mel_snyder2

Thanks for the comment on the flower, Lou. Shot hand-held at the Boston Flower Shot 2 weeks ago.

 

Lou, I don't own the 100mm f2 you used for "Robert," and possibly your excellent lighting accounts for part of my

observation, but that looks like a brilliant fit for travel portraiture. I do own the 105mm f2.5 and 85mm f2 Nikkor AiS

lenses; the 85mm may be lighter than your f1.4, but I wonder how you found the 105mm.

 

I was fortunate enough back in 1982 to have acquired at bargain pricing a demo Leica M4P with a 50mm f2 Summicron,

and then on travels in Europe with a high dollar, a near-mint 35mm f1.4 Summilux ($325) and a 90mm f2.8 Tele-Elmarit

($200). They are tiny by comparison to modern lenses - each has a 39mm front objective - and all but the 35mm are

excellent wide open. The A7 is actually smaller than my M4P. So my travel portrait length is the 90mm. I also own an

85mm f1.2L Canon FDn - optically excellent but by weight the antithesis of a travel lens.

 

I looked up your bio on DPR (I am banned there for a week for having posted a link to an online processor offering 30x60

inch prints for $24). I see you're a pro, and the portraits sure show it. The lighting on "Robert" represents a near-lost art.

Back in the early 70s, I had the good fortune of being accepted into a 2-semester portrait lighting class with Philippe

Halsman, offered through the New School, and "Robert" image would certainly have won you an "A" for the week

assigment! Your image reminded me I MUST start using again what I learned there. I just got a Meike wireless trigger set

on eBay, and I have an embarrassment of old strobes I can trigger with phototriggers. How are you triggering from the

A7? I bought my A7 in a kit with a Sony strobe from B&H, but quickly sold the strobe when I saw it had a fragile plastic

foot, and was way too heavy to sit on the A7 hot shoe.

 

Great to see your work and opinions, Lou! Thanks for contributing both!<div></div>

Louis, I can only echo your experience with the A7. Like you, I have an arsenal of manuaf-focus Canon FD, Nikon AiS

and - in my case - three Leica M mount rangefinder lenses, all of which perform marvelously on the A7. In addition, I have

been hanging onto a Tokina 17mm f3.5 AT-X Pro lens for 7 years - and despite all the complaints about how poorly super-

wide lenses perform on the A7/r, this performs perfectly (see )

 

I echo your evaluation of the FE 28-70mm kit lens - one of the best kit lenses I've tested. The results with mine surpass

many/most of the 24-70mm pseudo-Zeiss priced a 4X the cost of the kit added to a body purchase.

 

Enjoy your A7 - I'm enjoying mine!

 

Mel<div></div>

<p>I need to support the vote for Keeble and Shuchat - I made the mistake of "leaving home without it" - "it" specifically being the battery charger for my D300 (I thought I had 3 fully charged batteries, but 2 were dead).<br>

I showed up at 9AM today, and asked to buy a charger - but they had none. The sales person asked me to wait while he spoke to his manager, and 5-10 minutes later, he came out with a charger and cord in the poly bags from a factory packed kit.<br>

"They're from a demo camera," he explained. "We'll replace it when new chargers come in."<br>

I'm from Boston, not California. And he knew it. If they can give that kind of service to an itinerant, they sure can serve locals with superb service!</p>

I got carried away with the idea of a Realist camera that wasn't stereo, and bought an RF version for the probably overpriced sum of $12.99 on eBay. I went to photo.net to see if anyone else had encountered the bizarre way to load/unload this camera. <p>It's as if someone in Germany said, "Let's make a camera that no normal-thinking person could open." <p>It's not only left hand film advance, but the film winds on a large-diameter drum-like spindle on the RIGHT side. You rewind the film by depressing a button on the RIGHT BOTTOM of the camera, PULL UP ONE CLICK on the "film minder" dial on which the film advance lever is mounted. You could pull it up more than one click, but that would disengage the rewind spindle from the film cassette. When you pull that film minder knob all the way up, and turn it clockwise, a pin pushes the left side of the camera on a pivot, and the back pops off -- literally -- it's spring loaded on the right side, like a cantilever!<div></div>