Canon EF 400mm f/5.6 L USM - some photographs

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Now, you better fasten your seat-belt.

This is going to be a long post!

On my first post about Photo Gear, some months ago, I showed you the Canon EF 400mm f/5.6 L USM lens (what a long, complicated name: yes, I admit that I must look it up!).

Now I wish to show you some images I shot in the meantime with that lens.

Even though it's maximal aperture might be for some more sophisticated tastes than mine a little dark (also possessing a much heavier purse than mine!), I find the image quality of this lens rather outstanding.
It is also not such a heavy load, so that I can carry it around for some hours without feeling like committing suicide...

I don't miss Image Stabilization on this apparatus. As I said before, it nerves me a little to feel it working.
If I feel like having a purring sound, I will pick up my tender cat instead!

Please bear in mind, that all these photographs were shot with a Canon 30D, with a crop factor of 1.6x.
That means that the focal length of this lens, when used on the 30D, is equivalent to a 640mm lens used on a full frame sensor or a 35mm camera!


Just to make things a little easier for me, I will divide this post in parts, explaining some of the situations I find useful enough, or interesting enough, that I bother at all to use such a lens.

1) I choose to start by the most obvious reason: to get a far away object depicted bigger in your finder (as if you could get near, but with a different perspective).

You may wish to do that just to be able to photograph, paparazzi-style, a faraway hidden beach celebrity such as the prime minister on holidays, for example.

Or you may choose to picture a shy creature like an undomesticated animal.
(You could also easilly turn it around and you suddenly become the shy photographer: picture yourself in the middle of the african savanna snapping a wild enraged lion... ).

Night Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax), having lunch...

Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea) desiring to catch some lunch...

No, I don't intend to compete with all the serious nature photographers and ornithologists out there. Bird watching might be very enjoyable and instructive, but I wasn't practicing it when I found these birds.
I was working on assignment in the town of Tomar, last April, when I saw them, at two different days, down by the river. I just was lucky to have the 400mm with me...

The experts shall, please, forgive my humble efforts.


2) Now, this is where the fun genuinely starts for me: I like to use a long focal length to produce more or less abstract compositions where the main subject stands out against a blurred background, sort of visual isolation against a featureless immaterial and dreamy backdrop.

So I use the 400mm almost like I could use a macro-lens.
It is a pity that it only focus down to 3,5 meters. I would very much appreciate a little closer, so I wouldn't need to use an extension tube.

I find this kind of images most effective if you use back light.

(Most photographs on this post, if not all, shot at 5.6).

3) I guess that it sounds a little crazy, but I like the 400mm (640mm on the 30D!) to shoot (YES!) portraits...

I can almost hear the purists laugh, but how could they know that the background on both next photographs is made of trees?

My son Luis on the 11th of April 2009.

Please, allow me to say hello to him and congratulate him. Today, 18th of August, he celebrates his birthday. He was born 26 years ago in Heidelberg, Germany.
(Like my all other kids, I can honestly say that he is a nice guy! I am a lucky father...).

Maria Helena on the 14th of July 2009
(The woman who has enough courage to stand by me. I am a lucky man...).

My friend the cat, Mico, on the 21st of November 2008
(I can call him some other names, like Nicolau Mircolino, he will always answer.
I am a lucky cat owner...)

Shot hand held at 1/80!

I know that there are certain rules, like the one that says that you should not use a slower shutter speed than the focal length of your lens, in this case 1/400 (or something like that...).
But you know what I love most about rules?

I can break them!

So I decided to shoot all the photographs on this post without the help of a tripod.
I know that I could have achieved better (sharper) results sometimes, but I would have probably lost some shots...

The Nycticorax nycticorax wouldn't endlessly pose for me losing it's appetite, my cat would certainly fall asleep with eyes closed, the wind would blow the flowers away, and my back would hurt a little more...

Please, don't misinterpret me, I am a big enthusiast of tripods. Most cameras I use need one.

But as I said, I also love to break rules.

(On the photograph above, I suspect that some of the unsharpness is also caused by the wind shaking the plant, and not only by me. The answer, though, remains to be found...).

The Canon 400mm is not a telescope...

... but look how nice the moon shines, high above in this (strong) crop, just to bid you good night, sleep tight...

(also shot hand held by the way... I won't lie to you, the sky was not so dark, and the shot was made at 1/1250 f/5.6, at ISO 500. Underexposed one stop. The moon shone right above me).

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Kiev 4a - Photo Gear (6)

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Kiev 4a + Jupiter 8M

There are lots of interesting articles on the Internet about the soviets taking over the Contax production line as war reparations, after World War II. The facilities in Dresden, already almost destroyed by Allied bombing, were expropriated and dismantled, beeing transfered to the USSR, namely to Kiev, Ukraine, at the Arsenal factory.
That is how the soviets started producing a copy of the Contax II, launched in March 1936, together with several copies of interchangeable Zeiss lenses and other accessories.
Because of the Russian occupation of East Germany at the end of the war, Contax rangefinder production ceased, until the new West German Zeiss Ikon in Stuttgart launched its redesigned Contax IIA in 1950.

Beeing a deep lover of rangefinder cameras, and through my modest participation in Rangefinderforum, I became aware of the existence and possible quality this Former Soviet Union (FSU for short) cameras are able to deliver. My curiosity just kept on growing, until I finally was able to get a Kiev 4a and a Zorki 3-C.
Both cameras are equiped with a soviet copy of the standard Zeiss Sonnar lens: the Jupiter 8 1:2 f 5cm from 1956 in the case of the Zorki, and the Jupiter 8M 1:2 f 53mm from 1980 in the case of the Kiev. Both having a six elements in three groups design. Both focusing down to 0,9m. The Zorki Leica Thread Mount model has no click stops and has a non-rotating mount.
The version in Contax/Kiev bayonet mount has click stops and rotates.
Both lenses are coated.

I now utterly suffer from one more serious disease: FSU camera addiction!

I am doomed to deserve no salvation!

All photographs taken in Guimarães, North of Portugal, on the 21st of June 2009.
Kodak Tri-X film developed in Kodak D-76, diluted 1+1.

The day after we saw Judy Collins in concert, we made a short visit to Guimarães (World Heritage Site, emergence of the portuguese national identity in the 12th century).

In the North the wind typically blows a little cooler breeze...
Not so this time: the sun was hot and burning like if we were back home in Alentejo.

I started dreaming of a cool glass of bier...

Instead I kept shooting with my poor man's Contax!

My Kiev 4a is a type 2 (c. 1974-1980): the top shutter speed is 1/1000 sec.
Former versions were marked with a top speed of 1/1250!

Note the shutter release concentric with the film winding knob.
The rewinding knob shows a number: it serves only as a reminder. It has no connection with a light meter, as the 4a has no light meter!
You also have to manually reset the frame counter.

Please, also take note on the little wheel to the right, just before the rangefinder window: you can focus standard lenses by turning it with your middle finger, while your index finger rests on the shutter release. Beware not to cover the rangefinder window with your ring finger!
That's why you have to practice the "Contax hold" until you feel confortable with it: that is the price you have to pay for the uncommonly long, and theoretically more accurate, Rangefinder Base of 90mm...

Viewfinder Magnification: 0,9x.

Time to glimpse at the focal plane, vertical moving shutter with metal curtains.

Time to glimpse at the Contax/Kiev bayonet.

My Kiev shows some problems with light leaks, apparently a common problem with this type of cameras. Well, we should not forget that these cameras are now some decades old, and that they presumably had in their vast majority a rather poor maintenance.

Light leaks should be relatively simple to repair...

So, now the big question: is it worth to photograph with a Kiev?

Look at the face of the man in the photograph below, and find the answer for yourself!

I would like to kindly dedicate this post to all the nice and supportive people who have come to regularly enjoy my blog.

Your admiration is my energy to keep on moving.

Thank you very much for your kindness!

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Judy Collins in concert, photographed with a Kiev 4a in Famalicão, on the 20th of June 2009.

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We at times spend our days rushing restless.
Endless hours are spent aimlessly running like a starving cockroach in an empty kitchen!
Like standing on the platform looking at a missed train leaving the station, gazing goodbye as it slowly fades away...

I think that we should better stop and think, we should better watch the sunset, we should better listen to some meaningfull music...

Judy Collins live in Vila Nova de Famalicão, Casa das Artes, 20th of June 2009

Judy Collins is one of that very rare breed of singers who picks up a song by somebody else, and easily makes it her own. Besides having such a great educated voice, that voice expresses a style full of character and maturity.

Pick up a Leonard Cohen or a Bob Dylan song, take some Lennon / McCartney lyrics, offer her a song by Harry Chapin or Sandy Denny: Judy Collins will make her own world out of it. As if she had been singing it from the craddle.

What a talent, what a personality!

Judy Collins introducing Mr. Russell Walden, musical director and piano performer (sadly hidden by the piano...).

My very close friend Fred (we have been some kind of brothers for over forty years now...) just called inviting me to go to the concert of Judy Collins in Vila Nova de Famalicão, in the North of Portugal. He would buy the ticket, as a birthday present, and we would take his car to drive us there (good old Fred knew that I was completely broke...).

All I needed to do, was to jump in and enjoy the ride...

And what a joyful ride it would turn out to be!...

At seventy (!), Judy's voice just sounds great, so young and fresh as some thirty years ago, not losing a bit of her seemingly eternal charm.

You have to see, and hear (!), to believe.

What a LADY!!!

Judy also performed some songs at the piano

I shall be forever thankfull to Fred and Ana, for this wonderfull birthday present!

And, most of all, thank you Judy for all these years of great music and joy!

(You can find a link to Fred's My Space page below. Lots of interesting music there. You can even hear some of his broadcasting in Évora's radio station, Rádio Diana!
If you care about music, you shouldn't miss that precious link!).

This is the cover of a record by Judy Collins that I treasure for many years now. I first bought it as a LP, at least for two times, and then, as it got worn out, I bought it again in the form of a CD, when I was in Chicago to photograph Mies' buildings.

One of those special, intimate recordings!

On this record, Judy sings an excellent cover of Leonard Cohen's "Bird On The Wire", maybe only matched in intensity by the cover version sang by the late Tim Hardin.
I have already mentioned a song by Bob Dylan on a former post of this blog, "I Pitty The Poor Immigrant". Judy sings that song on this record too.
In my opinion, another highlight of this great album is a song that she penned herself, and that she also sang in the concert at Famalicão: "My Father".

Without question, it is hard to encounter something better than the title song, "Who Knows Where The Time Goes", a song by the late Sandy Denny, who was better known as a vocalist with the british folk rock bands Fairport Convention and Fotheringay, besides her solo albums. Sadly Sandy Denny died in 1978, aged thirty one. The version of her song by Judy Collins will certainly help to immortalize Sandy's work for many ages to come!

On this record, Collins is backed up by such great musicians as Stephen Stills (remember "Judy Blue Eyes" from Crosby, Stills and Nash?), who apparently happened to be her lover, and James Burton on guitar, Buddy Emmons on pedal steel guitar, Chris Ethridge on bass and James Gordon on drums. Piano and keyboard duties are shared by Michael Sahl, Michael Melvoin and Van Dyke Parks.
Judy Collins also plays acoustic guitar and piano.

Please, do yourself a favor and don't miss this record!

The photographs on this post, shot on Kodak Tri-X developed on Kodak D-76 1+1, were made with a camera new to me.
As a matter of fact, this was the first time that I ever used a Kiev 4a rangefinder camera (soviet copy of the Contax II, launched in March 1936), equiped with a Jupiter 8M lens (soviet copy of the Carl Zeiss Sonnar).
I didn't use a light meter and guessed the stage exposure. The resulting negatives are a little dense for scanning, but I believe that they would be all right for printing in the dark room.
Stage lighting is usually very contrasty, and you either lose shadow detail or blow your highlights. Obviously I prefer to lose shadow detail...
I didn't move from my seat on the second row, and, never having used the camera before, I was afraid that the shutter could be heard out loud.
I also missed the white framing lines from the Leica. In the dark, I couldn't see the limits of the image. Not so comfortable for someone who likes to compose with exactitude...
As I only have a 50mm lens for the Kiev, I also couldn't fill the frame as I sometimes wished.

So the pictures are less than ideal...

But who cares? The music was absolutely enlightning!

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Still Crazy After All These Years

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Some folks' lives roll easy as a breeze
Drifting through a summer night
Heading for a sunny day
But most folks' lives, they stumble
Lord they fall
Through no fault of their own
Most folks never catch their stars.

And here I am, Lord
I'm knocking at your place of business
I know I ain't got no business here
But you said if I ever got so low
I was busted,
You could be trusted.

Some folks' lives roll easy
Some folks's lives never roll at all
They just fall
They just fall
Some folks' lives

Paul Simon - Some Folks' Lives Roll Easy
(from the album "Still Crazy After All These Years", 1975)

Castro Laboreiro, Portugal, July 2009
(photograph by Helena Roque)

Sorry for waiting,
I'll be back soon!

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Cruz y Ortiz - Santa Justa Train Station, Seville, Spain, 1991.

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In preparation for the Universal Exposition of Seville (Expo'92), Spain, the town decided to create some infrastructures to wellcome the millions of visitors that would wish to enjoy the event.

A new airport, designed by Rafael Moneo, and a new railway station, designed by the sevillian architects Cruz y Ortiz, were built.

I had the opportunity to photograph both sites on assignment for the portuguese architectural magazine "Architecti".

On a former post about Expo'92, I showed you the Pabellon de la Navegación by the architect Guillermo Vásquez Consuegra, also a sevillian.

Today, I will show you some photographs of Estación Santa Justa, by Antonio Cruz Villalón and Antonio Ortiz García.
Besides their office in Seville, they also run an office in Amsterdam.

This enormous facility was not yet completely finished, as you can understand in some images.
If I remember correctly, only about half of the tracks were already on duty.

My work turned out to be very unpleasant, as the station guards decided to bother me and I was plagued by constant interruptions. Sometimes I had just prepared my Sinar camera for a shot and they came to tell me that I couldn't photograph from "here", I could only photograph from "there", and pointed a little abstract point somewhere a little further...
Half an hour later they would come again and say that "you can't photograph from this track, you can only photograph from that track!".

Naturally, I would not only miss the shot, as each time I would have to carry all the stuff around...

And so the game kept going on for a while, until I got so bored that I left everything behind and rushed to the administration complaining. Needless to say that I already had a written permission since the first minute I started working.

Very often, the "small" people in the authority chain like to think that they are very important and try to play the big boss.

It can be rather annoying to play such power games, when you are struggling with thirty or fourty kilograms of photographic equipment...

In fact, the same situation was encountered in Consuegra's Pabellon, and in Expo'98 in Lisbon, to name a few.

As mentioned before, the transparencies were shot with a Sinar f2 camera. Lenses by Schneider Kreuznach. Sheetfilm in 4x5 inches (or 9x12) by Kodak - the photograph depicting the yellow train, was shot with the same camera, but using a Linhof Rapid Rollex 6x7 rollfilm back.
Very heavy tripod from Linhof.
Sekonic and Minolta lightmeters, etc., etc.

Lots of (beer) durst (german word for thirst) by the end of the day...

(Excuse me for my poor scans. I did them some time ago, when my skills were still lesser than they are now).

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"Sevilhanas", Montemor-o-Novo, 2008

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I am not different from everybody else: there are things that I like and things that I regard with aversion.
Gladly, most of them I can accept or tolerate.

That's the case with my Canon 30D digital camera.

A kind of fast-food feeling when I use it...

Saying that, I perfectly agree that there are some occasions where the 30D clearly delivers a better image than analogic cameras. That's the case with high ISO images in color.

At ISO 1600, I believe that even my Leicas would have a very hard time to compete and be able to do better. At least in slide film.

I am well aware that I could still get better digital models out there...

It just doesn't feel right to me to spend a whole lot of money in top of the line cameras that have a useful life of maybe one or two years before they are obsolete.

Many years ago, I very much enjoyed to use a fast color slide film from Agfa called Agfachrome 1000 (yes, 1000 ASA), that sadly as long been discontinued.

In 35mm it showed maybe too much grain, but in medium format that grain just turned beautiful, giving the photographs a very nice atmosphere. I miss it!

When I find some pictures I will post them, for you to see.

Montemor-o-Novo is a small, but culturally active, town.
"Sevilhanas" is a dance group from local people that learn Flamenco. I must say that I was very astonished: they perform with a very high level of expertise.

I really enjoyed their show in Curvo Semedo theatre.

I shot most of the pictures with the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L USM lens (the older version without image stabilisation).

Although a somewhat cumbersome lens, I really admire it's optical performance, taking into account that it is a fast zoom with several elements.
I dare to say that it is so good as good prime lenses.

I think that I am glad that it doesn't have IS, as it nerves me a little to feel it working...
My hands still hold steady!

I was more concerned with beeing able to stop movement at the slow shutter speeds.
To do so, I had often to deliberatly underexpose to get somewhere around 1/30.
Of course, PP correction was needed...

If you saw attentively my former posts, you probably have noticed that I often don't crop my images. I like to show the whole negative.

I try to respect myself and my compositions.

If a image fails in camera, I tend to reject it... Not a religion, though...

In the same time, it seems that I don't give much importance to crop a digital image.

Perhaps it is because I don't feel it physicaly... So why should I care?

It's only pixels, it's only numbers...

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