She who must be obeyed has a notebook in which she enters details of things she wants to photograph. Some time ago we were wandering around Nong Nuch gardens and she announced:

I want to photograph a Habitas.
You mean a house, a habitat?
No, a Habitas.
I have no idea what you are talking about.
A Habitas!! Look, I have a picture of one in my notebook. {She shows me a photo of a Hibiscus}.
Ah, you mean a Hibiscus.
Yes, exactly, a Habitas.

And from that day forward, a Habitas is what we have called it; it’s just easier.

We have a couple of Habistases (Habitus? Habiti?) on our balcony; so I thought I would celebrate my first free day for a while by taking some photos, and looking at a Habitas through a variety of lenses.

I decided to shoot in order of lens cost; so first of all we have the rather expensive Voightlander 25mm:

Next up is the cheaper but almost as wonderful Panasonic 20mm:

Our next contender is the decidedly weird, but occasionally wonderful, Angenieux 16-78mm. The vignetting is not added, it just does that because it wants to; and if you don’t like it, that’s just tough (it’s French):


Then we tumble down into the cheapo world of legacy obscurity and the Isco Gottingen Westromat 50mm, yours for a shade over 2,000 baht:

If the Isco is too much of a mouthful, how about the Canon 50mm for a similar price?:

And if 2,000 baht is still above your budget; then there is always the Russian Industar 22 50mm for less than $30.

Its a bit soft, but that works quite well with a Habitas.

So which is best? There’s no answer to that; whichever pleases you most. But the exercise did raise an interesting question: why the hell do I have so many lenses (and I didn’t use all of them)?

All shots with the Panasonic GF1