Once Upon a Time

One story.

Once upon a time,







The End.

A fast single-coated lens shot in full sun, what's that like?

I like fast lenses, even though I may rarely shoot near-total darkness. I like having the capability on the wide end to reach into shadows and pull out detail. My bias towards fast lenses comes from my days as a photography student, when the only camera I had to shoot with was a YashicaMat 124. It had a very good lens, but I was constantly bumping up against that f3.5 limitation. You couldn't have convinced me back then that 3.5 wasn't slow.



So here are some images, shot with the same CV 40/1.4 SC used in the previous post, in full sun, unfiltered (no UV either), on Tri-X, and processed with a solvent developer, designed to be similar to D76, but to give about a 2/3 stop speed increase over D76.

40/1.4 Nokton SC

A recent acquisition from Cosina Voigtlaner, the 40/1.4 Nokton SC, is the single coated version of the 40/1.4 Nokton (multi-coated). I've been wondering about this lens for a while, so when I acquired it, I immediately slipped onto my CLE, with its convenient 40mm framelines, and hit the streets for a test roll, or two.



I'm not lacking for a good 40mm lens. I own the M-Rokkor 40/2, which is very nice, but the single-coated version of the Nokton, with its reputation for being a good lens for shooting black & white was too much to bear.



Reports on this lens have been mixed. It reportedly has inferior bokeh. I'm not a bokeh chaser, but a lens that exhibits quality out-of-focus areas is very pleasing.



I own the Konica Minolta Hexanon 50/2, which IMO, has excellent bokeh.



What you're looking at here, are images from the single-coated Nokton, from the first two rolls, in fact. I've not been able to form an opinion, but the lens seems to have a look considerably different from the CV lenses I own. For example, it is completely different from the 35/2.5 and 28/3.5 and closer to its sibling the 50/1.5. I particularly like the midtones as rendered by the 40/1.4, the skin tones on the portrait, and the tones on the basket and face of the woman, in the image above.

I'll post more as they come in. The film types here are PlusX and TriX.

California

Three impressions of the place I love, California.



Three views of my California



It seems the camera can make strangers of friends, family, and places.



Enriching that relationship.

Waving Beauty

Summer 2005.
Minolta CLE, Cosina Voigtlander 28/3.5, APX 100

An Image

This is a favorite image of mine. If I remember correctly, it was shot using a CV 90/3.5 APO Lanthar. For me, sometimes, a favorite image, becomes a favorite image for reasons beyond the visible. This image is nothing special, really, but it carries a lot of memories with it, tangible, sensual ones.