I love New York City! I visit every year to explore, find new tastes and see new sights and this place NEVER disappoints. Usually when I travel (read: vacation), I don’t have an agenda. The extent of my planning is basically boiled down to finding a hotel near easily accessible public transportation. Everything else I find by accident or random walk-abouts. I never have set agendas or schedules to meet. Why? What’s life without a little whimsy…but this time was different! WHHAAAT!?
OMG! I KNOW! Crazy right! So what’s different this time? well I wanted to test out a new lens I had bought and throught a weekend in NYC would be a great place to do it! Ok ok ok, I know. It’s not really a huge departure from how I usually travel. Just that I have an added purpose. The lens in question is this very strange Chinese lens, the 7artisans. I was up late one night watching the YouTubes and came across this guy. An all metal, manual, nifty 50mm f/1.1 lens. Thats right! A f/1.1 lens. OMG! I KNOW!
This would be the first time I’ve used a manual lens since college… which was awhhhiiile ago. Like… 20 years ago. Yeah, I’m old, you wanna fight about it? ANYWAYS. Now, I couldn’t get this lens in a Sony mount, as it’s only available for Leica, so I paired it with a Metabones Leica M to Sony E-mount converter, which worked great! I definitely put this lens through it’s paces on the first day of this quick weekend getaway.
While it may have some purple fringing, it created some wonderful, buttery bokeh and was surprisingly sharp (once stopped down from 1.1 to around 1.4 or so). I have to say that I was completely shocked at how well this $400 (USD) lens handled everything I through at it. I took some cityscape, architecture, street and even some panorama shots that I would stitch together with Lightroom. This lens did not disappoint. Now after walking 15 miles today, it’s time to rest up for tomorrow. Take a look at what I shot today. I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I did taking them. See you tomorrow!
