In one of my drawers I found two rolls of Ektar 100 from the times a roll was only 8€. Expired 2015. Not exactly properly stored. So a good opportunity to see if the exposure meter works and where I stand with the rangefinder calibration of this camera.
Processing and scanning was done at urbanfilmlab in Germany.
Continue reading Analogue Adventures – Part 2: First Roll of Film
When people hear TTArtisan many may connect that name to very fast lenses like the 50mm 0.95 or the 90mm 1.25, but today we are looking at something very different: a compact 28mm 5.6 for M-mount.
A maximum aperture of f/5.6 doesn’t sound that exciting, but then tiny lenses are always welcome here, so let’s have a closer look!
The lens is being tested on 24mp Leica M10 and 42mp Sony A7rII.
I shot analogue with two cameras in the past, a Nikon F80 and a Nikon FE2.
The F80 is actually a very modern camera which supports AF, VR, matrix metering and a few other things, but the rubber got sticky and I got rid of most of my Nikon lenses quite some time ago, so I have little incentive to use it these days.
The FE2 was better at giving the “analogue” feeling, but some parts of the mechanics are broken as the film advance doesn’t work properly. So on my first and only roll of film with this camera I ended up with a bunch of useless quadruple exposures.
The adventure of analogue photography ended for me here.
Until the day I was strolling through Stuttgart and discovered a camera store displaying a Nikon FM2, FM3a and F3 – all in mint condition and all – at least to my eyes – beautiful cameras. I got the idea of getting one of those, because: why not shoot some film for a change?
Continue reading Analogue Adventures – Part 1: Choosing a Camera
The Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN Art is one of many fast 85mm lenses for the system. Is this lens the cheaper and lighter alternative to the Sony GM 85mm f/1.4 we were hoping for?
A photographers kit tells a lot about his interests and preferred subject matter so we thought it might be interesting to give you an overview of the team’s current kit(s).
In the past we wrote several “The Team’s favourite lenses articles which might be interesting to you, if you would like to track the development of our interests.
| Lens | Number of Pictures | Share |
| Voigtländer 1.2/40 | 631 | 36% |
| Sigma 100-400mm F5-6.3 DG DN | 429 | 24% |
| Sigma 35mm F2 Dg Dn | 292 | 17% |
| Zeiss Loxia 2.4/25 | 105 | 6% |
| Voigtländer APO Macro 2.5/110 | 99 | 6% |
| TTArtisans 1.4/50 | 87 | 5% |
| Samyang 1.8/75 AF | 58 | 3% |
| Sony FE 4/16-35 ZA | 34 | 2% |
| Voigtländer 3.5/21 | 23 | 1% |
Breakdown of my three star images taken in 2021 by lens used
It has been my most used lens for years now. It got some competition by the Sigma 2/35 and TTA 1.4/50 but it at least outcompeted the Sigma for me.
In early 2021 my daughter was born and that has of course changed my life and with it my photography. Maybe 50% of the images I take are of her and here the compact Voigtländer again showed its versatility. For portraits the bokeh is almost always very smooth. If I focus very close I sometimes like the softer look caused by much increased SA and when I don’t I stop down to f/1.7 to get rid of it.
Before my daughter was born and when she was very young and sleeping a lot, I did many photo rides. Most often with the 1.2/40 and the Sigma 100-400 in my sling bag. I would like to bring my Loxia 2.4/25 as well but that doesn’t fit in the bag so I am happy to stitch when the 40mm are too narrow.
