7 Artisans 18mm f6.3

The 7 Artisans 18mm f6.3 "UFO lens" arrived yesterday. Like the Pergear 10mm fisheye before it, this is another $69 lens that comes with low expectations and plenty of opportunities to impress.

The 7 Artisans "UFO" lens (after 'stealthing')

As others have said, there is heavy vignetting with this lens (easily fixed in post) and the corner sharpness is not fantastic. Center sharpness, does however seem quite good and this extends to the edges (though not the corners). For my style of photography, the lack of perfect corner sharpness is rarely an issue.

Distortion seems to be minimal or non-existant 

It's a very compact and solid lens and, like the Pergear 10mm fisheye, it's a fixed aperture - f6.3. Also, like the Pergear, it works well with the camera set to auto shutter speed and auto ISO - it turns the X-E3 into a high-quality point-and-shoot which is great for a very compact, pocketable, walk-around camera and lens combo. It has a fixed focus, extending from about 1m to infinity.

Fixed focus down to about 1m

With its completely meaningless, white, clock-face markings it's rather a gaudy looking thing; something I remedied with a couple of minutes and a black permanent marker. In this new, 'stealth', mode it looks very discrete on the X-E3.

The first batch of photos from this lens was impressive. 18mm gives about a 90-degree field of view - almost half that of the Pergear 10mm, and noticeably wider than the Fuji 27mm f2.8 lens. So, between the three lenses, the UFO lens occupies a sweet spot in the middle.

Soft corners visible to pixel peepers

So, what's the verdict with this lens? Well, it's not perfect but it is good enough. Good enough to make  pictures with nice image quality - which, at the end of the day, is what it's all about. But the real reason for this lens existing is convenience and price. Attached to the X-E3, it conveniently fits in a pocket, conveniently requires no settings, and in public, conveniently looks about as intimidating as a Gummy Bear. For $69 what's not to like?

Note: These photos are  NOT straight out of the camera. They are uncropped, but have all been processed to remove vignetting and provide a standard 'look'.

Using the Minolta Hi-Matic 9

 Back last November, I wrote about another film camera arriving. Well, I never got around to showing the pictures - better late than never, I suppose!

After checking over the Minolta Hi-Matic 9, I loaded a roll of 35mm Kodak Gold film (ISO 200) and went for a walk around the town. Except for one shot, I left the camera on Auto to test how well the light metering worked. More about that later.

Preparing the camera

Loading film into the Hi-Matic 9 was straightforward and as easy as most other 35mm cameras of the era. The film winding lever has a longish throw but is sturdy and smooth, coming positively to a stop when the film is wound on. It provides confident feedback that everything is just as it should be in the film winding department. The shutter is locked after each exposure and is only activated by winding on the film, so no double exposures here - intentional or otherwise.

Underneath the lens is a small lever that activates the metering system and sets the ISO speed of the film being used. Before shooting this has to be positioned from "OFF" to the ISO of the film in use. Once this is set, there is a battery check procedure, accessed by turning all the dials on the lens (shutter, aperture, focus) to the "check" mark. If the needle in the viewfinder hovers in the correct position, then the battery is good and the metering should work correctly.

Using the camera

With the camera set to auto, using the camera is simple - compose, focus, shoot. There really isn't anything complex here and the digital photographer might only be thrown by the lack of autofocus. The viewfinder, is a typical rangefinder, split-image type. Bring the two images together and you will be in focus. If you are not used to rangefinders, it may take a little getting used to but, once you know what to look for, focusing is both quick and accurate.

Setting a fixed focus for quick-action street shooting using zone focusing, is also possible but there is no depth of field scale on the lens, so you will need to know what you are doing or reference the camera manual for a depth of field scale (p27). Also, the focusing ring moves quite freely, so it is easy to knock out of focus if you aren't careful.

Like the long travel film advance, the shutter release also travels through a long distance (11-12mm). It takes a little practice to release the shutter smoothly as the tendency is to jerk the finger down forcefully after the first few mm of inaction. A hair-trigger this isn't, but practice makes perfect.

To change from completely auto mode, a lever on the lens needs to be depressed and a shutter speed selected. With the aperture ring still set on auto, the camera will choose an appropriate aperture to match the shutter speed. Moving the aperture ring from auto, puts the camera in fully automatic mode with camera settings under your complete control and the EV meter in the viewfinder to guide your decisions. Whatever your skill level, there is a way of using this camera to suit.

The results

I am pleased to say that every shot on the roll ended up correctly metered by the camera. However, the shortcoming of this fully automatic system is that the camera settings are adjusted on a scale from 1/15 sec at f1.7, up to 1/500 at f16 and there is no visual feedback that allows the user to know what settings are in use. Consequently, at least one exposure of a dark scene was made with a very slow shutter speed and camera shake was evident in the final result. Lesson: once the light begins to fail, take over control of the camera, or make sure that you have a high ISO film loaded.

Personally, I like the results; there's a quality to the colours that is quite different from digital and the highlight grading in cloudy sky is, again, hard to replicate with a purely digital image. The scanned images were sharp and got similar post-processing to my digital images. So, all in, the Minolta Hi-Matic 9 and Kodak Gold 200 film, get the thumbs up from me.

Most fun camera lens

Fujifilm X-E3 with the Pergear 10mm pancake fisheye lens

I wasn't expecting much from the Pergear 10mm fisheye lens. After all, at US$79 this was hardly the most expensive lens I had ever brought. Looking at the specs, the Pergear might seem to be everything a lens shouldn't be. It's not a very wide fisheye (only 150 degree field of view), it's a fixed aperture at a paltry f8, and it's a manual focus, via a dinky little lever on the bottom of the lens. But, despite these less than inspiring features, once I started shooting with the Pergear, I quickly fell in love.

Put the horizon low or high and the fisheye effect appears.

Firstly, it's fun, as fisheye lenses tend to be, but more useful fun than my 8mm Samyang. At 8mm, the Samyang is an 'in-your-face' fisheye that can become a bit overbearing after a while. The 10mm of the Pergear still gives a good fisheye effect if used deliberately as a fisheye, but is mild enough to disguise or even remove completely in post - so the lens can also be used as a very wide rectilinear lens (just don't shoot any architecture with it!). It's wide enough to be fun when used for street photography too - hanging at your side on the end of an arm it's hard to miss a shot as people pass you on the street - its an unusual perspective that can create some eye-catching shots.

Thigh-level shooting

The fixed f8 aperture isn't going to create any bokeh. But f8 is less of an issue than I first thought. ISO is your friend here - set it to the conditions, let the camera choose the shutter speed and all you have to worry about is composition and timing. I even took it out after sundown on an overcast evening, shooting handheld at ISOs up to 12,800 and speeds down to 1/4 sec. Anything slower than that would need a tripod (no image stabilisation here), but I was still impressed with the results.

After sundown, ISO 3200, 1/28 sec.

The focus is brilliant - in use, you just leave the lens set on infinity. At that setting, everything is in focus from infinity to less than one metre. Unlike other lenses, infinity on the Pergear doesn't mean it's focused AT infinity; it actually seems to be focused at some lesser hyperfocal distance that includes infinity. As soon as you move the lever off the infinity mark, distant objects become out of focus. Swing the lever across to 0.3 meters and you can get pretty close to things, but don't expect anything further out than 1 meter to be in focus.

As sharp as - from the nearest post to the horizon (no focus stacking here!)

Here are a few other things to expect with this lens:

Distortion: quite a bit (it's a fisheye!)

Sharpness: very good from the centre out to the corners

Chromatic aberration: little to none (I've not found any yet)

Flare: almost none, though the sun in, or just out, of the frame produces some nice rainbow light rays.

Two sets of rays and some rainbow effects, with the sun just out of frame.

For the money, a great little lens that will probably be much more useful than you might think and much more fun than it's round, black, face suggests.

So much fun, I expected it to wink.

Seeing through the negative

Salvation Army, Christchurch City Corps.

The church was only two or three years old; it replaced one lost in the 2011 earthquakes. Last week we were attending the funeral of my Mother-in-law - Jeane Prattley. The picture above doesn't do it justice, but the cross at the front of the auditorium dominates the space as soon as one enters. 

Only it doesn't. There is no cross. What appears as a cross is simply an absence of wall, filled with glass to keep out the elements. When you look at the cross, you see mostly sky; dull and grey or, as on the day of the funeral, blue with fluffy white clouds passing by. The cross is an illusion; one that even the partially-sighted can't fail to notice.

Later, as six of us carried Jeane's casket to the hearse, we each became acutely conscious of her absence. Jeane was no longer with us. And yet it seems to me that, in embracing the fact of Jeane's absence, she comes more clearly into focus. Like that cross, there is now a Jeane shaped hole in the fabric of life; it is by looking at that absence that we can, perhaps, still perceive the presence.

Out of sight; out of mind

As a visual sort of person, I identify strongly with this old adage. If I can't see it, it probably doesn't exist. Papers belong in stacks on the desk or shelf - somewhere I can see them but definitely not in a filing cabinet. Clothes only belong in draws while waiting for the next season and my cameras lay in wait in various nooks and crannies around the house. 

So it was, with a growing awareness that I needed to be a more tidy Kiwi, that I was on the lookout for a glass-fronted cabinet for my camera gear. And behold, in the fullness of time, one came my way, unbidden, and I started to place my cameras therein.

If you had asked, prior to the cabinet, how many cameras I possessed, I would probably have said, "three or four" (I had recently been through the trauma of selling one, so I knew the numbers were down). But, as I placed the twelfth camera in the cabinet, I began to see the problem: I'm a collector/addict (depending on who you ask). Six of these cameras are film cameras - one of which I brought only last year; all bar one have been used in the last twelve months, two still have film loaded.

Now that I can see them all, I am more mindful of my camera obsession: in sight; in mind (perhaps I should keep them in boxes after all?)

Fords in Oxford (NZ)

Today, there was a Ford rally that came through Oxford. I do wish the rellies would phone when they are coming over; it was just by chance that I happened to be out for a walk and spotted them. I caught some of them but, by no means all. Judging by the number of toots I got, they seem to have recognised me ...

Farewell, 2020

While a good part of the world still wrestles with COVID-19, New Zealand paid its price early with lockdowns, job losses and compulsory working from home. Now, we are able to live lives of relative normality, albeit without international tourists and the money they brought. Despite our country being one of only a few COVID-19 success stories, there are still plenty of New Zealanders ready to hate on 2020 and classify it as the 'worst of years'. 

Admittedly, if you were in love with the old, 2019 normal then 2020 will not have been good. But, that old normal is gone - and it's not coming back. What we are doing now is creating some new sort of normal - a 2021 that isn't a carbon-copy of 2019. 2020 delivered us the opportunity to reinvent aspects of our lives both individually and as a society. 

That is not to minimise the personal tragedies that 2020 brought, including sickness, loss of loved ones, loss of employment and general hardship - all of those things were real and painful enough. Life delivers a constant diet of crap breaks - even the British Queen had her "annas horribilis" a few years ago. It's part of the human condition; no one is immune. 

What was unique about 2020 (in my experience) was that we all got to go through the crap at the same time. In New Zealand, that got most of us onto the same page, singing from the same song sheet (as it were). As a society, we all got to do daily life differently and we found that we could - without our world coming to an end.

There was a 1960's West End show called  "Stop the World - I want to Get Off" - perhaps our 2020 felt like that. But, wrapped up in that show, was a song "Once in a lifetime":
"Just once in a lifetime
There's one special moment 
One wonderful moment
When fate takes your hand
And this is the moment
My once in a lifetime
When I can explore
A new and exciting land"
2021 and going forward, is our 'new and exciting land'. The year 2020 and a pandemic have delivered our once in a lifetime opportunity to reimagine our future; both individually and as a society. 

The first day of 2021 - still clouds, but the sun is breaking through

Perhaps we don't see it; perhaps the silver lining to this cloud is still invisible to us. But one thing that seventy-odd years of living has taught me is that looking back, I would not wish away any of my life's personal disasters (and there have been a few). Each one has lead to a new tomorrow. Each one is a part of who I have become. Each one has been indispensable to my 'today'. 

So, 'worst year ever' or was 2020  your 'once in a lifetime' opportunity? I think we each get to choose which one we are going to fly with. I know which one I am choosing.

Picture a haiku

 It is often said that a picture is worth a thousand words. The idea with "Picture a haiku" is not to replace words with a picture but to combine words and picture so that they tell the same story.

The form of a photograph is simple and constrained; a four-sided rectangular frame filled with a subject. A narrow window to a much larger, 360-degree world. A photograph is about inclusion and exclusion - what is shown and what is implied but not shown. The haiku is equally simple and constrained; just 17 syllables arranged in three lines of 5-7-5. It too is filled with a subject, it too is a small window to a much larger idea - inclusion and exclusion. 

What if, words and picture, the subject was the same; image and words playing the same melody, dancing to the same tune? An experiment. Let's see where this goes ...

Splashing colours fly
Reproductive insect art
Makes next year's daisies.

Five A.M. bird song
Welcoming the lightening sky
Today, I might fly.

Sun-kissed leaves waving

Tall Sentinels line the way

A guard of honour.

Greenly, I kept you

Now, without envy, it is

your time in the sun.

Standing neglected

Once breathing horses and hay

Now, ghosts of time past.

Review: 7Artisans 60mm Macro lens for Fuji X-mount

 Packaging: nice. Absence of a cloth bag to protect the lens when off-camera: not so nice.

I knew this lens was supposed to be heavy, but I was still surprised when I lifted it out of the box. For its size, it looks as though it should be lighter, even given its all-metal construction. Once fitted to my X-E3, it becomes obvious that the camera will now have to be held by the lens - in my left hand - while the right hand plays the camera buttons. This camera/lens combo is just too front-heavy to usefully hold any other way. Forget about any one-handed operation. If that sounds like a complaint, then let me say it's not a problem; no different actually, from working with a longer telephoto.

The X-E3 fits nicely on the back of this lens!

I like the 60mm focal length. On the X-E3 it becomes equivalent to a 90mm lens on a 35mm camera - a nice length for portraits and bringing mid-field subjects closer (as well as macro of course). It's f2.8 aperture provides a very thin depth of field and very pleasing, out of focus, circular bokeh - thanks to the 10-bladed aperture ring. As this is a manual focus lens (no autofocus), the thin depth of field does bring challenges though. 

f5.6 - focus on the signpost

The focus ring rotates through something like 250 degrees (at a guess). But, all the focusing from infinity right down to one meter is accomplished in the first 10 degrees of turn (another guess), leaving about 240 degrees for racking between 1m and the closest 1:1 macro setting. While this is great for close up work, it does mean that focusing further out than 1 meter is a very delicate and precise task. The equally short depth of field scale on the lens also seems to be a complete fiction - if you want infinity to be in focus, then the lens must be centred on infinity. You'll get the hang of it eventually, but don't expect to do any lightning-fast street photography with this lens at f2.8.

Corner flare when the light source just out of frame - f5.6

There is flare and vignetting, though I don't believe the glass is to blame. The problem comes from the long internal lens barrel which, though black and ribbed, is still too glossy. Light directly in the frame doesn't seem to cause a problem, but out of frame, at the right angle, and this corner flare kicks in. The internal barrel is also undoubtedly responsible for the vignetting in the last picture.

No flare here (f5.6)

Sharpness across the frame at f2.8 is acceptable and reaches 'very nice indeed' at f5.6 and f8. f16 is terrible; diffraction comes in like you've been pushed off a cliff. I wouldn't use it. The aperture ring is also of the smooth, de-clicked, variety. Videographers will love that, some photographers won't, because it's difficult to adjust the aperture by feel (and, of course, there is no visual display of 'f' stop in the viewfinder - manual lens, remember). Personally, I'm comfortable with the aperture ring as it is.

Creamy bokeh at f5.6

At 1:2 magnification, I can hand-hold this camera/lens combo by leaning into the focus and squeezing off the shot. This becomes more difficult at 1:1, though a high-speed burst will probably nail focus in at least one frame. For best results though, you'll want to shoot macro with a tripod and a rail. Fortunately, when mounted on the X-E3, the lens barrel diameter is no deeper than the camera body, so the focus ring doesn't foul a rail when mounted. Check your camera/rail combo though; it may be different.

Hand held - so missed focus slightly - f5.6

For $159, this lens represents extremely good value for money. It's not auto and it won't deliver the absolute world-best image quality. But, if you can work within its limitations, and at 1/3 the price of Fujifilm's own X-mount equivalent, it'll deliver some very good images and is probably worth its weight in gold - though not literally.

Focus at infinity, f5.6 - everything in focus, but note the vignetting caused by the long barrel.

Another film camera arrives

The dear lady that gave me the Kodak Retina Reflex, turned up again the other day with another gift - a camera from the thrift store where she works. I'm warming to the idea of her bringing me a camera every now and then - I get to check the camera out, find out where it fits in the history of cameras and, if it's functional, run a roll of film through it. Nice.

The previous Retina failed the film test. I got some pictures off the roll, but the film winding mechanism was unreliable and there were gaps and overlapping frames. It could be fixed with a good CLA, but is not worth the cost (probably over NZ$300). So, with that experience, I didn't have high hopes for the camera in the case marked, "Minolta".

The Minolta Hi-Matic 9 from 1966

Inside was a 35mm, Minolta Hi-Matic 9, apparently owned previously by Ian H Thompson of Oxford. I discovered that he died in 2009 so it's probably been sitting around unused for a few years. What I feared was fungus on the f1.7, 45mm lens, turned out to be nothing more than dirt and cleaned up nicely. What was more surprising was finding that the (now obsolete) mercury coin-battery still worked, as well as the light meter,  shutter and self-timer.

The Hi-Matic 9 is a brick of a rangefinder, weighing in at about 760g. Minolta's Hi-Matic range started in 1962 and the H-M9 came out in 1966. Cameras bearing the Hi-Matic name continued until 1984 though the last, the GF, was a cheap plastic job with a slow f4 lens - not at all up to the quality of the earlier Hi-Matics. In 1966, the H-M9 would have cost about US$110 or about 6 month's worth of my wages as an 18-year-old. So, not a cheap camera.

The H-M9's key feature at the time was an automatic exposure system. The camera had a light sensor built into the lens housing and, when set to auto, would calculate the correct exposure. It wasn't a particularly sophisticated system, gradually ramping both aperture and speed from 1/15 sec @ f1.7 all the way to 1/500 @ f16. If the user wanted more control over aperture or speed, then they needed to switch into manual-mode to override the auto function. Minolta dropped this system in the next model (H-M11) opting instead for a shutter-priority automatic system.

The HM9 is about to get the film treatment, and I intend to give the automatic exposure system a workout to see how it stands up in 2020.

On a different note; today I managed to get a shoe on my damaged foot. So mobility is restored and I will be spending much less time sitting in front of my computer and more time out shooting!