7Artisans 35mm Pancake Lens

Buy yours here.

There have been a number of manually focused lenses introduced that are compatible with the venerable Leica M bayonet. This has been something of a windfall for those of us who are experimenting with vintage lenses and the new generation of full-framed mirrorless camera bodies from the Big Three makers. To the good, they follow the compact form factor of the traditional lenses designed for rangefinder film cameras bodies. You see, without the moving mirror of the traditional single lens reflex body, the lenses can be built much closer to the sensor plane. 

Chicken Or Egg: While I am not a photo historian, I have my opinions on how we got here, and why I hold the Fuji X-Pro 1 to blame. When it was introduced in 2012, it was marketed as a way for rangefinder diehards to make the transition to digital by providing a familiar form factor, optical viewfinder, and in-camera monochrome simulations. Fujifilm wisely introduced an accessory M-mount adapter to facilitate the transplant. The idea caught on, although the crop factor essentially increased the focal length of these lenses by a factor of 1.5 X, a serious drawback to wide lens aficionados.

The Chinese Connection: Right around the start of the Pandemic, several Chinese companies began making inexpensive, manual focus lenses for use with a variety of mirrorless cameras. Photographers using Fuji and Micro Four Thirds bodies were given a veritable cornucopia of inexpensive lenses to play with, and with many available for less than $100.00, it was an easy vice to indulge in. These lenses were designed for the half-frame equivalent format, and slowly but surely, the selection of new lenses got wider and wider, and I bought a number of them.

Enter The Dragon: Unbeknownst to me, Sony made a major breakthrough when in introduced its A7 mirrorless in 2013. It was the first of its kind: A full framed mirrorless camera. The camera slipped under my radar as I was a Nikon DSLR fan, and my mirrorless camera interest centered on the Fuji X-100 series of cameras. And without my noticing, Canon and Nikon would introduce their own full-framed camera bodies. I watched from afar as Nikon introduced its Z series of full framed bodies, but did not act because my D700 and two D60 bodies were more than up to the task. Besides, I had the necessary lenses to my full-framed bodies, so no further action was deemed necessary. I was, by now, committed to the Fuji X system. But the sea was rapidly changing, and I was facing away from the coast.

Savvy lens designers saw another window of opportunity opening. While engineers with the Big Three (Canon, Nikon, and Sony) were busy designing high end optics, others were exploring the possibilities of resurrecting older lens formulas. Since there was no longer a need to accommodate a moving mirror, older rangefinder designs could be copied in lenses with mounts for these new cameras. And while we're at it, how about some Leica M compatible models? Surely, there must be whole generations of photographers with Leica M bodies who would love to acquire usable lenses at a fraction of the price of a Leitz OEM offering. This could be done by adding the necessary rangefinder cam to the focusing mechanism. It adds to the cost, but it's necessary for any non-digital application.

This composite shows the Leitz Sumarron-M 28mm F 5.6 (left) compared to the TTartisan clone (right). You have to give TTartisan credit for capturing the esthetic feel of the more expensive Leitz lens. Price? $3,095.00  vs. $326.00, respectively. Performance? Satisfactory, from what I've heard. What more important is the demand for the lens, proving there is a market for photographers wanting to use there film (or digital) Leicas without going into debt to acquire lenses. The similarities are more than skin deep. These lenses a constructed from brass and glass, giving them both a heftiness from at time when aluminum was necessary to reduce weight. But I digress. Let's get back to the lens at hand, the 7Artisans pancake.

Aperture: The lens has a sincle aperture permanently set to 5.6. When shooting outdoors during the day, exposure is not a problem if you're shooting in Aperture Priority mode at a modest ISO setting. When working indoors, you'll need to boost the ISO to a level that insures a sufficiently fast exposure time. For my tastes, F 5.6 doesn't provide enough depth of field for zone focusing applications. F 8.0 might have, but that is not a option for this lens. 

Focusing: I was a little disappointed on how limited the focusing options were. There is a small distance scale printed on the face of the lens, but as you can see from this image, the focusing arc from .5 meters to infinity is only about 30 degrees. Placed between those marked distances are a sequence of meaningless dots. Certainly not enough information for  distance estimation. I would have found the lens easier to use if the manufacturer provided both a more detailed distance scale and a depth of field scale.

One interesting feature is the built in lens cap that rotates to protect the lens when the focusing lever is when the distance is set beyond infinity. 

The Verdict: It would be reasonable to ask what this lens's raison d'être was supposed to be. I suspect that the designers thought it would be a good Street Lens for taking carefree "snaps" when waling about.  In my opinion there are a number of things that keep the lens from fulfilling that mission. First, the focal length is a bit long. Next, I have found the depth of field provided by 35mm focal length as being too shallow for zone focusing, Sure, a maximum aperture of F 5.6 might be adequate if distance and depth of field scales were provided. Finally, the single shooting aperture is a very serious limitation. Ironically, the lens itself produces reasonably sharp images when properly focused. Unfortunately, that narrow focusing arc makes it difficult to pinpoint that point of critical focus when the focusing peaking highlights zip in and out of view. If it were up to me, I'd change the following:

• Change the pitch on the focusing threads to provide a wider focusing arc. This would make it easier to settle on the "sweet spot" when peak focusing,
• Add a depth of field scale, 
• Provide an adjustable aperture. Some times F 8.0 makes more sense. Or maybe even F 11, and
• Shorten the focal length, perhaps to 25 mm. 

It's funny. After writing these four suggestions for improvements, I realized that I described the Voigtlander Snapshot Skopar. Also, I now want to buy that TTartisan copy of the Leitz Sumarron.

It shall be mine!

See original image here.

Post Script: While on my morning walk, I wondered what might have inspired the designers at 7Artixans to choose this unique look for its pancake lens. I felt as though I had seen this circular motif before, and I had. This is the Olympus O Product camera introduced in 1988 as a limited edition, collector's camera. It is basically an aluminum-clad Infinity Jr. point-and-shoot camera. The unique styling of the camera made it a celebrity of sorts in the camera world. In the mid 1970s I remember seeing one for sale at Brook's Camera on Kearny Street in San Francisco for about $300.00. That was big money in those days. According to Wikipedia, only 20,000 were produced worldwide.

Halloween At The Carolands Mansion

 

The Halloween Party at the Caroland's Mansion has become a must-do event for me, having missed it only when I was out of town. Staff and volunteers transform the mansion into a haunted house, complete with projected images on the walls, a haunted cemetery, and a witch that flies overhead on a cable. It is the "first stop" for trick-or-treaters in the neighborhood, and kids of all ages in all manners of costume shriek and giggle as they visit the ghastly tableaus and other macabre visions.

Timing is everything, especially when ambient light plays an important role. In order to show the ghostly projection on the exterior walls, one must wait until well after sundown and work with very high ISO settings. But by arriving early, finding a parking spot close to the main entrance was easy. 

I arrived at exactly 5:00 pm, and the sun wasn't schedule dot set until about 7:00. With time to kill, I walked about a made some random photographs. I often use a shoe-mounted speedlight to act as fill. While one could argue that this wouldn't be required when working in an "open shade" environment, the speedlight provides a color temperature that better matches the Cloudy White Balance Preset I usually use. 

These two shots were done with an on-camera flash to give some shape and some highlights. Without it, you are working in open shade lighting with little contrast and indistinct highlights.

As the ambient lighting dropped, I started to increase my ISO value, eventually hitting the 6400 mark. It's interesting to think that as the ISO increases, so does the effective range of my speedlight.

As the venue got darker and my ISO creeped higher, the single speedlight I had mounted on a light stand became proportionally more powerful. The mansion's driveway had a  to facilitate the loading and unloading of passengers, and the island at its center gave me safe place to position my flash. Since it was controlled by a radio trigger, I could point it in the general direction of the gathering crowds and move about taking candid photos. Since the subject-to-flash distance was constant, I wasn't always adjusting my shooting aperture or the speedlight's output.

I had arranged to make a group shot of the volunteers. Unfortunately, they wanted a photo made in the mock pumpkin patch. It was scheduled for later in the evening when there was a lull in the activities. The placement of the Key Light wasn't a problem.  I simple moved that shoe-mounted speedlight closer to my subjects. I tried to add some edge lighting to the group by placing two speedlights aimed at the backs of their heads, but only managed to get some spill light on the right side of the frame. Without additional light stands, I was limited to where those kicker lights could be placed. Close, very close, but the shot could still be improved.

Looking back, had I brought two extra light stands, I could have placed them just outside the frame, simply raised them to full height, and pointed them towards the ground, creating a puddle of light aimed at the the details in the behind. Instead of a rim light, I could have achieved some background separation while providing the viewer with some interesting details.

In the end, the top photo appeared on Page 2 of the Journal, while the bottom photo may wind up in a small frame on several desks within the organization.