7artisans 55mm F 1.4 Lens - More Is Less (Useful)

For a compilation of the morning walk images, click here.

Get your here.

The second 7artisans lens to arrive was the 55mm F 1.4 lens. I purchased this lens used, as I figured that of all the focal lengths, this would be the length I would use the least. I already have the autofocus Fuji 50mm F2.0 WR lens. To date, it's been used only a handful of times. 

Raison d'être: The 50mm-ish lens, when used in the APS format, has always held a special place in the photographic universe. Lenses with a focal length between 75mm and 85mm have long been considered the ideal lens for 35mm film portraiture. It's about the longest lens most people can hand-hold under low-light conditions.

Lens Topography: So far as I can tell, all of the 7artisan manual focus lens share the same general layout. That is to say that when mounted on the camera and seen from above, the aperture ring/focusing ring position and the largest aperture/shortest focusing distance are found on the left. At one time, this was a major selling point for purchasing OEM lenses to accompany one's film camera. When so equipped, you always knew that whichever direction you rotated these two control rings, the lens's response would be the same. 

Notice that the focusing ring  has been placed closer to the body than the aperture ring. The aperture blades are placed at distance equal to the focal length of the lens, or in this case, 2" away from the film plane. Since there are no mechanical linkages between the body and the lens, it stands to reason that controls be placed as close to this distance as is practical. Anyway, the wide focusing ring allows for plenty of room for my fingers to move about. I have to remind myself the the locations of the two controls are reversed.

Shot with the 55mm 7artisans lens. Not very sharp. I get it.

Magnification Ratio: This is a  term that doesn't come up often in digital circles, since so many cameras, even point-and-shoots, have a close-up setting. It's the ratio between width of the sensor and the width of the field of view when the lens is set to its closest focusing distance.

To calculate this ratio, I photographed this draftsman's ruler* with the 55mm lens at its closest focusing distance. As you can see, the width of the field would be 5.2", or 132mm. Since the nominal width of an APS sensor is (nominally) 24mm, the ratio would be 1:5.5 (132/24). Obviously, this lens would not be a good choice for photographing small objects. Think of a 3 1/2" X 5" note card. This would approximate the smallest subject size you could photograph with this lens, or one with a comparable magnification ratio.  

A magnification ratio that approaches 1:1, while rare in all but true macro lenses, is often a selling point for longer-than-normal lenses, since it would possible to photograph creepy-crawlies from a greater distance, something to consider if your subject has claws, teeth, or a stinger.

Bike  Share, Roosevelt Way, San Francisco  March 31, 2020

Affordability: 5, Usefulness 1: The 55mm lens, used with an APS sensor, gives minimal foreground/background compression. In that respect, ti is marginally better than the 35mm lens I've been playing with. However, it would make a a good third lens if accompanied by a 12mm and a 25mm lens. This is very similar to focal lengths found in my basic light kit (18mm, 23mm, and a 50mm). It just doesn't provide the compression of the longer telephotos. But if I ever needed to make a great headshot, I'll have the perfect lens.

Easter Decoration, Roosevelt Way, San Francisco. March 31, 2020 

Easter. I Get It: Homeowners in my neighborhood sometimes go overboard on holiday decorations. I find it ironic that this festive bunny sadistically mocks what little joy we might find for ourselves during our "shelter in place" mandate.

So far as this lens is concerned, I think it is the ideal lens for use when a good head shot is called for. It just doesn't have the usefulness to be the lens I would chose to wander with, but certainly a nice one to stow away somewhere in my traveling kit. It would be more useful if it could focus closer than it can. It was certainly worth what I paid for it, but it probably won't be a daily carry.

*A draftman's ruler has 6 different scales to facilitate the rendering of properly scaled drawings. This particular edge is a standard inch-ruler with increments every 1/10". This predates AutoCad. The ruler was used because it was handy.

A Bloke Mucking About The Castro

For a compilation of the morning walk images, click here.

The Village: I decided to mail a letter at the Castro post office and to enjoy the welcomed appearance of the sun at the end of a dark and dreary morning. My 35mm 7artisans 35mm was the lens of choice, and since it had already proven its penchant for slight color shifts, decided to just play with different levels of color saturation and create some images that might be a little more "festive".

Dinosaurs In The Window: I made this photo of a infant-friendly plush animal mobile in a window of a shuttered specialty store. I have a soft spot for dinosaurs and frogs, and love them as much as I love puppies and birdies, and yes, sometimes kitties too. I can't help but grin at this comic representation of a baby Tyrannosaurus Rex. If I was a little plush Brontosaurus, I'd be really scared.

I was curious to see if this lens was indeed sharp, so I zoomed in on the eye, which was my point of focus. I was amazed that this shot, made through the glass windows, showed the lens to be sharper than I had expected, and more than adequate for its role as a leisure lens on a leisure body.

I'm still not wild about the 50mm equivalent focal length, and still think its field of view is too narrow for my tastes. Alas, the 25mm lens hasn't made it across the Pacific Ocean yet, and since I was late to the purchasing party, got stuck at the very end of the customer line. Based on this particular photo, I hope all the 7artisans lenses are equally sharp, as they are certainly handy and inexpensive.

Harvey: Reminders of Supervisor Harvey Milk (1930-1978) are everywhere in the Castro, and this mural, painted on the side of the restaurant I knew as the Cafe San Marco, shows him as a cross between Mario Savio and George Washington. I mentioned in a earlier post that I knew Harvey and frequented his camera store. I sensed his greatness even then.

Bokeh To You Too, Bud! Bokeh is a term often used in the evaluations of these manual-focus wonders. It is the umami of the photography, a difficult-to-define quality, something you recognize but cannot accurately describe. In short, it's a way to value the rendition of the out-of-focus backgrounds using words like creamy, smooth, and blurry. This lens does a good job in the background department.

Just so you know: SFUSD stands for San Francisco Unified School District. The historic street lamp globe belongs to the school district and not to the city proper. I'm not sure why they felt the need to identify it so, but there you have it.

From the Web. Citations will follow

A contributing factor to quality bokeh is the lens's 9-bladeed diaphragm, which gives an aperture that is more circular than polygonal. This tends to enhance this desired blurry effect. Automated lens often reduce the number of aperture blades to decrease the time it takes for the lens to transition from a "open aperture" to the smaller "shooting aperture" just prior to exposure.

You can see in this illustration a lens with six aperture blades (left) and one with eight blades (right) By all rights the eight-bladed lens would produce better bokeh, and has contributed to the popularity of the 7artisans manual lenses which have nine to fourteen.

While on my walk, I found out that my 55mm 1.4 lens had just been delivered, so I will comment on it as soon as I get a chance.