NEW YORK NEW YORK – More familiar territory with the ultra wide 15mm Zeiss lens on my Leica MM. This lens continues to interest me, but I am looking forward to the end of the week that I’ve committed to keep it on my camera. I reshot Citicorp this morning and 1185 Park Avenue this afternoon. The lens let me shoot all of 1185 without stitching (a reshoot of June 30, 2014). I had to point up a bit, however, to get the top of the building, which meant that I had to correct sharply converging vertical lines in Photoshop. The resulting “stretching” of the top of the image magnified the Zeiss 15’s very slight “mustache” distortion to the point where it is visible, especially in the upper right corner of the image. I really have to shoot level with this lens.
Day 1,729 of one picture every day for the rest of my life.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – More work with the really wide lens, this time on Park Avenue in the 50s. For the first image below I shot level in portrait orientation and cropped the foreground out, resulting in a square format. This is a common technique shooting very wide – the need to level almost always results in too much foreground. I grew up shooting 2 ¼ inch square so this isn’t a burden for me – I tend to see in squares anyway. I shot the same tree looking up a bit and it was much less successful at every level. The commonplace look up and view of GCT demonstrate this lens’s lovely rendering.
Day 1,727 of one picture every day for the rest of my life.
Square cropLook upBeen here
On this day two years ago (997): Alexander, at our weekly Sunday family dinner.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – A new tool/toy arrived today: a Zeiss 15mm f/2.8 lens for my Leica M and Leica Monochrom cameras. I’ve actually been looking for a Leica R 15mm f/2.8 for a while (they are no longer being made), but they are scarce and collectable and thus expensive. A recent review by Irwin Puts, a tireless writer of technical reviews of high end camera lenses, claims that the the Zeiss 15mm, which is a new and extraordinarily complex design, performs as well as the Leica R 15mm. The Zeiss lens is expensive, but I found a slightly used one on ebay at a $1,200 discount from new. It arrived today.
I’m going to leave the new lens on my Monochrom for a week, which should force me to understand what its capabilities are. Initial impressions are very positive. The fit an finish are lovely. Out my window brick wall torture tests show effectively no linear distortion (usually a major issue with very wide lenses), and little or no chromatic aberration or purple fringing (ditto). At f2.8 there is some funkiness in the corners, which disappears by f5.6 – performance that is consistent with the lens’s MTF curves. It comes with a graduated center filter which I’ve kept on full time so vignetting is not an issue. Some of the “look up” shots from today have large areas of strong highlights which evidence excellent flare resistance.
One of the keys to shooting very wide is keeping the camera level and orthogonal to the plane of any buildings. This is actually hard to do visually (small errors translate into major geometric distortion) so I added a spirit level to the camera’s hot shoe. Since the Leica also needs an accessory finder for this lens I’m using a Thumbs Up product that provides a second hot shoe (which isn’t really hot) so I can use both the finder an a level. Here’s what the setup looks like.
15mm Zeiss
Day 1,726 of one picture every day for the rest of my life.
Brick wall torture testLook upMore look up
On this day last year (day 1,361): Sunflower in Todi.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Summer starts to press in on me in Connecticut. The shrubs and trees are rampant and in your face, jungle-like. Hard to express visually. I got my shot for the day in our local nursery.
Day 1,725 of one picture every day for the rest of my life.
Aspetuck GardensAspetuck Gardens
On this day two years ago (day 995): Villa Necchi, Milan,
NEW YORK NEW YORK and WARREN CONNECTICUT – Still shooting with my Leica Monochrom and 24mm Summilux lens. I seem to be in the zone on my drive this morning from New York to Warren CT.
Day 1,724 of one picture every day for the rest of my life.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Not a typical Independence Day for us. Maria is in Italy on business. Alexander and Laura have plans with her parents. Francesca is on vacation in Italy. The weather forecast is poor for Connecticut so probably no fireworks on Lake Waramaug. So I stayed here and cleaned out my closet. I’m an introvert so this is ok. I did take a walk in an overcast midtown with pretty good effect from a photographic standpoint. I seemed to have my A game on today – I had trouble editing so I’m posting three images.
Day 1,723 of one photo every day for the rest of my life.
The Plazaq9 West 57th StreetVest pocket park
On this day three years ago (day 627): Funicular. Translated from the color image that I posted two years ago.
