WARREN CONNECTICUT – We haven’t been here for a while. We love Warren so I actually resent (a bit) our recent travel that has made it hard to get here. Basil the Norwich Terrier stays up here we we travel so I drove up today to fetch him. We’re actually going to be in New York this coming weekend for a vey close friend’s Birthday.
I’ve got a Leica lens from the 1950s called a Dual Range Summicron. The DR is an iconic lens that has produced thousands of iconic images in the hands of the most famous photographers of its era. It has two focusing ranges, near and far, and an eyeglass-looking doodad that clips on to activate the close focusing range and adjust the view through the viewfinder for close focus. Very cool, except that on digital Leica Ms the DR can’t be mounted because the close focus cam on the lens doesn’t fit through the opening in the camera body. The solution (which I’ve adopted) is to send the lens to a machine shop to have the close focus cam machined off. It then fits a digital M but in the close focus range the lens lo longer links with the rangefinder so the close focus feature really can’t be used.
Enter the new Leica M, a rangefinder camera that also permits focusing through the lens with an “electronic viewfinder” attachment. I strapped the DR on the the M, set the lens to close focus range and fired up the electronic viewfinder and voila it worked. This brings the focus distance down to .5 meter. Here are a couple of images taken in Warren with this combination.
On this day last year: The Zen of Citicorp.
