NEW YORK NEW YORK – I stopped by Francesca’s apartment to help her put it back together after a paint job. Then a Yankees game against Texas. This was a sensational day for baseball (but the Yankees lost 10-6) – through a friend we had Legends seating which as you will see is about as good as it gets. Both images with my Leica M9 and 18mm Super Elmar lens.
On this day last year: really wide.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I spent the day exploring the Lower East Side block by block, packing my Leica M9 and 24mm Summicron lens, and my M4 loaded with Neopan and a 50mm Dual-Range summicron. Editing has proven tough so pardon the number of images.
On this day one year ago: Rainy day.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I took a walk along upper Fifth Avenue on this rainy day with my Leica M9 and 50mm f.95 Noctilux lens. Since I’ve calibrated the rangefinder on the camera (and switched shooting eyes from my astigmatic right to my good left eye), I’ve been getting uniformly interesting results with this lens, which has the ability to render the mundane as poetry. Some examples:
On this day last year: Trump.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I shot a lot of film today with my vintage Leica. I’ll post as it comes back from processing and I have time to scan. In the meantime I need an image for today so I took my Leica M9 and 50mm f.95 Noctilux to dinner at La Pizza Fresca restaurant, which you might mistake for a hole in the wall, but actually has some of the best brick oven pizza in New York and a truly remarkable Italian wine list. Here’s the chef at work:
On this day one year ago: Alpa TC. This was a desperate day – I resorted to taking a picture of a camera.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I met a friend for lunch at Cafe Centro – it’s located at 200 Park Avenue (which is the building that used to be called the Pan Am building, which is next to Grand Central Terminal which serves a railroad that used to be called the New York Central). This area is haunted by corporate ghosts. Anyway, I brought my Leica M9 and Noctilux and captured a few images. I shot more with film, which I’ll post on a later date.
On this day one year ago: Healey on steroids.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – A bit of repair and maintenance today. The rangefinder on my M9 has been slightly out of alignment for a while which has made it hard to focus in demanding situations. Horizontal alignment is easy, but vertical alignment requires peeling the Leica red dot off and using a special tool through a keyhole that the red dot hides. The special tool arrived from China today, so I peeled the red dot off (making a mess in the process) and fiddled with the tool for 10 minutes or so. Weirdly, unexpectedly, after ome trial and error I got it just right. I ordered a replacement red dot online and covered the hole with a little patch of duct tape as a temporary measure so I’m ready to roll. Most people would have sent their camera to Leica for calibration but I use mine every day and can’t really be without it for the three week round trip to Solms.
The focus issue had prevented me from using my Noctilux .95 but since I’ve fixed it I’ll be shooting a lot with the Nocti. It’s a magical lens, imparting a poetic quality to the most mundane objects. Here’s an example:
This morning I had a chance to get more use out of the Perer 35mm lens. Here’s a picture of it, mounted on my Leica M9, taken with my iPhone.
Lovely sunrise light this morning taken out my window with the Perer 35 and my M9:
On this day one year ago: Gil.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – A new lens arrived from Japan today: MS Super Triplet Perar 3.5/35 Mark II. I heard about this forum that I subscribe to and through the miracle of the internet got to the site of the Japanese company that makes them, ordered one and PayPalled some Yen to Japan, and voila the lens appeared a few weeks later via Japan post.
This is a fun lens. It’s tiny – very cool looking – I’ll post a picture tomorrow. The tiny controls and eccentric form facto take some getting used to. Rendering is very, very contrasty. Resolution is ok but pretty soft in the corners wide open. The triplet is a typical 1930s optic (the Cooke triplet is a famous large format lens) – back in the day these lenses were uncoated so the small number of elements and air-glass transitions was important. The Perar is completely free flare – the glass modern coatings.
For some reason it tends to show off spots on the sensor.
Some examples on an M9 from an urban walk about. I’ve done a great deal of lightening shadows and spot adjusting to compensate against the contrast. A little more veiling flare might not be a bad thing. All taken with my M9.
On this day last year: Still life.
