NEW YORK NEW YORK – Another day of meetings. I caught this detail of the outside of Grand Central Terminal with my Leica M and 35mm bokeh king lens.
On this day one year ago: Gallery
Friday April 19, 2013
Category: Urban
Thursday April 18, 2013
NEW YORK NEW YORK – April is intense. We have an expectation on Spring that seems to be a bit frustrated this year and a heavy schedule of meetings in my legal life. I sneaked this image out our dining room window – a different take on a familiar scene. Leica M with 35mm bokeh king lens.
On this day last year: Sunset out my window.
Monday April 15, 2013
NEW YORK NEW YORK – That’s right . . . the date above says April 15. Tax day in the US. Ugh . . . We pay our first quarter estimated taxes today and it turns out that the recent tax increases have real teeth. I may have to give up photography for chalk drawing on sidewalks. My heart’s certainly not in imagery. Here’s what seems to be my best photo effort for the day.
On this day last year: More damned Spring color. Stop doing this you idiot.
Wednesday April 10, 2013
WASHINGTON DC – I’m here in DC at some client meetings. They start around 8:00 AM but that let’s me get up and catch the morning magic hour with such monuments and flowering stuff (there’s a lot of it) as are within walking range of our hotel. These are all with my Leica M and an 18mm Super Elmar M lens – my go to wide these days. That’s the same contrail in the first two images.
On this day last year: Blond. Yawn . . .
Friday April 5, 2013
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Another day of experimenting with the electronic viewfinder (EVF) on the Leica M. There was a Leica reflex camera in the film era, called the Leica R, that had some remarkable telephoto lenses – the 180mm and 280mm are particularly highly praised. Of course in a post-film world the Leica R and its lenses are of little interest since Leica has not made a digital successor to the R. R lenses are accordingly not in high demand in the used market. Serious Nikon shooters buy them and have them converted to Nikon mount, a process akin to brain surgery and of course they don’t autofocus.
The EVF permits me to use a Leica R 280mm lens on my Leica M (by means of a simple adapter). So I spent a couple of hours shooting out my window. The view through the EVF and the 280 is poor: it’s slithery and jumpy (because of the slow refresh rate of the EVF) and too contrasty to make valid exposure judgments. The focus aid, however, works very well. Based on the viewfinder I thought that I was getting junk, but all of the images ended up being well focused, exposed and composed. The lens is indeed excellent, although the digital camera exposes some red/green chromatic aberration that was probably not evident on film – its easily corrected for in Lightroom. Here are some examples:
On this day one year ago: Good light.
Tuesday April 2, 2013
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Carrying the big guy today, my Leica S medium format camera and a new 24mm super wide lens (this completes my trade out of my former Phase One medium format kit). A very, very capable camera, but it doesn’t sing to me the way the Leica rangefinder cameras do. I’m continuing to work on this. In reality it may be that I see in black and white and shouldn’t be trying to shoot color with this camera.
On this day last year: Tennessee.
Monday April 1, 2013
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I took my new Leica over to Randalls Island today but OMG, disaster has struck. For some reason all of the images are coming out of the camera upside down. Help me out someone. What to do?
On this day last year: BBQ Joint.
