NEW YORK NEW YORK – My photography has been feeling a bit listless post Tuesday’s lunch. I decided to shake myself up bit with a radical equipment change. I walked around the upper eastside with a small Panasonic that I had converted to infrared last year. I like IR images in the winter; when there is foliage on the trees infrared renders the leaves as white and they look phony. Here we go with an image in IR false color:

IR on Lexington

Another, converted to grayscale:

Outside of Fairway

On this day last year: a shot of the El Dorado across the frozen Central Park Reservoir.

El Dorado

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NEW YORK NEW YORK – Another day on the street with my Alpa TC and 35mm Schneider lens. The Bull and Bear on Lexington Avenue in the 50s.

The Bull and Bear

The next in a series of 24 self-portraits taken on February 13, 1999 with an Arca Swiss 8×10 view camera.

4:54 PM Local time February 13, 1999

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – I’m spending a lot of time trying to get my Hasselblad back to produce acceptable images in my Alpa Max. Hasselblad claims, accurately, that their “closed” system creates a high level of integration between the camera, lenses, the digital back and software. The system produces sensational images but Hasselblad is evidently not committed to doing the work to make their digital back work on a “technical” camera, like the Alpa Max. Most Hasselblad shooters don’t care about this – technical cameras are of primary interest to landscape and architectural shooters, people who want the highest performance wide angle lenses and those want to create immense high resolution images with a technique called “planar stitching”. It turns out that a technical camera like the Alpa Max (and its little brother the Alpa TC) fit my style and interests perfectly.

Putting a digital back on a tech camera general results in undesirable color shifts across the frame, which within limits can be corrected by software. The Hasselblad files also show a line down the center of the image ( a phenomenon called “centerfolding”) when the lens is shifted relative to the back on the tech camera. I spent most of the day shooting out my window trying to find the limits to this issue and looking for a solution. Here’s the view from my dining room window – it’s a two frame planar stitch. I’ve cropped the sky out because that’s where the centerfolding issue is most evident. Not a distinguished photograph but this view out my window is very useful for testing lenses, backs and techniques.

Out my window

On this day one year ago: Portrait at Martha McPhee’s party.

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NEW YORK NEW YORK – I’m writing this about a week after I took the picture for May 16. The one week delay in posting gives me a chance to sort through images hopefully making an non-rushed decision on what to post. The scene out my window was the same as it was then and has been unchanged all month. We’ve had the rainiest May in memory. It’s as if the weather system has its coasts mixed up – you might expect this in Seattle but not here. This is three frames stitched with my Leica M9 and 135mm APO Telyt.

Rooftops in the fog

On this day one year ago: farm stand.

Farmstand

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NEW YORK NEW YORK – Endless rain. This was captured on Lexington Avenue near my office with my Leica M9 and 28mm Summicron lens.

It rains on Lexington Avenue

On this day one year ago: Out my office window

From my desk

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – In case you thought your view was limited. Leica M9 and “Bokeh King”.

Bricks and Mortar

On this day one year ago: Out my window, testing a 300 mm lens for my Hasselblad.

Out my window

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Out on the street at last, but still with a technical camera. Alpa makes a tiny technical camera, the Alpa TC, that lets me use my Hasselblad 60 meg back and 36mm Schneider lens in a compact, hand-holdable package. Mine looks just like the following image downloaded from the Alpa website.

Alpa TC

It’s basically the same form factor, functionality and focal length as the legendary Hasselblad Superwide C (one of my all time favorite cameras), but digital. Very cool. How often have I raved about gear on this blog?

I’m posting two images today from the post office building on Lexington Avenue and 54th Street on an afternoon with brilliant early spring light and the attendant reflections. The first is my image of the day. Again we see how well the files from the Hasselblad back convert to black and white.

Post office building

I’m posting this one just to show what is possible. I shot this pointing way up with the 36mm lens, which resulted in wildly converging vertical lines. I then corrected the perspective in Lightroom. Extreme perspective corrections are often problematic because they “stretch” pixels resulting in poor resolution. But when you start with a file captured at 60 meg resolution this really isn’t a problem, at least not at web resolution.

Plaza in front of the post office building

On this day last year: Citicorp Center

Citicorp

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NEW YORK NEW YORK – You’ve seen this before – it’s the view out of my dining room window – and I guaranty that you’ll see it again. Hasselblad has finally released a production version of the firmware for its 60 meg back that permits it to be used on a technical camera. (I had previously been using a beta version of the firmware.) I attached the 60 meg Hasselblad back to my Alpa 12 Max camera and a Schneider 36mm digital lens and spent a couple of hours exploring the limits of this combination out of the window of my dining room. Here’s a typical image. This good landscape test image for me because there is a wealth of fine detail and the streets are orthogonal (eliminating focus as an issue). The Alpa Max permits the camera back to be shifted. Here I’ve used this feature to move the horizon down – to emphasize the sky. This could have been accomplished by pointing the camera up, but then the vertical lines would have converged. Technical cameras like the Alpa are often used to photograph architectural subjects because the facilitate composing while maintaining horizontal and vertical lines in the buildings parallel.

Out my window

On this day one year ago: Cash for your Warhol in Beantown.

Cash for your Warhol

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NEW YORK NEW YORK – This is a busy week for me so I’m tucking my daily photos into odds and ends of time. I spent the day in my office but kept an eye out for good or interesting light in the Manhattan cityscape outside of my windows. I’m shooting with my Panasonic GH2 because it’s the lightest and most compact camera that I have and the selectivity of the very long telephotos effectively let me cheat, not having the time or space to actually get close to an interesting subject. Here’s the Bloomberg Building out my office window:

Bloomberg Building

On this day one year ago: A dismal image of the mud season in Connecticut.

Warren Connecticut

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NEW YORK NEW YORK – I’m continuing to experiment with my new Panasonic GH2. I walked down Lexington Avenue with it (an errand to pick up our dog from a haircut), taking images that I might have done with my Leica M9. Here’s a sample. The images are fine at web resolution, but don’t have the impact that the Leica files have when viewed close up or printed large.

P4G

On this day one year ago: Another errand – this one to Jean Silversmith.

Jean Silversmith

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