Category: Photography Reviews

reviews of photography equipment and articles

Ten Days of Trump

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It’s good to be home again.  Also today I picked up my photography computer from the local cyber-surgeons.  There was considerable sticker shock (yikes) for the new motherboard and processor and some adjustment for the new hardware (adapters, cables and such nonsense) but I’m back in business with my photos again.  I haven’t really tested out it’s capabilities but the tech guy told me the new processor will be ridiculously faster than my old system.  I can’t wait to try importing a thousand raw files and see how quickly it “renders” them.  But enough geeking out.

I had my usual Wednesday virtual coffee break with the boys from the old firm.  I have to say the giddiness is getting a bit ridiculous.  Can unbridled enthusiasm be considered a form of backwards Trump Derangement Syndrome?  There’s just too much laughing and optimism.  It seems unnatural.  Someone was claiming that Trump was talking of eliminating the Income Tax altogether.  Now that just sounds nuts.  But the angle was to switch over to a consumption tax.  I have to confess that would suit me fine.  But is everything going to be revolutionized?  What’s next?  Will all the currency be made over with pictures of The Donald?  Will Trump’s signature hairstyle be added to George Washington on Mt. Rushmore to update the monument?  Will the end of the Pledge of Allegiance be modified to “one nation under God with liberty and justice and so much winning for all?”  Have Trump’s words from the 2016 election come true? Is it too much winning?

Well … no.  I’ll put up with more winning.

There are still more things we need fixed.  First of all, Kash Patel still hasn’t been confirmed by the Senate.  That means there are hundreds of Stasi agents still working for the FBI.  Once he’s had a chance to clean house, I’ll have a better idea how much more winning is needed.  In fact, you know what I want to see?  I want Trump to issue executive orders categorically forbidding Patriot Act or FISA Court actions against American citizens during his administration.  Let’s have at least four years without our constitutional rights to due process being violated by tinpot Thought Police.

You see, that’s what happens when Trump starts issuing executive orders by the metric ton.  We start assuming he can do anything.  And then we become impatient if he hasn’t read our minds and already done the stuff we just thought of.  Why hasn’t there been a special prosecutor empowered to go after Joy Reid for being an eyesore on television.  Surely having her on cable tv is a form of cruel and unusual punishment for all of us.  And what about the “ladies” of the View.  Surely someone can turn the show into some kind of dunk tank / lie detector suspense show where Joy Behar or Whoopie Goldberg or one of the other crones is hooked up to a lie detector and asked a question about Donald Trump or some other conservative she hates and if she lies about something, like whether he’s been convicted or rape, she falls into a water tank filled with sharks or piranha fish and has to swim for her life to a distant ladder.  I bet the ratings would be through the roof.  So that’s kind of where I am right now.  For the most part I’m happy with Trump 2.0.  But a few little tweaks couldn’t hurt.

Well, that’s enough ranting for now.  I’ll be waiting to see how Patel, Kennedy and Gabbard do in the Senate next week.  If all three get through, Trump will have most of his core team in place and he can really get started with draining the swamp and taming the Leviathan.

So far so good.

Times that Try Men’s Souls

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One step forward two steps back.  Ah, the slings and arrows or outrageous fortune.  Last week the mainframe that I keep my photos and editing software on died a terrible death.  I had hoped at first that maybe the power supply had given out.  I sent it off to the local computer geeks with this dream of a call back the next day about how a wire had come loose or a fuse had blown and all was well.  Yeah.  Not so much.

I received the dreaded news that, “The motherboard is fried and all you can reuse is the case, drives and the fans.”

The horror.

Well, at least my photos didn’t go up the chimney so that’s good.  But this has put a kink in my photo-editing schedule.  For the last week I’ve been scouring my camera memory card for stuff to post and I’m reaching the bottom of the barrel.  I’ll need some more stuff really soon.  Plus, I can’t use my favorite editing software or the big monitors I usually use.  Well maybe I can, but I’d have to fiddle around with the wires and I’m too lazy to do it as a one-off.  But I must be stoic.  As the bard reminds us, “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods;  They kill us for their sport.”

Or something like that.

But not everything was bad this week.  I decided on a path forward for my story.  If you remember in the last installment, I had my good guys strike back at the vicious President of the United States who had hurled a 10-megaton nuke into their underground retreat.  As a counter attack they undermined the White House, the US Capitol, the Pentagon and a few other key federal buildings and sent them hurtling hundreds of feet into the underground abyss.  This effectively decapitated the United States federal government.  Specifically, the president, vice president, the congress and the cabinet secretaries are all dead.

What I’ve decided to do is arrange for the only honest man in the FBI to be selected to succeed the president.  And this is the guy who I’ve been using to track down my protagonist and his sponsors.

So, the antagonist I have who has been hunting for the sniper is selected for succession to the presidency.  In part he is selected for the knowledge he’s gained hunting the sniper and the organization supporting him.  But because the head of the FBI had been assassinated earlier, he was also the acting head of the bureau.  Of course, that isn’t technically in the line of succession for the presidency but with all the legitimate successors dead, the military and the supreme court put their heads together and after doing an inventory of who was left and who was willing, they chose my guy.

Now this is an outrageous scenario.  And so, it’s really a lot of fun to poke around with.  And because it’s so outlandish I can do more or less whatever seems like fun with it.  I have the poor schnook summoned to a military base and he’s thinking that he’s about to be blamed for the catastrophic failure of the manhunt for the sniper and instead he’s being asked if he will accept the presidency.  That’s a pretty great scene.  I think I’m going to have him ask if he can work remote from home.  That would be a nice touch.  I think that’s what I would ask for.

So anyway, the story is moving forward.  So that’s good.

Camera Girl laid down the law today and had me put the weatherstripping around the basement door.  She found where I had hidden the supplies and brought them out to me.  So, I grumbled and dragged myself over to the door and did it.  And you know, it really made a big difference.  But I really did a lousy job installing it and I’m planning to redo it and add a sweep to the bottom of the door.  Funny how these home improvement projects can grow on you.

And looking around at the Trump juggernaut I see he’s making headway in all directions.  He’s travelling to North Carolina and Los Angeles to get involved with the hurricane and fire victims.  And tonight, JD Vance was the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to confirm Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense.  Collins, Murkowski and good old Mitch McConnell were the holdouts that made Vance’s vote necessary.  Well, that’s why we needed the other Senate pickups last November.  But things are looking up everywhere in Trump world.

So that’s my post, a little this and little that.

The Time for Speeches

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We got the promised four inches of snow last night so I had to clear it this morning.  I didn’t get out there until ten-thirty so I was busy when Trump was sworn in.  After a shower and lunch, I put on the video and listened.

Well, Donald Trump did his thing.  He gave a half hour address and he surely went to town.  I think he touched almost all the bases.  He left out the J6 pardons which did surprise me.  But other than that (and I guess Greenland) he went through the litany of actions and policies that he promised during the campaign.  And I gotta tell ya, it was pretty great.

Now I have to be honest, I do get tired of all the pauses for applause.  They’re not really necessary.  But some of them were justified.  When he said he was going to end government racial and sexual interference in people’s lives I’m pretty sure I gave off a whoop.  And when he said that he was going to restore freedom of speech by putting a stop to all government interference with speech I smiled.  And when he said that there are officially two genders (he meant sexes) recognized by the United States government I think I may have clapped.

He said the government would put an end to the sexual struggle sessions in the military.  And he said he would be declaring a national emergency at the southern border.  He said he will be reinstating the stay in Mexico policy for people seeking asylum.  He said he’s taking the Panama Canal back and he said he’s declaring the cartels terrorist organizations.  He said he’s ending the Green New Deal and the Electric Car subsidies.  He said he’s going to “drill baby drill.”  He said he’s going to restore impartial justice and end lawfare.  And he said that God saved his life to give him the chance to restore America to greatness.

He said everything.  He didn’t take a swing at Joe Biden but nobody’s perfect.

Alright, good.  He got his say and all those applause lines and he criticized his opponents and their awful policies.  Splendid.

But Inauguration Day is one day.  Tomorrow, I want to hear what you’ve done for me lately.  We all went to a lot of trouble to drag our butts down to the Middle School cafeteria to vote for you.  We did that even though we believed there was a better than even chance that the Democrats would steal this election too.  So, we’ve gone out on a limb to look like saps for you Mr. President, so it’s time for you to have your minions sweep up the confetti and busted balloons and roll up their sleeves and actually check off one or two items off of that list of promises you made today.

And how about starting with the J6 pardons?  That’s the one that is most urgent.  These people have been shut away for years for misdemeanors or for nothing in some cases.  Setting them free is the right thing to do and it’s the smart thing to do too.  He shouldn’t wait.  He owes them that.

After that, shut down the FBI.  That’s a no-brainer.  After that just start putting the wheels in motion for all of the stuff that takes time to get moving.  Call up the yahoos in the Senate and get your appointees confirmed and let’s get this show on the road.  The time for speeches is over.

Update:

I saw last night that he did sign pardons for about 1,500 J6 prisoners.  Good. 

We’re All Rooting for You

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The snow is falling pretty fast here in Dunwich.  It’s starting to cover the ice over the swamp and pretty soon it will force the lycanthropes back into their caves along the bases of the hills.  And that will quiet the howling that kept me up last week.  It’s always annoying when the moon is full.  Between the howling and the scratching at the door and the screaming of the stranded motorists who get eaten alive while walking down the road for help it’s a real pain.  I mean come on, have some consideration for other people.  Either be eaten alive in stoic silence or bring a revolver loaded with silver bullets.  It’s not that complicated.  Read the town ordinances.  Your survivors are going to be fined for the after-hours noise violation so use your head.

Trump says he is going to un-classify and reveal the remaining records from the Kennedy (JFK and RFK) and King assassinations.  Now that’s pretty great.  People have been teasing these things for scores of years.  Of course, I’m not assuming that the records are the truth.  Probably they don’t say anything definitive about anything.  But the veil of secrecy has been used like some magic spell to keep us wondering what the people in the know don’t want us to know since we were kids.  At this point I doubt we’ll ever know what actually happened but at least they can stop acting like we’re peons who can’t be trusted with the higher mysteries of the cult.  But right now, I am excited to hope maybe there are names like Castro or Khruschev or the CIA or the Mob.  That would be like a Tom Clancey novel instead of that nit-wit Oswald.

It’s funny.  A month ago, if you asked me whether I thought I’d be excited about Trump’s inauguration I’d’ve said absolutely not.  But I’m surprised to say that’s not the case.  I am looking forward to it and excited about the prospect of someone on my side taking over and beginning the daunting task of chopping away at the roots of the monster that ate the United States.  I just read today that this year Argentina had its first budget surplus in fourteen years.  Wouldn’t it be a miracle if Trump could make that happen in 2026?

And maybe tomorrow he’ll hand out pardons to the J6 prisoners.  That would breathe life into the base and bring tears to the eyes of Garland and his stooges.  And while he’s at it he should use an executive order to provide recompense and apologies to anyone the US government punished for not getting a COVID shot.  Now that’s overdue.

But before anything else, give Kash Patel the keys to the J Edgar Hoover Building and have him begin the process of emptying the offices of all the creeps and thugs that the FBI employed over the last twenty-five years to spy on and persecute American citizens.  And he should quickly cancel all their passwords and clearance ratings so that they can never again cause us harm.  And while he’s at it put a blanket hold on FISA warrant requests and stop spying on Americans altogether.  That would really start the new administration on a patriotic foot.  That would really be a change for the better.

And if he really wants to release records that need de-classifying let him de-classify the records of the operations that targeted Americans; including the Russia collusion hoax.  Name names and appoint special counsels.  Put those guys in jail.  If need be, have the trials far away from Washington.  Maybe a small town in Florida or Texas.  They’re Americans too, I think.  They can provide the jury of twelve men and true, I believe.

Well, I’m letting myself run away with things but as I said I’m more excited about all this than I thought I’d be.  Good luck Donald Trump.  We’re all rooting for you.

Even If You Are from Queens

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At long last the abysmal presidency of zombie Joe Biden is finally about to end.  His re-animated corpse has been submerged in a large bottle of formaldehyde and all the pardons have been printed out and prepared for publication.  And now that they’re making up constitutional amendments out of whole cloth maybe we’ll find out that cats have been given citizenship just so the blue-haired crazy women will have another victory to embrace.

But the imminent departure of Biden has me considering the Trump phenomenon.  Even David Brooks had to grudgingly admit that “Trump is the most consequential politician since Reagan.”  And he means that negatively in that the American people have chosen Trump for the things that Brooks thinks are faults.  Well, what can you expect from David Brooks?

And you know, for most people the idea of Trump being part of our political world only began with 2016.  But I remember when Trump was trying to involve himself in politics as a young man in New York City.  It was back in the mid-eighties and New York was, as usual, broke and the skating rink in Central Park had completely disintegrated through neglect and there was no money in the budget to fix it.  Ed Koch was mayor and he was trying to spin some plan for Albany to pay for it but they wouldn’t bite.  Now this was about the time the city was going into another decline.  Violence was starting to resurface after a lull in the early eighties.  I think that maybe Trump was thinking of running for mayor or something.  Well, he volunteered to rebuild the rink and pay for it himself.  And he did, under budget and on schedule.  But New York City had not yet hit bottom.  It wasn’t ready for a Republican.  That would happen after New York’s first black mayor, David Dinkins unleashed anarchy on the streets of New York.  And that proved to be Rudy Giuliani’s time to fix the city.  But he had a lawman’s background as a prosecutor.  And he knew that the police would be the key to saving New York City.  So, Donald Trump retreated to his business and his entertainment projects.

But thirty years later he decided that if someone as talentless as Barack Obama could be president for eight years then he could easily figure out the ropes himself and get something done for America.  And he did.  But why?

I think I understand a little bit what motivates him.  He’s a twentieth century New York City American.  I also am one.  Of course he came from money.  But not old money.  His ancestors and mine came to the United States at about the same time.  He and I lived in New York City at the same time.  Of course, I came from the more interesting borough of Brooklyn and he came from Queens which as far as I’m concerned is more like part of Long Island but whatever, we both were part of twentieth century New York City which was the heart of twentieth century America.  And we both watched it degraded from the capitol of the world to a dirty, poor, crime-ridden refugee camp.  So, I think I know what he means when he talks about making America great again.  He’s talking about restoring the people and the ethos that catapulted the United States to the status it had in 1945.

He wants to make a deal with the descendants of the people who fought World War II.  If they’ll vote for him, he’ll save their grandchildren from the globalists who want to replace them with the third world.  It’s really a pretty simple concept.  Now I don’t know if he simply feels kinship with these people or if he sees an opportunity to capitalize on an underutilized resource (us).  Either way it’s the best deal we’ll ever get.  And at the same time, it’s a kick in the teeth for the Left and for the Bushes and Romneys.  Win, win.

So, thank you Donald Trump.  As an old neighbor of yours I salute you for lending a hand.  Even if you are from Queens.

Is That So Much to Ask?

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Recently I posted, “Cut and Paste Anglo-America.”  The post was linked by my favorite news aggregation site, “Whatfinger” and got a lot of visibility with folks who aren’t usually on the site.  One was a Canadian named Linn who wasn’t thrilled with my tongue in cheek idea of rearranging the two English speaking North American countries into a blue country and a red country.  Here’s what he had to say:

“I think it is offensive to assume Canadians would be blithely willing to give up their history and identity to become a part of the United States. It is ironic that President Trump ran on a patriotic campaign of Make America Great Again, but other Americans think that Canadians do not have the same patriotic feelings about their country even though the government had been usurped by the foul socialist left. Hopefully, Pierre Poilievre will make great strides in Making Canada Great Again.”

When I read his comment, my first thought was, “I’m glad not all Canadians hate Trump.”  Linn sounded like a Canadian patriot who wanted to get back his country from the Leftists.  Bravo!

And it made me think of how long ago it was when I thought we could win back the country just by electing Republicans.  How long ago I felt that the majority of Americans thought like me.  I guess it was in 2004; more than twenty years ago.  Wow, it seems even longer.  And I thought of all the disappointments and waking up to just how useless and dishonest the Republican establishment actually was.  Until Trump showed up it was Bushes, McCain and Romney all the way down.  So now even when we win, I find myself pessimistic.  After all the globalists control the whole apparatus of the modern world and do untold damage day in and day out.

But Linn’s comment got me thinking, there are good conservative people in most of the Western world.  Look at the right-wing parties growing larger in Canada, England, France, Germany, Holland and Italy.  Even Sweden and Denmark are beginning to come around.  And look how the Right has already taken control in Austria and Hungary.  And I’m sure there are conservative parties growing in every country in Europe.

Maybe it isn’t too late.  Maybe things will come to a head while Trump is in office.  Maybe we’ll see actual progress not just lip service to fixing the things that are broken.  What would make a big difference would be if Trump’s deportation effort worked well and became a template for the Europeans to follow.  Imagine if the French or the Italians were inspired to follow his lead and sent all the freeloaders packing.  Now that would be a miraculous sight.

I guess what I’m thinking is that maybe Trump is a leader for our side not only in America but around the world.  Maybe his example will rally people to the parties that want to take back their countries from the invaders.  His stubborn determination to get the job done is kind of a big deal and if he succeeds here other countries might follow his lead.  Everyone is always saying that America is the leader of the “free” world.  Well, why does free have to be code for leftist?  After all the leftists don’t want freedom anymore, except the freedom to define their sexuality in increasingly twisted and dysfunctional ways.  We want freedom of speech, thought, action and association.  We want freedom from being invaded by people who don’t like us or the way we live.  We want our country back.  Is that so much to ask?

How Will We Know?

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So, we’ve had a lot of fun.  Since November 5th most people on our side have had a real holiday from grief.  We got to enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas buoyed by the knowledge that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been relegated to the ash heap of history.  What a wonderful phrase that is.  What an image.  There’s this enormous pile of cinders and burnt garbage and jumbled among these things are Joe Biden and Kamala Harris laying there covered with debris and looking extremely sad and confused.  So evocative of a better world!

But it’s best not to forget that this victory is just the beginning of a very long and difficult struggle to wrest control of the federal government from the horde of awful bureaucrats that make everything about our government expensive, inefficient and destructive.  It will be up to Trump’s cabinet to force a monkey wrench into the gears of government and wreck it.  And the question remains; will they do it?

I get the impression that Kash Patel really means to do just that.  And the fact that he was a prosecutor leads me to believe that he might have a good idea how to accomplish his goal of disemboweling the FBI.  I think of his tenure as the test case.  How long will it take for him to get going on the job?  And how long will it take before someone like me can tell that it’s working?  I’m guessing I’ll be able to tell if he’s having the desired effect if the New York Times and NPR are screaming that he’s destroying the FBI.

Maybe a bigger fish to fry is the purview of the Secretary of Defense.  Assuming Pete Hegseth is approved by the Senate he’s going to have an enormous job clearing out all the woke generals and other officers that Biden and Obama plunked down in the military.  But almost as important will be his implementation of Trump’s plan to end the Ukraine war.  I assume it’s going to be necessary for Hegseth to micromanage the defense department personnel to prevent them from continuing to supply the Ukrainians with endless weapons and money to keep the killing going until the last Ukrainian is dead.  He’s going to have to replace the existing supply chain personnel with people loyal to himself.  That’s going to take some doing.  There’s an enormous amount of money that gets distributed from the billions that go to Ukraine.  Shutting off that spigot is going to anger hordes of people and it might even trigger violence.  Hegseth will have his hands full.  I guess I’ll know that Hegseth is succeeding if the number of Ukrainians being killed falls drastically.  Probably the best indicator will be peace negotiations breaking out between Ukraine and Russia.

And finally Trump himself has a big part to play.  He has to get involved in the negotiations on the budget.  What I’m secretly craving is to hear that he’s managed to slip into the budget the elimination of the funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.  If this could be eliminated it would put an enormous hole in the funding for PBS and NPR.  The elimination of those two toxic waste sites would in one fell swoop elevate the public discourse in this country immensely.  Think of it.  I might never see Jonathan Capehart’s homely face ever again.  For that alone I would consider Donald Trump’s second term in the White House a thunderous success.

An Object Lesson in Civics

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I was getting together with some New York City friends.  We were at a local Chinese restaurant that we have been known to frequent.  Full disclosure, I had the chicken chop suey because the kung pao chicken is too spicy so soon after my Christmas gorge fest.

We eventually got around to talking about Daniel Penny and his surprise acquittal by a New York City jury.  And then we talked about mayor Eric Adams and his trouble with the FBI.  It was agreed that he was being targeted not because he was guilty of the crimes he probably did commit but because he had complained about the outrageous scourge of illegal aliens that the city was being forced to house and feed.

I said I thought that maybe after Trump takes office, he might cut a deal with Adams to have pressure put on the judges and prosecutors persecuting Trump in exchange for a pardon on the charges the FBI has brought against Adams.  Of course, I said this tongue in cheek.  New York Democrats will never stop attacking Trump until he cuts off federal funds to New York.  So, if he helps Adams, it will only be because he wants to make a deal with Adams to deport the New York illegals.

And then we talked about New York City’s future.  Basically, the crime and dysfunction has gotten so bad that even “safe” neighborhoods like Shore Road in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn were experiencing levels of violent crime never seen before, even in the 1990s.  And outrages like the illegal alien who set a female subway rider on fire and watched impassively as she burned to death.

I asked whether it seemed likely that the disastrous conditions would elicit a powerful reaction to restore law and order and save the city.  The answer I got was no.  They felt there wasn’t the will to fix things.  The elites who sponsored Bill de Blasio and Eric Adams as mayors wouldn’t change course no matter the consequences.  The were intent on enforcing progressive policies regardless of the consequences.  Of course, my friends freely admit that these elites will eventually abandon New York City for safer suburbs once their families are at risk in the city.  And once the people with the money abandon New York City it will begin to look like Philadelphia and Newark and eventually Detroit.  So that was their take.  New York City is in its death spiral.  The crime that the Democrats unleashed after the summer of George Floyd will be the cancer that kills Gotham by the sea.

It’s a funny thing.  Several years ago, I returned home to my old neighborhood.  And it was basically unrecognizable.  The new immigrants there had taken over and made the place their own.  Well, even if it made me a little sad to see my childhood memories thoroughly erased, I could understand that it was the nature of cities like New York.  But knowing that the city would be utterly destroyed is different.  It’s completely unnecessary.  A city full of immigrants from all corners of the earth needs law and order even more than some homogeneous ethnic enclave.  Everyone needs to feel like the law is there to protect them from chaos.  The fact that the progressives have declared law and order racist is proof that they don’t deserve to govern.  But it may take the destruction of every blue city to prove to everyone in this country that fact.  Oh well.

Tom’s World – 25DEC2024 – Photography – Fast lenses

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Tom | Flickr

TomD

That (Sony 135mm f\1.8 lens) is a nice lens but, as you note, the range is sort of a “tweener”. But with that IQ, you can always stand a crop.

Like you, I’m still sitting on a collection of A mounts but will probably die with them leaving my heirs to wonder what the devil they’re gonna do with these.

My most expensive lens is an E mount, 24-70, f2.8, GM. I forgot the cost but it was in the low 2,000’s. I rarely use it because it is big and heavy. It is capable of stellar results but almost all the really good results were with my now gone A7R2 body with the 46 mp sensor. My current A7IV, almost always wears a Sony G series, 24-105, f4.0. It has a more usable range, I rarely need f 2.8, weighs half, costs half, and if there’s a difference in IQ (image quality), I’ve yet to discern it.

The main reason f2.8 (or lower) was needed was to gather more light or to increase bokah. These new cameras are astonishing in their low light performance. I limit my ISO to 12,800 but constantly come up with images at that ISO that need no “noise” reduction and are usable as shot. My old A850 (like yours) was getting to be unusable at an ISO of 1600.
Anything around 2400 and forget it. That’s why I am perfectly fine with f4.

Below is a photo that I think I recently posted here, it was shot at 12,800 and has had no noise reduction. It is perfectly clear but if you look at the blurred background, you can barely make out the beginnings of noise. I don’t need 2.8, this camera will almost shoot in the dark. This lens is the 24-104; read the reviews, it’s an incredible lens.

DSC07623

Gear Acquisition Syndrome in 2025

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I’ve been very happy with my Sony A7 IV camera since I bought it a few years ago.  It does everything I need it to do and I’m not sure what would tempt me to trade it in.  So, I haven’t bought any photo gear in quite a while.  But recently a new lens has tempted me.  But it’s a long story (and thus the reason it’s a post). About fourteen years ago I bought the Sony (badged as Carl Zeiss) A-mount 135mm, f\1.8 lens.  It was an extremely extravagant purchase at $1,500 and I couldn’t justify it in use terms because basically it was a very long portrait lens for which I had very rare need.  But after seeing some of the extraordinary results it could produce, I plunked down the cash.  And it was every bit as sharp and contrasty as the critics claimed.  And I managed to find quite a few excuses to drag this big heavy lens with me to places and events where longer and shorter and lighter lenses make better sense.

But not too long after this purchase, Sony, in its infinite cruelty, stopped making A-mount cameras and went mirrorless.  I won’t repeat my long sad story of enduring the e-mount introduction.  But I will mention that Sony salved over the initial problem of having no lenses for their new mirrorless cameras by producing a line of attachments for adapting A-mount lenses to e-mount cameras.  They were designated with the prefix LA-EA and numbered successively 1 through 5.  And with each introduction I dreamed of my e-mount cameras working with my A-mount lenses as if they were native lenses.  Well, that never happened.  Granted they got better.  But even the LA-EA-5 never allowed my A-mount lenses to enjoy the full capability of the camera’s auto-focus or special features like magnified view, in the same way as my e-mount lenses could.

And so, one by one I sold off my A-mount lenses and mostly bought the e-mount equivalent lenses (or just didn’t replace them).  But not the 135mm f\1.8.  By the time the equivalent e-mount lens appeared my A-mount lens was no longer very marketable.  A-mount lenses had a fairly small pool of users and so the market prices sank to fairly low prices.  And when the new lens came out in e-mount they wanted $2,100.  And that seemed a bridge too far for a lens that wasn’t really needed for a major part of my shooting style.

Over the years third party manufacturers have come out with their versions of this lens in the e-mount.  First Sigma, then Samyang and now Viltrox.  Each time I looked at the combination of price savings and quality and I shrugged my shoulders and said meh.  But finally, it’s reached the breaking point.  A review of the Viltrox lens (actually several reviews) claim that it is very slightly better than Sony’s $2,100 version but at about 1/3 the price ($760).  So, I checked the trade in value of my old A-mount lens and finding it to be about $350 I mailed it out and now await my thirty pieces of silver (figuratively) before finishing off the transaction to buy the Viltrox.

Wrapping up the lens gave me a pang of regret.  It was a beautiful piece of kit that had worked flawlessly when attached to the camera it was designed for, the Sony A-850 DSLR.  It wasn’t the lens’s fault that the geniuses at Sony had almost simultaneously with buying the Minolta camera line, relegated all of its products to obsolescence by going mirrorless.  But such is life.

Well onward and upward in 2025.  I will record the arrival of the new lens with photos it produces.  After all that’s the real reason they make these darn things.

View from Campsite 5 at Toroweap

SONY DSC
SONY DSC