I was driving back to my home in a suburb of north Ft. Worth, Texas when I spotted a monster. I’ve never had the opportunity to be this close to such a creature but I didn’t want to let this opportunity get past me. I was returning from a failed photo hunt at sunrise in Dallas, Texas. The weather was so overcast the skyline was barely visible but I managed to get a shot off of a beaver swimming by me. I was packing a big gun, a Noblex Pro 6/150U. After taking a few token shots I decided I was just wasting ammo so I packed up and headed back home.
I’ve seen Monsters of this kind in other peoples photos as well as shows on TV about this kind of thing. One of the most famous of these Monsters is known as Big Foot. I saw this as a chance at my fifteen minutes of fame.
Now as I proceeded to exit off the highway and drive back around to the location of the sighting I was already thinking about how I wanted to photograph this Monster. I pulled my van into a parking lot and gathered up my nerve and equipment. I’m rarely a one lens type shooter but I just felt that the Zeiss Biogon 21/2.8 with the Contax G2 was the undeniable choice for this scene. This camera came into my possession in 2008 when a close photographer friend generously gifted it to me! He had gone totally digital and didn’t have the heart to let this beauty go so he passed it into my hands with the proviso that any time he wanted it back I would have to turn it over. It’s now been fourteen years and thankfully he has not yet asked me to return it.
As I snuck stealthily up to the behemoth I took a look through the hot shoe add on viewfinder for this lens. The view through this finder is bright and gives a fairly accurate view of what the lens is seeing so it enables critical crop type shots. I’m a shoot for crop type photographer so this is important to me.
I can’t say that I nailed it photographically or compositionally but I do like several of my images and the sharpness of this lens plays a definite role. This brings me to one of the many great features on this camera, back button focus. Using the back button to pre-focus means I’m not going to accidentally fire off a frame and it also allows me to pick a specific focus point and then recompose to my desired crop. The light was pretty soft and consistent for these photos but there are times when I want to shoot into the sun for a backlit effect and that’s when another of this camera’s useful features, exposure lock, comes into play. My confidence to have no fear of the backlit situation can be totally attributed to this G2 and a Zeiss lens combination. Some of my all-time favorite shots are now ones with backlighting.
Since this is a 5 frames post I’m not going to give a detailed review of this camera but I can say with all sincerity it has one of the finest feature sets of any camera I’ve ever shot with. My Canon F1-n Olympic edition that I have owned and shot with since 1984 is still the camera that feels like an extension of my body but this camera lens combination gives me the confidence to know I’m getting the best possible rendition of whatever scene I’m aiming at, even a Monster.
Here are my 5 frames of that Monster… truck.
Sneaking up. Contax G2, Biogon 21mm f2.8, Portra 160
I think it’s asleep. Contax G2, Biogon 21mm f2.8, Portra 160
The close-up. Undeniable proof. Contax G2, Biogon 21mm f2.8, Portra 160
Body parts for analysis. Contax G2, Biogon 21mm f2.8, Portra 160
Time to go. Not pushing my luck. Contax G2, Biogon 21mm f2.8, Portra 160
Tip: Smeared myself in axle grease to mask my scent.
Thanks for reading and may you experience good light and fine grain.
Bill
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