A Very Large Hen's Tooth

Saul has asked me to let you know that we have a very rare piece of glass in the shop right now. It is the Zeiss Otus 55mm f:1.4 lens in a Nikon ZF2 mount.

It is not hard to find it, as it is possibly the largest 55mm lens in the place. Possibly? It IS the largest 55 in the shop. That's a 5¢ piece in the photo for comparison.

Smooth as silk in the focusing. Totally precise in the aperture ring. Superb definition and colour fidelity on a Nikon camera body. Probably the ultimate in this lens focal length anywhere and Saul says they are super rare around the world.

We must be doing something right because this is the second one of these that I have seen - one of our professional customers has one in operation right now.

Yes, you can buy it, and no, you can't have it for a song. Not unless you are Dame Nellie Melba and have the entire chorus of La Scala behind you doing " Aida "...

Otus

I have been puzzling about the new Zeiss lens that has just arrived in the shop - it is the 55mm f:1.4 Otus lens. It is a magnificent thing and the write-ups from the world's photographic press seem to say that t is the uncompromising best for this focal length and the Full-frame cameras it will serve. The example I photographed for the blog is the ZF 2 mount for Nikon.

It is a big lens - no doubt about that. See the coin placed for scale beside it - that is a 5¢ piece. The weight is commensurate with he size. The focus ring movement is perfect - smooth and evenly damped. The engraved markings are a little bit startling as the bulk of the operational ones are in bright yellow. It is, of course, T* coated.

We have not had a chance to shoot with it, but will try to do so at the earliest opportunity to check out performance.

But back to the puzzle - why on earth would the Zeiss people name a large standard lens after HMS OTUS - an "O" class submarine? is it a leftover from the U-boat days? Is there a naval enthusiast in the marketing department? If we buy more of them will we have a wolf pack?

Bargain of the Century

Looks like I wuz wrong about the price of the new Zeiss 55mm f:1.4 lens for ZE and ZF mounts. I initially calculated it to be $ 6000 based upon UK reports...

Turns out it will be available for $ 4695. What a snip! When we see it, if we see it, I will do a feature on it.

Sweepstakes Book Now Open - Zeiss Standard Lens

We have opened the staff sweepstakes book in regard to the new Zeiss Otus 55mm lens. It is an f:1.4 design and is going to be available in a ZF ( Nikon) or ZE (Canon) mount. Currently the only sight of it has been through the internet - a number of websites including DP Review have mentioned it.

From the posting in the DP site, the lens is as perfect as a copywriter can make it. Ken Rockwell does not approve of it, but then he may not have been offered one...so far I have not received one either.

As a standard lens for either of these two cameras, it should be particularly useful for considered work - landscapes or still life subjects. Reasonably good low-light performance too - after all it is f:1.4.

Of course the price may restrict the possession of it to a select class - it looks to be about the $ 6000 mark. A little more than the standard 50mm f:1.4...

But as I say, the sweepstakes book is open - we have already had the enquiry about whether we have it in stock - but I am still accepting bets as to when the first call asking us to price-match it at $ 1238 will come in. I've got $ 5 on tomorrow morning at 8:31. I reckon the guy who got tomorrow at noon is just wasting his money...

Lens Hood Envy

I was a little taken aback when a client asked for a lens hood recently. It was a good idea, of course, as it would shield the lens from stray light and tree branches. But the lady was most indignant when I showed her the one that was recommended by her camera's manufacturer. It was the straight barrel variety, and she had seen petal-shaped ones on her friend's camera. She wanted the petal shape.

It took a little demonstrating with her lens to show her that the front part of her lens rotates when it focuses. That means that the hood does as well...and if she were to attach a petal-shaped hood to it there would be various degrees of vignetting and light cutoff as she focused the lens. It is only with the lenses that do not rotate that you can use the petal-shapes.

In the end she accepted the manufacturer's recommendation...but I can't help thinking she was disappointed that she didn't get to use the pretty one.

Latest Breakthrough In Lens Technology Delivers New Word To The Lexicon

Students of photography have always had to learn new words - the nature of the subject seems to generate them; bokeh, scheimpflug, and low-pass being examples. Lens makers have added their share, and have used the language shamefully in the effort to make a model name stick in the minds of potential buyers.

Would you know what a Distagon is? Or a Nokton? Or a Summarit? Are they small-vineyard wines? Diseases? Towns in Bohemia?

No - just maker's family names that describe either a lens formulation or an aperture that you can hopefully achieve. If you attach one lens to the front of another by means of a reversing ring or glue, you can get Summicro-Planars and Oresto-Heliars and I can assure you that someone, somewhere will try it. There will be no real purpose for this and no expectation of success and it will look manky and horrible but then so did the the 1979 Nissan...

One of the current rude blasts of the advertiser's trumpet is to alert us to the fact that a lens has an aspherical element in it - to improve the lens by reducing chromatic aberration most likely. A laudable thing, but it needs an explanation - most lenses have a simple curve on either side of their structure - it might be convex or concave as needed and the radius of the curve can vary but it is the same curve fro the entire surface.

Aspherical elements can have a combination of curves on that surface, and can bend light rays so as to plop the red, blue, and green rays at the same spot on the sensor. Of course the path of the light rays through the completed lens is complex and is altered each time it his another glass or air surface but aspherical element can mean a very high degree of resolution indeed.

But what if we are trying to be artistic and haven't a clue how to do it apart from wearing an earring and an exotic haircut? How can we get a lens that will make our career? The answer was surprisingly simple for a number of major lens makers.

The answer was to cut down on the amount of mounting resin that is used to put the raw glass elements onto the lens-grinding machine and to pour a bucket of hot water into the lubricating spray that keeps the grinders moving smoothly over the surfaces being ground. This is put in 4 minutes before the scheduled end of grind. The effect is to slightly soften the blank on the mandrel and let it slide out of position. The grinder therefore puts an series of odd shapes into the glass at the end of the process and as these elements are incorporated into the finished product, artistic effects are produced.

These artistic effects may be somewhat of a surprise to the artist but then surprise has always been a feature of great art. In the case of Edvard Munch I have always been surprised that he was not lynched...

So - what do you look for when you want one of the new lenses?  Look carefully on the box or in the instruction sheet for the words " unsymmetrical element". You will get what you want and what you deserve. Remember Munch...

Big Blog Day - Gorgeous New Lenses Just Unpacked

I am starting to be surprised by the improvements in the packaging of new photographic equipment.

 Oh, sure, as a sales person I still complain about the way SOME manufacturers package new cameras in a way that you cannot get the component parts back into the box so that the customer can take it home - and SOME manufacturers of inkjet paper have such confusing packaging as to harm their own sales...but there is a new run of goods coming that have benefitted from real imagination in the shipping.

Case in point are the new Touit lenses from Zeiss. Of course the lenses themselves are beautiful, as one would expect. These are the specials intended for use on Fuji X-mount and Sony E-mount. We've gotten examples of each type in today - the 12mm f:2.8  and the 32mm f:1.8. The boxes they come in are so nice I have just opened them and photographed the wrapped lenses - I shall leave it to the buyer to go further and expose the actual lenses.

I particularly love the way the Zeiss people have stated on the top of the box that you opening it is the moment they live for. Clever, clever marketing.

Vast Vistas With Half Vast Lenses

The season is nearly upon us. Winter is about to hit with all the fury it can manage - lashing gales, scudding clouds, massive gas bills. Now is the time to head on out to the coast or the forest or the desert with your digital camera and make yourself thoroughly miserable.*

Ahem, I'll amend that. Think of all those wonderful landscapes throughout Western Australia that are just waiting for your artistic vision...And what better way to express it than through a wide-angle lens. Here are four of the best.

Zeiss 21 Distagon, Nikon 20 Nikkor, Canon 20 EF, and Leica 18 Super Elmar-M. Wise photographers will pick the one that suits their camera body - and those that want to use the Zeiss can obtain a variant to fit either Canon or Nikon.

They are not zoom lenses - if you want to change the angle of view you walk further forward or further back. Because they are not zoom lenses the manufacturers have been able to optimise their resolution and reduce the various distortions that lenses are subject exhibit to the absolute minimum. These are the lenses for the big print.

As they are not zoom lenses, they do not carry extra elements and you do not carry extra weight. If you are capturing landscapes you need to go where the landscapes are, and this means stalking them through the bush. And up hills, and over rocks. Welcome the compact size and light weight.

They
will all take filter systems in front of them so you can mount ND grads, polarisers, star filters, diffusers, and heart-shaped masks for that special landscape - all at once. Don't laugh - eventually someone will, and if they are good at selling the idea, will get an arts grant for it. I refuse to accept responsibility for this suggestion...

Can you use them in a studio? Yes you can - I use a 20 Nikkor for toy car shots. Can you use them for architecture and interiors? Yes you can, and quite a few of the pros do.

Big crowd shots? Wedding parties? School groups? Custom street cars? Yep.

Put down that zoom and come in and try one of them - you cannot fail to be impressed.

* I'll be by the fire with the plate of muffins and the copy of "Handley Cross". Off you go.

It Is Now That We Are Laughing At The Humour, Is It?

I see from another website and our own ordering department that those fun-lovin' folks at Zeiss have introduced some new lenses.

I'm a great Zeiss fan - got a set of them on my Hasselblad 500 cameras and I note that you can get them for all sorts of cameras these days - Nikon, Canon, Leica, Voigtländer...Well now you can also get them for Fuji X-series and Sony E mount.

Yowza - all good news. Particularly good news for the Fuji people as it indicates that their mount is opening up to the other suppliers in the market. You can't decry the factory Fuji lenses, but it is nice to contemplate a whole new stream of other glass to experiment with.

The new lenses are 12mm and 32mm and come with removable lens hoods. They are reported to be well-built and reasonably light for pro glass.

The part that gave rise to the heading image is the names. The lenses are the Touits.

I checked up with my on-line dictionary to see if a touit was something noble in the German language. Or scientific. So far my investigations have not turned up anything...leaving me to fall back on the old joke about doing something when you get a round touit...

This seems a great deal more vulgar levity than normal from a major lens manufacturer, either in Germany or Japan. They might caper about in masks at Fasching or the Hello Kitty Festival but they generally don't extend to cross-cultural puns. I suspect I have missed something somewhere and need to search further for an explanation.

If it just turns out to be someone in the advertising office drinking at lunchtime - and remember that is what gave us the 1974 VW Passat - we can only hope that the excellence of the lenses and the overweening dignity of the Zeiss name will prevail. I should put a bit of gaffer tape over the name on the lens if were using one - that or be prepared to laugh at the same joke a thousand times.

Autofocus Indulgence - Luxury Contax

This is Self-Indulgent Friday and today the topic is the 35mm rangefinder film camera with a system of lenses and auto focus.

We have a Contax G2 in our premium film section right now. It is a superb titanium-finished camera with a full autofocus and exposure system and 4 lenses. There is even a dedicated zoom flash in the set.

The G2 was the last of the Kyocera-built RF Contax cameras that combined japanese manufacturing expertise with the German design and lens patterns, You will recognise the names of the lens formulations - Sonnar, Planar, and Biogon.

The body is heavy, and has a very comfortable right hand grip. the release is particularly smooth. There is full access to shutter speed on a top dial as well as exposure compensation to match the Auto setting. A it has an integral motor drive, there are also the sort of shutter release variations that we have come to expect on digital cameras  S, Cl, Ch, and a bracket setting. There are also the familiar AF-C and AF-S options for the focusing as well as a manual setting and the distinctive Contax finger wheel at the front. This used to be the hallmark of the German Contax

and was also seen on Nikon and Kiev rangefinders.

The lenses are superb - 21mm Biogon with viewfinder, 28mm Biogon, 35mm Planar, and 90mm Sonnar. Equal to their rival...

Even a mechanical shutter release socket on the RHS of the body so you do not need to purchase another electrical switch.

All covered by our pre-owned 3 month warranty and all at competitive prices.

Think Pink - Zeiss Lenses For Nearly Everybody

Whenever you see a collector for the Pink Ribbon Appeal, put a gold coin in the tin. Breast Cancer research and it is a good, good cause.

Now - on to cameras. Gotta Leica, Zeiss-Ikon, Ricoh GXR, Fuji XE-1 or X-Pro1, or an Olympus mirrorless camera? Good for you. Notice how it looks sort of unfinished if you leave the lens off the front? We can help here.

Look carefully at three gorgeous silver lenses - all Zeiss ZM mounts. 21mm, 35mm, and 50mm. One, or all, of those are the lenses that you always wanted for your rangefinder or mirrorless camera.

Fast - we've got f:2 on the 35 and the 50 and f:2.8 on the 21.

Precise. All metal mounts, smooth focussing, positive stops. Focus lever integrated on each barrel.

Modular. Bayonet hens hood mount. 43ø and 46ø filter sizes - no weird sizing.

Fabulous glass - Biogon and Planar formulation - classic designs. T* coating.

Stylish. Silver. Also available in black.

Cost effective. It would be mean to point this out but it is true. Cheaper than the alternative - you decide if you would like to save.

Unusual. If you insist upon being a camera geek, these will stand you in good stead at the next geekmeet. No-one else will have them and everyone else will want them. You can gloat in all directions.

Bring your camera and take some test shots. Bring some money and take one home. Bring someone else's money and take them ALL home...

Who The Heck Would Buy One Of Those?...Zeiss

Hey, look over here, Fred! There's a bunch of lenses that don't have any autofocus. And they don't have any automatic stabiliser switch. And they don't have a zoom. And they don't even have a rubber ring around the lens. Who the heck would buy one of these?

Well, professional architectural photographers for one. Professional landscape photographers for another. People who carefully construct images - or carefully observe them - and who can evaluate the focus before they press the button. Slow workers.

Then there are the photographers who are making images for fussy clients - clients who demand the utmost in resolution for their advertising images. Clients who demand the absolute minimum of chromatic aberration in the product.

People who shoot Nikon, or Canon, or Leica , or....Zeiss Ikon cameras. Note that the last named are becoming rare and are film cameras.

Sometimes Zeiss lenses are used by careless and forgetful clients. NASA left a number of their Zeiss lenses on the moon back in the last century and this was taxpayer's money too...

Well, apart from governmental agencies, scientific workers, and advanced enthusiasts, I guess that's all. Can we sell you a lens, Fred?

The Wurst-Käse Scenario

Many people have seen the uniforms of troops in the German army and noticed the various pouches and attachments that they have on their gear, ammunition pouches, entrenching tools, gas mask containers, etc. Few know the significance of the small sealed box on the upper left hand strap of the 1917-model field webbing.

It is seen in old photographs of the period and can sometimes be offered in militaria auctions. Rarely is it seen in the unopened form, but recently at Denby's in El Paso one of these originals showed up and after it was sold the collector who had bought it agreed to open it for the camera. It contained the  remains of three small sausages and a block of extremely hard cheese - the seal must have been good enough to prevent total spoilage over the the last 90-odd years.

The collector explained that this was the emergency ration of the observation-corps soldier, to be used only if all other rations had been expended, he was trapped far behind enemy lines, and on the point of death from starvation - the seal was to keep the food edible but there was a military law that forbid breaking it under any other circumstances.

It was the the sort of dire situation that gave rise to the Wurst-Käse scenario...

Which brings us to the topic of this post. Most people come into the shop looking for the best camera. They all ask for it. They all search for it on the internet. They all know someone who has advised them to get it...

Hardly anyone comes in looking for the worst camera. Oh, there are a few who do - they are very special people. Very. Special. And they have got me thinking that their approach to the art and science of photography might be a good test for the rest of us.

To that end, I shall be proposing a small contest later in the year - open to amateur and professional alike. There will be publicity, prizes, and probably art. Or artillery. Either way, there will be sausages and cheese.