Photographing the Faroe Islands

Michael Maguire July 2, 2021

My wanderlust after a year and a half of no major trips was such that I had to go somewhere special. The Faroe Islands were high on my wishlist, so with my vaccination card snuggly in my passport holder I made my way there via Iceland in mid-June.

The question of what gear to bring wasn’t a tough one. The Faroes are all about big (really, really big) spaces. While birders would have good reason to haul telephoto lenses there, the rest of us can travel light with wide-angle glass. As with my last European trip, the Zeiss Batis 25mm f/2 was an easy choice for capturing the majestic landscapes. I used it to take the following shot just minutes after picking up a little Kia at the airport car rental.

This remarkable view of the tiny village of Gásadalur was one of the things that drew me to the Faroes. That the geography of the island allows for an unobstructed sight of both the village and the waterfall makes it one of the great observation points on the planet. For this shot I had the Batis 25mm at f/11. Shutter 1/125 and ISO 100.

Two days later, I joined a local guide and did the hike to the Drangarnir sea stacks. While I’m an experienced hiker, I’m not accustomed to perilous heights and I found some the route a bit harrowing. This gave me the sense to put my camera back into my daypack and focus on keeping my feet on not tumbling into the fjord below. The payoff, along with surviving, was reaching this otherworldly view.

The Batis 25mm really shines for shots like this. When editing this, I did not use the Adobe lens correction. While I sometimes like how Adobe will correct for the Batis’s minor lens vignetting, I usually prefer to leave images “uncorrected’ because… — The Batis 25mm really shines for shots like this. When editing this, I did not use the Adobe lens correction. While I sometimes like how Adobe will correct for the Batis’s minor lens vignetting, I usually prefer to leave images “uncorrected’ because the slight fisheye effect of the Batis can give a better sense of scale when it comes to landscapes. Vignetting can always be corrected separately when necessary. This shot was at f/14 to ensure every bit of the very long view was in focus. Shutter 1/125 and ISO 100.

The following, taken near the sea stacks but looking across the mouth of the fjord, is an even better example of all the sharp details the Batis can capture in one landscape photo. To understand the scale, please find my hiking guide within the lower right of the image!

Switzerland, Italy, and Morocco with the Zeiss Batis 25mm f/2.0

Michael Maguire January 20, 2018

Often with wide-angle lenses you have to live with either a slow aperture speed or excessive bulkiness. Example: the Zeiss Distagon 35mm f/1.4 is fast and produces beautiful results, but it's brick-heavy and as long as many 100+mm lenses. Smaller wide-angle lenses usually range from f/2.8 to f/4 if you aren't paying the big bucks for something like a Leica Summicron lens.

The Zeiss Batis 25mm f/2.0 attempts to find a middleground. It's reasonably fast, and while it's far from small for a 25mm, it's fairly lightweight and the length isn't too out of control. It is a fat lens, and would probably be a bit much for the smaller Sony E-Mount cameras.

As for results, it combines excellent optical performance with minimal distortion to produce high-quality, straightforward results. This makes it a good travel photography lens for me. I don't look for personality traits such as bokeh quality as much in wide-angle lenses as I do in 50+mm lenses. With something like the following shot, taken at Lake Lugano in Switzerland, the priority is catching a big field of view with maximum clarity.

The Batis 25mm at f/10, 1/160th shutter, and ISO 200.

Cramped spaces can also call for wider angle shooting. I turned to the Batis when walking the narrow streets and alleys of the old Medina of Rabat, Morocco.

f/6.3, 1/400th shutter, and ISO 400. Lots of contrast added in the edit, with some added vignetting as well.

When in manual focus mode, this lens has a readout on top of it that displays focus distance, as well as depth-of-field (circle of confusion) range:

At f/2.8. The readout is also available in feet, but years of vintage Soviet lenses have taught this American to think in meters.

It can also be set to always on or off. I've seen reviews call this feature a gimmick, with photographers saying they don't see the point. I couldn't disagree more - this readout is wonderful feature, and I hope to see it on more lenses in the future. I often rely on zone focusing for things like street photography and concert photography. When I'm walking through a city trying to quickly capture slice-of-life moments, I prefer older lenses that have markings showing focus distance and aperture so I can know at a glance if the focus will be right. This readout brings that feature back with a new level of accuracy.

If you're someone who uses autofocus a lot, this feature won't be of much use to you. But I would also suggest you turn your autofocus off - I consider autofocus much more a pointless gimmick than this readout!

Getting back to lens performance, I'm also happy with how it does in low light, as seen here crossing the Arno River in Florence, Italy:

f/2.5, shutter 1/50th, and ISO 2000. Florence is often drizzly in January, but as film noir cinematographers discovered long ago, that's great for shooting streets and sidewalks at night.

I don't chase after sharpness performance as much as many photographers, but I was happy to have the Batis's sharpness when I came across this tree on the shore of Lake Como in northern Italy:

Do you see the silhouetted witch? f/5.0, 1/200th shutter, ISO 100.

Moroccan flag street art in Casablanca. f./4.0, shutter 1/640th, ISO 100.

One of the many picturesque streets near Lake Como, Italy. f/4.0, shutter 1/60th, ISO 100.

Ireland with Leica Leitz, Industar, and Zeiss.

Michael Maguire July 12, 2016

In June I drove around Ireland and Northern Ireland, taking occasional photos between beers. My primary lens for the trip was the only native lens I continue to use on my Sony a7ii, the Zeiss 55mm f/1.8 Sonnar T. Otherwise I packed light with three little M39-mount lenses:

1951 Leica Leitz Summaron 35mm f/3.5
Industar 28mm f/2.8
Jupiter-3 50mm f/1.5

I'm mainly into the Jupiter-3 for its bokeh, particularly at night:

This was taken on U Street in Washington, DC. Shutter: 1/160, ISO: 640, f/1.5. So much lens personality showing here - note the two blue lights bottom center: perfectly round with classic rings of brighter light at their edges. The lights toward the… — This was taken on U Street in Washington, DC. Shutter: 1/160, ISO: 640, f/1.5. So much lens personality showing here - note the two blue lights bottom center: perfectly round with classic rings of brighter light at their edges. The lights toward the edge become more misshapen, and there's the nice lens flare to the upper left. You can also pick up some of the lens's scratches and imperfection within the individual light spots.

But bringing my favorite night lens to Ireland in June wasn't the best planning ... because there was 16+ hours of sunlight a day there. So I never actually used the Jupiter there, because the light at night was like this, which I took with the Leica Leitz 35mm at 10pm on the night of the Summer Solstice in Oranmore, a nice spot outside of Galway.

Shutter: 1/80, ISO: 200, and aperture somewhere around f/8.

My favorite shot with the Leica Leitz was at The Rock of Cashel, which is well worth the visit and a quick drive from Dublin or Cork...

With a scene like this, most any wide lens would've done here! Shutter: 1/250, ISO: 250, f/16 (probably).

I rarely use the Industar-69, but it's so tiny I usually keep it in my bag anyway. And every now and then there's a good chance to take advantage of its unique look. Someone in the Industar-69 flickr pool pointed out to me that the gobs of vignetting I get on the lens is because it was made for half-frame cameras, and I'm using it on my full-frame Sony a7ii. It seemed appropriate for this shot, inside the castle at the Rock of Cashel...

Shutter: 1/60, ISO: 1250, f/5 ish (this lens has one of those old-style aperture rings that's on the front, right up against the glass, and it's tough to know exactly what the setting is).

As I said the native Sony Zeiss 55mm f/1.8 was my main lens. It's so comfortable in the wider apertures, while also showing enough personality to satisfy even us lovers of old weirdo lenses. In Galway I visited the grave of my great, great, great grandmother Mary...

I should've left some flowers, but I was a bad great, great, great grandson. Next time! Shutter: 1/1600, ISO: 200, f/1.8.

The background of that shot looks nice and distantly faded and blurred. Mainly because the shot was wide open at f/1.8, but also a bit because it was a misty day with cool light rain, as is typical in Galway. The same shot, full crop and unedited...

I once heard a great tip from a lightning photographer - he always tried to catch lightning that was at the front of the storm, because even lightning bolts lose clarity behind rain.

The sharpness of the Zeiss helped with street photography - most of those shots I had to crop down in editing because I was extra shy about the distance I took them from, as my fear of getting yelled at is great when I'm a dumb foreign tourist. This one was from Cork, which I found to be an incredibly friendly place, though even other Irish sometimes have trouble understanding the unique song-like accents of the locals.

This one was in Belfast. I was drawn to his expressive face. It was only later when editing the photo that I noticed what was on his shirt and how well his hand was placed on it...

Shutter: 1/250, ISO: 80, f/4. That's the sharpest aperture for this lens, which helped here because I had to crop the shot down quite a bit - I was across the street when I took it.

Zeiss Distagon 35mm f/1.4 ZA in Japan

Michael Maguire September 25, 2015

One of the reasons I picked up the Zeiss Distagon 35mm f/1.4 ZA was so I'd have a high-quality wide-angle for a trip I was taking to Japan. I got some nice shots with it like the following ones, but my final verdict is that it's just too big and heavy for a 35mm lens. The thing that bothers me most about the size of it isn't the inconvenience, but how much attention it draws. Candid street photography is a lot tougher when everyone is noticing what looks like a giant zoom lens.

So I'll be (probably maybe) selling it at some point. I'm not particularly into native lenses for my camera anyway -- I don't like using autofocus, and I don't mind changing the aperture manually (which you have to do with this lens anyway). Plus the cost was like 10 times what I'm used to paying for vintage lenses.

But I can't say I wasn't very happy with some of the shots it caught, like these five...

This is the great Mistral Bleu Bar in Tokyo. The Zeiss was very nice here wide open at f/1.4, with a 1/80th shutter and 1250 ISO.

Zeiss confidently calls their 35mm Distagon the "master of light." It does handle various exposures wonderfully, such as this overexposure on the very scenic Miyajima Island, near Hiroshima. Shutter: 1/250th, f/2.0, ISO: 100.

This was peeking into a record store in Osaka. I loved the Lightin Hopkins poster on the wall. The lens gave me a pretty flexible depth of field considering it was wide-open at f/1.4. Shutter: 1/125th, ISO: 100.

Another from Osaka, also wide open. There's a lot going on here between the bright lights and the bits of night in the background, but the lens did fine with all of it. The bicyclist isn't as sharp as she could be, but that was only due to her movem… — Another from Osaka, also wide open. There's a lot going on here between the bright lights and the bits of night in the background, but the lens did fine with all of it. The bicyclist isn't as sharp as she could be, but that was only due to her movement, and my zone-focusing being a tad off. Shutter: 1/100th, f/1.4, ISO: 500.

This was on a train from Nara to Kyoto. Obviously this one is more a matter of content than anything special photographically -- I might've been just as happy with a phone photo of the moment. I always feel self-conscious taking shots like this. Tha… — This was on a train from Nara to Kyoto. Obviously this one is more a matter of content than anything special photographically -- I might've been just as happy with a phone photo of the moment. I always feel self-conscious taking shots like this. That raises the question: Is it creepier to overtly grab shots like this with a big lens like the Distagon, or to be stealthy about it with something smaller? Shutter: 1/250th, f/6.3, ISO: 500.

Chicago with the Zeiss 55mm f/1.8 Sonnar T

Michael Maguire May 18, 2015

This native Sony lens by Zeiss is about as ace as you can get when it comes to performance, with sharpness that was literally off DP Review's chart. But I've found that some photos that would've been full of life on quirkier and lower quality lenses end up boring on this Zeiss. Steve Huff once referred to this lens as being a bit sterile, and I totally agree.

The result is that, just like with any other lens, you have to learn what works for it. The 55mm f/1.8 doesn't seem content with the standard or straightforward. It likes to have its boundaries pushed, or to at least be used for the kind of shots that will allow for more creative editing.

I took the lens to Chicago last weekend along with my a7ii...