Today’s Post by Joe Farace
My car and I have a silent agreement – it doesn’t break down, and I don’t scream at it—Auto Best
I just got back from taking Mary’s 2018 Subaru Crosstrek to Parker Imports for its 48,000 mile oil change. While waiting for the service to be completed I sat outside the shop looking at the cars on their parking lot and sitting there was a worse-for-wear Jaguar XK8, which got me thinking about the Black XK8 that I almost bought (and should have) and about Jaguar cars in general…
Once upon a time, Panasonic loaned me a Lumix G Leica DG Nocticron 42.5mm f/1.2 lens, a focal length obviously aimed at portrait shooters but I decided to use it to photograph cars. This is an 85mm equivalent lens with a 29-degree angle-of-view and designed for Micro Four-thirds mirrorless cameras. I mounted it on my (now-sold) Lumix GX85 and used it to photograph Jaguar automobiles at a car show.
How I Made this Photograph: To make this image of a Jaguar Mark II—I always loved these cars—, I used a Panasonic Lumix GX85 and Lumix G Leica DG Nocticron 42.5mm f/1.2 with an exposure of 1/1250 sec at f/3.2 with plus one-third exposure compensation to compensate for the car’s Old English White paint.
Exposure & Other Considerations
Shooting at first under overcast conditions and then later on under some hard sunlight was a exposure-challenge. The Nocticron may be a bit long of a focal length for this kind of application but I was able to happily create the images shown. I loved using this focal length so much that I ultimately bought a used Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm f/2.8 Asph. Mega OIS lens from KEH and, to be fair, since then have mostly used it for portraits and macro work. Although sadly the Maco Elmarit lacked the well-designed lens hood that Panasonic includes with brand new versions of the lens.
The DG Nocticron 42.5mm f/1.2 lens design uses an aspherical element to control chromatic aberration and distortion. The 42.5mm Nocticron has a fast AF motor with internal focusing producing smooth, quiet focus. The built-in optical image stabilizer aka Power O.I.S. is also helpful for hand-held shooting compensating for any camera shake. The lens has an all-metal lens barrel and bayonet mount and weighs in at a hefty (by mirrorless camera standards) 14.99 oz. By comparison a Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L weighs 36.16 oz.
The fast f/1.7 aperture is handy for selective focus and shooting in low-light.The lens has a 67mm filter thread and a rounded seven-blade diaphragm producing smooth bokeh when shooting shallow depth-of-field photographs or video.
A well-made metal lens hood is included and like the lens itself, is made with extremely high build quality befitting a lens that’s designed and certified by Leica in Germany, and manufactured by Panasonic in Japan..
How I Made this Photo: To photograph this (obviously) 1941 E-Type Jaguar I used a Panasonic Lumix GX85 and Lumix G Leica DG Nocticron 42.5mm f/1.2 with an exposure of 1/1600 sec at f/4.0 with plus one-third exposure compensation.
All this wonderfulness is not cheap. Right now, the lens sells for $1,17.99 with used copies selling for around $800. To put this price in some kind of perspective, I found at least one Jaguar XJS for sale online at $1400. As the former owner of an XJS I can only add that spending $1400 for any Jaguar model is just the beginning of the cost of owning it. The Nocticron 42.5mm lens, on the other hand, should give you years of trouble-free performance.
Along with photographer Barry Staver, Joe is co-author of Better Available Light Digital Photography that’s out-of-print but new copies or used copies are available from Amazon, as I write this.