NEW YORK NEW YORK – I collect Vinini, a Venitian glassmaker. This piece was advertised on eBay a Venini. It clearly isn’t but it was priced accordingly so I bought it anyway. Taken with my Fuji-X-Pro 1 and 17mm lens.
On this day one year ago: Spring sucks. Urban version.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – As you may have noted I’ve been working a lot recently with my new Leica Noctilux lens. It’s large and expensive but shooting at f.95 it has a unique look and character. I use a three stop neutral density filter (.9) in daylight, which permits wide open shooting. Without the filter it can effectively see in the dark – very cool for events and street at night handheld with no flash. Stopped down past f2.8 or so it has a character very similar to the Leica 50mm Summilux, which is very good character indeed. I’m looking at this lens as an experiment, but with no economic downside – Noctis are back-ordered by a year or more, are highly in demand, and I could sell it for substantially more than I paid for it (which was several times the cost of my first car). It’s the third version of the Nocti made by Leica – I’ve owned all three. I sold version 2 several years ago because of difficulty focusing it.
I’ve been shooting it on my Sony Nex-7 but have found that the Sony contrast detection focusing system isn’t up to the task of dealing with the skinny depth of field of an f.95 lens. In actual use roughly half of my images with the Nex-7 and Nocti have focus issues. Disappointing. So I’m now using it on my Leica M9. I’m astigmatic in my shooting eye, which makes the Leica rangefinder difficult to use in poor light. The solution is to switch shooting eyes. Not ideal but it works – shooting wrong-eyed with my M9 roughly 90% of my images are keepers from a focus standpoint. I’s also a relief to use it on a camera with a “full frame” sensor, with no focal length multiplier, so the lens can fill the focal length niche that it was designed for. Anyway a couple of images with the Nocti.
Here’s a picture of my M9 with the Nocti, taken with my iPhone.
On this day last year: Spring sucks
WASHINGTON DC – An ugly rainy day and a tough one from a scheduling point of view. I dashed down to DC this morning for some meetings, and had a car drive me back for a working dinner in New York (air transport ion between NY and DC is chaotic in bad weather). I brought my Leica but didn’t have much of an opportunity to use it. This is out the window of the car in a part of DC that doesn’t seem to have a name.
Dandelions. A tough subject. If you print the yellow the way it really looks it tends to blow out the detail. This year the dandelions has come and gone – the season is three or four weeks earlier than it was last year.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – I should rename this site “Birches R Us”, or “All Birches all the Time”, or perhaps “Birch City”. They are irresistible. Maybe I should cut them all down to eliminate the temptation. Well here we go again. More birches. Growing up in Utah I had a thing with quaking aspens. Similar deal but even more impact. The white bark just gets to you. Oh and let’s not forget the ferns. Taken with my M9 and Noctilux lens.
On this day one year ago: Conservatory Gardens.
WARREN, CONNECTICUT – Odd, this photography stuff. You can travel to Arizona, spend a week shooting and come back with not much. Or you can walk around the house, spot a familiar object in elegant light that transforms it. Here’s a chair in our dining room capture with my Leica M9 and a 50mm Noctilux.
A Garuda in our garden, a residue of a trip to Bali. Also with the Nocti.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I took a break from my landscape class and took this on the plaza outside of the ICP’s educational center with my Leica M9 and Noctilux. Two frames stitched.
On this day one year ago: Shy pedestrian.
