NEW YORK NEW YORK – Our last day here before departing for Antigua for some relief from bad weather. Speaking of bad weather, here it is almost the last week in March and we’ve suffered another bout of snow. Still shooting with my Leica Monochrome but the courtyard image is 8 frames taken with my Leica T and a long lens and stitched.
Day 1,982 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
On this day last year (day 1,617): Goodnight moon.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I had some fun today. I rented a Phase One IQ260 Achromatic back. This is a 60 megapixel medium format back that is monochrome only and has very wide spectral response (which means that for non-scientific use it needs to be used with an IR-blocking filter in front of the lens). It came attached to a Phase One body with a 45mm moderate wide lens. The body and lens are made by Mamiya – competent but not my favorite. It took me an hour to sort the ergonomics (I’ve shot with this camera on a variety of occasions but not recently, and I’ve owned a Phase One back). I shot around Bryant Park, which is under construction at this point.
The Phase One back really is monochromatic. Resolution is remarkable – better than three frames stitched with my Leica Monochrom. The back over samples the rest of this system – in other words the resolution of the back shows up the shortcomings in the lens. Very interesting to work with. I produced some vey large files stitching two or three frames with the Phase One. Overall I prefer the look of my Leica files (and greatly prefer the lenses) – I’m certain though that if I spent some time with these files and Capture One (the Phase One software) that I could get good results. As it was most of my images had a slight plasticy feel – probably my ignorance in post processing.
Anyway, here you go.
By the way I’m posting this before I posted my image for March 18 because I’m traveling as I write this and had forgotten to upload an image for March 18 before I left my New York home base. I’ll post for March 18 when I get back to New York this coming weekend.
Day 1,981 of one photo every day for the rest of my life.
Three years ago (day 886): Vegas
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Poor day for photos – I had three or four ideas but none of them worked out. Here’s the best of the lot.
This is posted a week later than usual, because I’ve been traveling and hadn’t uploaded today’s image before I left.
Day 1,980 of one picture every day for the rest of my life.
On this day last year (day 1,615): Mul’s Diner, Boston.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Another cold and blustery day with a threat of snow. Not much of an incentive to gat out and photograph.
Day 1,977 of one photo every day for the rest of my life.
On this day five years ago (day 151): Citibank.
LYME ROCK CONNECTICTUT – I stopped here in terrible weather to take some pictures on our way to dinner in Sheffield Massachusetts. Don’t the weather gods know that it’s the middle of March? I had trouble editing these so I’m including three images from today.
Day 1,976 of one photograph a day for the rest of my life.
On this day four years ago (day 515): Bloomberg building. Converted from the color image that I showed four years ago.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Typical distant street stuff for me today, shot with my Leica Monochrom and 50mm Leica Summicron Asph. lens. Two frames stitched.
Day 1,975 of now photograph every day for the rest of my life.
On this day last year (day 1,610): Look up through the ice. Still winter.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I’m xperimenting today. I bought an 85mm Nikkor P f2.0 lens on eBay; it arrived today so I decided to try it out. This is a famous lens. It’s from the mid-1950s. David Duncan Douglas was on assignment in Japan in 1950s; his Zeiss Contax 85mm lens developed a problem so in desperation he bought and shot with the Nikkor 85mm. He and his editors at Life Magazine were amazed at the quality of the images; the lens became a photojournalist workhorse and Nikon’s business took off. This lens is in a Nikon rangefinder mount, which is an approximate copy of the Contax mount. I have an adapter the lets me use Contax mount lenses on my Leica gear (an extremely exotic item) but the rangefinder doesn’t couple so I attached the lens to my Leica T which focuses through the lens. There is also an issue with infinity focus that the Leica T permits me to address.
The images are crisp with terrific micro contrast in the midtones. It’s sharp corner to corner by f4.0 – it’s quite impressionistic at f2.0. Bokeh is lovely. Today’s image is a test shot out my window taken with this impressive 70-year old performer mounted on my Leica T and converted to black and white.
Day 1,974 of one photo every day for the rest of my life.
On this day three years ago (day 878): Flatiron. Shot with a Phase One IQ 180 back on a technical camera.
