TECHNICAL DETAILS

Abe in Gold, 2018
Sony A7ii
Zeiss Loxia 35mm f/2
1/500 f/4.5, ISO 100

CHASING THE GOLD

My young grand-nephew, Abe, shares my birthday. He has a certain flare about him that has stood out from his earliest appearances. Energetic like any kid his age, his taste for the dramatic never ceases to bring a smile to those around him. At a family wedding recently, his choice of attire came as no surprise, though a delight in its completeness. What else but gold lamé?

I was attending this grand occasion merely as a spectator, but per usual, had camera in tow to capture the candids and small scenes that inevitably play out at a wedding that would only be appreciated by the family. For this trip, I had picked up a Zeiss Loxia 35 to try out, and wedding day I left the other lenses in the bag and shot almost exclusively with this piece of dream glass. I was drawn to the Loxia specifically because it is a fully-manual lens. When I started shooting–dating myself here–there was no such thing as autofocus, much less mirrorless cameras. Now, the majority of modern lenses still feel ‘not quite right’ to me, given focus-by-wire and lack of depth-of-field scales. The Loxia is old school. Fully manual focus is driven by a smooth, resistive ring that has a perfect feel. It’s a wildly different touch than motor actuated lenses. The lens also has a fully manual aperture, with a delightful old school feel. Yet at the same time, it has some modern touches, too. It’s completely integrated into the Sony system, so EXIF data, settings and all the other automation features are driven by the Loxia’s manual controls. With the body in aperture priority mode, the camera can control all other aspects of exposure. Sony’s focus-peaking and focus-magnification system is also tightly coupled. A twist of the focus ring brings instant zoom-in for critical focus, as well as focus peaking to highlight areas locked in. While I had read the reviews and seen the videos, I was still very favorably surprised by how natural and well-built the Loxia feels in hand. And the image quality is superb. Edge-to-edge sharpness, good bokeh given it’s a 2.0, and pleasing contrast. It’s right on with what you would expect from a Zeiss lens in its price class.

Having been in the manual focus world for many years prior to autofocus coming to the fore, it was a welcome walk-back to switching the brain to leveraging a fully-manual lens again. It brings a very different perspective than an auto-focusing lens used in manual mode. The depth-of-field scale was particularly nice to have again. Both the form factor as well as the working feel of the lens reminded me of the spell I had a Leica M4-P back in the 1980s.

I spent almost the entire day with the Loxia mounted. And the bulk of my shots were candids of family and activities. I knew I would need to do something with Ben to match the vivaciousness of his suit. So when the moment presented, we walked over to to the edge of a series of benches that were set up for the wedding ceremony, now complete. I asked him to get up on a bench and jump off. Using the depth-of-field scale, I estimated the distance and depth needed, and zone focused the Loxia to where I thought he’d be in mid-air. He jumped and I held down the shutter button, maxing out the Sony’s five-frame-a-second rate. Hmmm… might need the A7iii with it’s 10 per second rate! Abe did his leap two or three times, with me firing off a half-dozen frames with each leap. I chimped the shots quickly, and in-camera they looked good, so he ran off to join the other kids in their play. I ended up with a number of shots that I could have chosen, but this one exemplified his gusto. The hands out of the frame lead the eye down the gold suit. Focus range was good, and the shutter speed was sufficient to eliminate motion blur in the shot.

At the end of the trip, I very wistfully returned the rental Loxia, but I am on the lookout for a deal on one. I’m pretty sure a Loxia in my bag will be a permanent fixture in the not-too-distant future.

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