MANHATTAN – Shooting at home testing the “bokeh” of two new lenses (bokeh is that character of the out of focus portions of the image): the Sony 85mm f1.4 GM and the Sony 35mm f1.4 ZA. Both lenses are massive, but very, very good and have, as you will see below, pleasing bokeh.
Day 3213 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
On this date four years ago (day 1752 of one photo every day): Photo shoot
I’m selling most of my Leica M gear. My work with Sony E-mount cameras during the past four or five months has convinced me that my eyes aren’t fully up to the Leica’s rangefinder manual focus, that the best new native glass for the Sonys is at or very close to Leica standards, and that my black and white conversions of the 42 meg Sony A7riii files can be as good or better than the native black and white 24 meg files from the Leica Monochrom. I’m keeping some favorite Leica lenses (in case Leica comes out with a compelling camera offering in the future) and I’m keeping my lovely double stroke Leica M3 as a film camera.
I often shoot out of our dining room window – the cityscape is a brick wall torture test of lens quality. I spent a good part of the day shooting lens comparisons out the window – I’m also thinning my Sony lens inventory to what I actually like and use. It turns out that that means selling some of the lighter, more compact Sony offerings – all of the best native Sony lenses are large and heavy (with the exception of the lovely 55mm f1.8).
The image below is with the very nice Sony 35mm FE f1.4 lens shot at f5.6.
Day 3212 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
On this date two years ago (day 2482 of one photo every day): Sunflowers in Todi, Italy, shot with my former Leica Monochrom.