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Post by paulatukcamera on Jun 11, 2007 9:20:56 GMT -5
I hadn't really noticed his absence as he had been missing for a long time. Then yesterday, I realised for most people he had died long long ago - around 1987 - with the advent of small aperture lenses on the newly computed AF zoom cameras.
It took longer for most serious amateurs - probably into the 1990s - to abandon him to his old age.
I hadn't realised this because I am not a zoom user and rely on f2 35mm & 85mm lenses, so I had ignored the changes in the technology around me.
It is not the advent of digital that has ruined photography, it is the advent of slow lenses. No longer can you choose shallow depth of field to emphasise your subject. Your only hope now of a decent portrait is to retreat a 100 yards and use your 300mm - not very practical is it?
Ah you cry, he was abandoned to a retirement home because he no longer offered "convenience". Now, in my mind, Mr Convenience may be a sharp dresser and has flashy technology to wave at you, but he is no advocate of decent photography!
Lets us destroy a myth - of the two basic functions of all cameras, the one you most need has been retained - a good range of fast shutter speeds. Wrong! Even Mr Expert would not be able to distinguish between 1/250 & 1/1000 in photographs of landscapes and people. So speeds up to 1/4000 are just a total sales "gimmick" for most photographers.
However the loss of fast lenses, the advent of zoom lenses operating at f5 and smaller, the fact that fast optics now cost more than most DSLRS has removed a key element of photography from most buyers of new cameras. The ability to focus on what was necessary and discount the background
Do you remember when small compacts sported f2 lenses, when all SLRs carried a f1.4 or f1.8 as standard and portrait & wide angle lenses were f2?
All gone now (well at an affordable price). Couple that to greater depth of field from all cameras using small chips (including most DSLRS) and I would say that no modern camera buyer ever experiences the worth of "Mr Aperture"
I think he will be missed, don't you?
Paul
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Post by kiev4a on Jun 11, 2007 10:27:15 GMT -5
Paul:
I think weight and cost are two of the "prime" (sort of a pun) reasons for the change. In the past decade a couple of significant changes have occurred in photography--starting with film and carrying over into digital. Camera bodies got lighter while at the same time the zoom lens replaced primes as the standard. Zooms, by the nature of their design, are heavier. The way to reduce weight (and size) was to reduce glass area. And the way to do that was to make lower speed lenses. Because films became faster and digital sensors more sensitive, the majority of consumers were willing to give up lens speed for lighter and more compact designs.
A friend of mine has an old 135mm Nikkor F2 lens. It is a magnificent piece of glass but I would not want to lug it around all day. Same with the 80-200-range f2.8 zooms. They are nice but it really isn't that often that extra one or two stops is necessary?
As for portraits, there is still plenty of 85mm to 105mm prime glass available in the f2 or faster range. And it you are shooting digital without a full frame sensor (most are that way) even a 50mm turns into a nice portrait lens. One of the most highly sought after primes by Nikon digital users is the 50mm f1.8 which is relatively cheap, razor sharp and fast--with a depth of field that allows you to blur the background when the aperture is opened up.
Even in the old days I thought a lot of the hype of high speed lenses was just that--hype. I spend a lot of years shooting film, usually no faster than 400 iso and seldom used a lens faster than f2--usually f2.8. My attitude is if you can't get the shot with that film/lens combination, you probably should consider using a flash. I'm sure there are some folks out there that will disagree with that philosophy, however.
One reason I never got hooked on high speed lenses was price. I simply couldn't afford them. So I grew up learning how to make do with f4, f3.5 and f2.8.
Frankly, I don't miss Mr. Aperture because he never was a close friend.
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jun 11, 2007 11:58:06 GMT -5
I don't miss Mr. Fast Aperture for much the same reasons as Wayne. I grew up with f/4.5 and f/3.5 lenses, and later when I got f/1.8 and f1.4 primes on Canons I don't think I ever used them wide open. For years I used only two focal lengths, 50mm and 135mm. Then I added a 28mm which was very useful. My most used lens these days is a Canon 35-70 short zoom, f/3.5/4.5. Most of the time it's around the middle of its zoom range.
It's not big enough to be awkward and it does 80-90% of all my pictures with Canons. Most of my longer focus lenses and zooms, Canon and M42, are around f/4.5, with two, I think, going as wide as f/3.5 and one to f/2.8.
I don't miss Mr. Fast Aperture because I never got to know him. Anyway, hundreds of his twins are still around.
PeterW
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Post by doubs43 on Jun 11, 2007 13:50:08 GMT -5
There are times when "Mr. Fast Aperture" is the only answer for a given situation but if the truth be known, I rarely have need for him. I seldom shoot faster than f/2.8 and very rarely use a shutter speed faster than 1/125 or slower than 1/15. Those less expensive cameras with speeds of 1/25 or 1/30 topping out at 1/500 will cover 95% or more of situations.
I do recall using f/1.4 at 1/8th of a second in a Korean cave. For being hand held, the images (Kodachrome slides) came out pretty darn good but I was much younger then.
Last week I finally found a Takumar-A 28~80mm Macro Zoom lens (f/3.5~4.5) that I can use on my K-Mount cameras and my DSLR Pentax. It was cheap and I imagine I'll use it much as Peter uses his 35~70 Canon lens.
Walker
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Post by herron on Jun 11, 2007 14:21:58 GMT -5
Paul: I think I have to chime in on the side of "who?" I have a few fast (f/1.4) lenses, but the majority of the work I like to do has been with much smaller apertures...f2.8, f3.5, f4...so I guess I have to say I won't overly miss Mr. Fast....as he and I were only nodding acquaintances.
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Post by John Parry on Jun 11, 2007 14:40:38 GMT -5
A very erudite post - and replies! I recently attended a lovely charity function, and took my Canon 1000 FXn (One of the earlier Rebels). I had a Sigma 35-70 zoom with appalling apertures (a kit lens). I was lifting the camera up, putting it down, and at the same time trying to save the battery by turning off and putting the integral flash down - while at the same time being as unobtrusive as possible. Light levels were low, so I needed the flash, but of course forgot it on a couple of occasions. Those were so smeared it was untrue, while in general the others came out OK. Obvious of course, but, yes it does bring it home that the days of the bright primes are gone
Remind me to post the shots of the belly dancer sometime...
Regards
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Post by kiev4a on Jun 11, 2007 15:20:20 GMT -5
John:
Remember to post the belly dancer shots.
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Jun 11, 2007 16:52:07 GMT -5
Besides being poorer than a church mouse and never able to afford a truly exotic fast lenses, I, as a rank amateur, will weigh in with Paul on this. After a flirtation with consumer grade digital one of the things that has convinced me to start shelling out for film again is the joy of using my only truly fast lens, a 50mm f1.4. fitted to a late seventies AE body. For me, big pro SLRs are a travesty, a rejection of everything 35mm stands for. I've owned a mighty Mamiya Press Universal in the past and today's pro SLR rigs don't give up much to even that monster in terms of size or intimidation. How candid can a picture be when you haul up an EOS 1 or (getting up to date) an EOS 1-D Mk III? A tidy wee AE body, on the other hand, fitted with a fast 50 (or wider) is small, easy to use, unobtrusive and (if it's a rangefinder) quiet. In the past I made some of my most personally satisfying images using a battered old Nikon F3 and Nikkor 50mm f1.4, hand held in low light situations. Not always pin sharp, but in keeping with the ethos behind Capa's book title: 'Slightly out of Focus' (I'm not making comparisons though!) Now I'm finding the same speed, usability and satisfaction by mating a Seagull 50 1.4 (that I picked up when living in China) mated to a humble old Minolta XG-9. Until I can afford a Leica (or even a Cosina Voightlander) this combination of competent AE and a fast 50 is the most fun, fast and low-key way of making images in casual/candid situations. I've no doubt that were I talented enough to be a pro photog covering sports events or doing wildlife, I'd be toting a 1-D Mk III with fancy IS lenses and setting the ISO at 400 or above (note that if your digital can't do ISO 1200 without significant 'noise', it'll be panned by the reviewers). So IS and fine noise(grain) are the new, undoubtedly cheaper technological solutions to the technical problems once solved, at least in part, by fast glass. But it is, as Paul hints, us poor 'consumers' who really got gypped by the AF compact zooms of the 1990s and the subsequent rash of amazingly competent but ultimately frustrating consumer digitals. When I pick up a Hi-Matic 7 or a Lynx I marvel at the quality and innovation of 60s consumer cameras. Sure, you only got one focal length, but it was fast, incredibly well made, featured good optics and, with a nice bright rangefinder and AE, was quick and easy to use. No AF to hunt, no flash to pop up, no brain to prevent you from making an image exactly when you wanted to make it. When I look at all the out of focus, poorly exposed pictures on internet auctions I realize that all the tech and zooms and brains (at the expense of lens speed) haven't helped many people do a better job of image making than (great) granddad did with his box brownie. I'm sure that most wonder why, when they point the lens at the object they want to capture and press the button, the durned camera hums and buzzez and beeps and (finally) flashes, giving them a bleached out, perfectly focussed image of the wall behind the thing they're trying to sell. Wouldn't they(we) be better served by an updated (e.g. digital *sigh*) version of the 60s rangefinder with a nice fast manual focus 50mm lens that could be hand-held sans flash that doesn't break the bank? Just a thought really
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Post by Peter S. on Jun 12, 2007 12:15:08 GMT -5
Dear Michael,
I admire those fellow photographers, who state they were able to abandon all the fast glass. Maybe I am just a camera gear junkie - but I were very sorry to do so.
I concede that fast glass on the wide angle side is not really mandatory*). But a fast normal and a fast medium telephoto is highly useful - and when it comes to that all manual focus stuff, it is not really expensive.
I don't know what's going on for Nikon or Canon - but I know that a MD Rokkor 1.7/50 plus a MC Tele Rokkor 2.8/135 will cost You as little as 25 €. And those offer the road to selective sharpness in a way that is impossible with any consumer grade digicam.
So for me that old fast glass opens up options I don't have using my digital equipment.
On the other hand I am very aware of the fact, that the best film gear does not improve my pictures per se. This was one major point of the comments on Paul's post. But this is not in contradition to Paul's point (if I got him right).
Best regards Peter
*) quite in contrast to a good tripod - which often is essential
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Post by John Parry on Jun 12, 2007 14:57:07 GMT -5
Nice posts Michael & PeterS
As I said, this is a subject that seems to ring a bell here. No condemnation of anything digital - as long as they learn to use them. And even so - film is best!
Sums up the ethos of this site really!
Regards - John
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pancake
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Post by pancake on Jun 13, 2007 13:26:34 GMT -5
Just have to chime in I absolutely love fast glass. I don't see how SLR users can *not* miss fast lenses. The faster the lens, the brighter the viewfinder for composing, no? Coming from a Digital SLR with kit lens, It's like a revelation on how different my pictures can be. There is no comparison when I peer through the OM Zuiko 50/1.4 from my OM-1 viewfinder. Every single composition brings excitement. Now I use my fast primes even on my DSLR (Olympus E-300). To add insult to injury, we got a 2-13 focusing screen for my wife's OM-4, and that screen literally brightens up an already bright viewfinder. These shots are handheld at (1/2 seconds for the one on the right), using a 38mm/1.8 Zuiko lens on my Pen-FT half-frame SLR.
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Post by John Parry on Jun 13, 2007 14:31:04 GMT -5
Thanks for the reminder Wayne! But first, here's one of the Brasilian Marshal Arts dancers/fighters (Capoeiras)... And the juggler.... And the lovely lady herself.... OK - I admit - not a belly in site, but I can assure you all that everything moved as it was supposed to move (and a lot faster than I ever thought possible!). I know - these are snapshots, but I thought you might be amused! Regards - John
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Post by herron on Jun 13, 2007 15:12:35 GMT -5
John: Not sure what this has to do with fast aperture but, at the risk of sounding like a DOM (dirty old man), the young lady in red looks as if she could marital my arts any day!
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jun 13, 2007 17:11:54 GMT -5
John, Nice shots. Tum tum tum, tumta tumta tum. Tum tum tum, tumta tumta, Brasi-i-i-i-i-i-l ... Pancake, Impressively sharp for handheld at slow shutter speed. You've got a steadier hand than I have Gungha Din! . PeterW
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Post by doubs43 on Jun 13, 2007 21:10:51 GMT -5
John, those are a nice record of an interesting event. They show action and I'll bet everyone in those pictures would be happy to have a copy.
Walker
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