. Fuji is a mighty competitor and while I never used their emulsions they would not survive if they were no good. So I doubt you will go wrong with any of the better offerings from Kodak and Fuji. With the exception of Kodachrome all color films (and many so called chromogenic monochrome emulsions) are dye based and work with scratch and dust removal technologies incorporated in many scanners. If you value your time, delegate the scanning. Once ICE is invoked, scan times double and quadruple. Life’s too short.

Film is dead:

By all means enjoy film but I would advise against any serious investments in film gear as film really is on its last legs and you will be left owning useless paperweights. A cheap Leica/Hasselblad/Nikon/Canon film camera without film or without anyone to process the film properly is useless, if pretty to look at.

The Mamiya snap I uploaded was one of the last few taken on film …. there’s no going back for me. Properly processed digital is superior to film in every possible respect, IMO, and I would rather you looked at investing in a good full frame digital (used 5Ds are becoming attractively priced, as one example) or some ultra-wides for smaller sensors than that you went to a near-dead technology. I’m just telling it the way I see it – as an amateur user who makes big prints for display. Viewers don’t care what you used – film or digital. It’s just that digital is so much less hassle in every possible way, so there’s less to get in the way of a good picture.

And trust me on this, no one can tell the difference between properly exposed and processed film and digital. It’s just that digital needs a different approach to quality from film. I have had people write me telling me how much my film images have a greater look than digital ones. Considering they are looking at a 640×480 pixel image on a poorly adjusted computer monitor, that opinion is simply worthless and not a basis for rational comparison.

Film is dead will raise your blood pressure if you are a film aficionado!

Life is short. Don’t waste it processing:

In other words, the only people getting into film cameras today are either hardware collectors or cranks. Those who continue using them place little value on their time or their balance sheet.

Film or digital. You cannot tell and I’m not telling either!

Sell the film hardware to Japanese collectors (can anyone remember a good Japanese photographer since Hideki Fujii and Kishin Shinoyama in the 1970s? No, because they all collect gear instead), pay someone to scan all your old stuff and move on. And get a life.