The American Prospect

The desktop version of this terrific article from The American Prospect features my concert photography. Amanda Teuscher's piece is fantastic -- I especially like the wariness of nostalgia, and how DC's scene instead centers on dealing with current issues and looking forward.

Screen capture from prospect.org. Pictured: DC's own Coup Sauvage and the Snips.

Screen capture from prospect.org. Pictured: DC's own Coup Sauvage and the Snips.

Many of the photos they chose to use happened to have been taken with my vintage Asahi Takumar 135mm f/3.5 lens. Copies in good condition will go on eBay for under $150. Mine is an M42 mount. It's quite compact for a 135mm, and the image quality can be very nice. Check out the sharpness on this shot of Katie Alice Greer of the (totally awesome) DC-based band Priests.

I love the stray hairs against the black background, as well as the black fur against the white background. Shutter: 1/40, f/3.5, ISO: 2000. I usually won't push the ISO anywhere near that high, but the venue was rather dark this band's movements are so frenetic that faster shutter speeds were needed!

I was happy with the inclusion of this Ian Svenoius shot, because it has a little bit of wordplay. As the article notes, the words "POPULAR LIBRARY" were behind the band. I wonder if readers will notice that I framed the shot so it says, "POPULAR LIE"?

I feel like Popular Lie would be a solid name for a punk band. This shot was also with the Asahi Takumar 135mm f/3.5 lens. Shutter: 1/60, f/3.5 (or close to that), ISO: 800.

Warming Up to the Zeiss Distagon 35mm f/1.4

I'm starting to get a feel for this lens. It can be tough shooting well with a 35mm vs. a 50+mm, as Henri Cartier-Bresson explained beautifully...

"The 35 is splendid when needed, but extremely difficult to use if you want precision in composition. There are too many elements, and something is always in the wrong place. It is a beautiful lens at times when needed by what you see. But very often it is used by people who want to shout. Because you have a distortion, you have somebody in the foreground and it gives an effect. But I don’t like effects. There is something aggressive, and I don’t like that. Because when you shout, it is usually because you are short of arguments."

Here's a shot where I had good luck. The colors were quite nicely handled by the lens -- the reason the sky is so pink is that 4th of July fireworks were going off over the National Mall, a couple miles from my location of Dupont Circle in DC.

The Distagon was at f/3.2 here.

The Helios 40-2 85mm f/1.5 as a Concert Lens

The Helios 40-2 85mm (actually 85.18 mm) portrait lens is very much a cult item. A new one from Russia runs for about $450 and vintage Soviet copies will often run over $300. Photographers have even started taking them off of the Soviet night-vision devices that utilized stripped-down versions of them, even though those are locked into wide-open f/1.5 aperture.

Everyone who isn't trying to sell you one is in agreement that there's nothing great about its image quality. It's also not very convenient to shoot with. It's quite large for an 85mm, and it's absurdly heavy at over two pounds -- almost twice the weight of the Sony camera body I hooked it up to.

So why is there a market for it? Because of its very unique, weird, swirly bokeh. Click here (all links open in a new window) for a great example from the lens's flickr pool. If you've got just the right background - usually branches and leaves with abundant light - then the out-of-focus light will melt and funnel around the center. Another typical example. Even when you don't have the perfect background for that effect, you'll still get unique results. Not usually pleasing in my opinion, but unique.

I gave the lens a try for concert photography. I've never seen anyone else use it for that, but I figured it's not an all-bad fit. The fast f/1.5 is good for a concert's low light, and I like using portrait lenses for concerts. You usually won't be able to fit the whole band in your shot, but a lot of concert photography is ultimately one or two-subject portrait photography anyway.

I took it to a small-venue show and decided to shoot exclusively at f/1.5. Obviously focusing at that setting was a challenge, especially since the focus ring has a fairly long throw. And even when you do get it in focus, it's soft at f/1.5...

Upcoming Washington, DC band Nox. The focus was't quite perfect on the eye and face, but the lens's softness worked well with the backlighting here, giving a bit of a dreamy halo. Shutter: 1/60, f/1.5, ISO: 1600.

Puff Pieces. This was as good as I was able to get from the lens in terms of image quality performance, and I thought it was pretty decent for a wide-open shot. Nice color and respectable sharpness - other than the lens flare circle below the spotlight and a few hints of lens's bokeh style, it looks like a shot you'd expect from pricier modern Canon or Nikon glass. Shutter: 1/60, f/1.5, ISO 500.

Chain and the Gang, one of my favorite bands to see live. Nice little lens flare center right, and as well as some interesting flaring far left. Shutter: 1/50, f/1.5, ISO: 1000.


Ian Svenonius is a tremendous frontman. Shutter: 1/50, f/1.5, ISO: 1000.

Favorite shot of the night. I like the subtlety of the light coming off the wall behind them. And all three of them look so sincerely happy and unaffected, like they forgot they were onstage in front of an audience. Shutter 1/50, f/1.5, ISO: 1000.

Chicago with the Zeiss 55mm f/1.8 Sonnar T

This native Sony lens by Zeiss is about as ace as you can get when it comes to performance, with sharpness that was literally off DP Review's chart. But I've found that some photos that would've been full of life on quirkier and lower quality lenses end up boring on this Zeiss. Steve Huff once referred to this lens as being a bit sterile, and I totally agree.

The result is that, just like with any other lens, you have to learn what works for it. The 55mm f/1.8 doesn't seem content with the standard or straightforward. It likes to have its boundaries pushed, or to at least be used for the kind of shots that will allow for more creative editing.

I took the lens to Chicago last weekend along with my a7ii...

Both this and the next one were at f/4.

At full crop every thread of the bulb's filament is impressively sharp.

Pleasantly surprised with this shot from a restaurant's patio looking through a window at the bartender. f/1.8, 1/60th shutter, ISO 160.

Had the content been different, this is the kind of photo that I might've called dull in terms of lens performance, but your gear's shortcomings don't matter quite so much when you find two dogs wearing doggles and Cubs shirts in a Vespa sidecar.

The Zeiss really excels at picking up every detail in shots like this. f/4, 1/2500th shutter, ISO 50.