The Leica CL and the TTArtisan 23mm f1.4 L mount lens are a near perfect combination for photographing while walking around contemplating the universe.

Michael Johnston has me on a black and white kick. I'm playing around with all my cameras to see how they are at delivering nice black and white files without too much fuss. I was out in our downtown area a few days ago with a Leica CL camera (now, sadly, discontinued...) and a very inexpensive lens made by Chinese lensmaker, TTArtisan. The lens is the 23mm f1.4 and it's available in a bunch of different mounts, including the L mount. The lens only covers an APS-C frame so I use it almost exclusively with one of  the two CL bodies I seem to have accumulated over the last year and a half. 

I'm thinking about buying one more CL from a reputable dealer because I've come to like the camera a lot and it would be sad not to have an extra if one of my two units ages out and becomes inoperable. It's kind of an insane idea because, with my luck, the minute I spend the money there will be a collaboration between Leica and Panasonic and, voila! they'll introduce a perfect replacement camera at exactly the price I will have just paid for a used, discontinued model. 

These black and white shots of the Seaholm Center and the surrounding buildings downtown were shot in Jpeg, with a monochrome setting in the camera. They don't exist at all as color files. I use the Monochrome HC setting; the HC means high contrast. I add some sharpening to the profile, also in camera, so that when I sit down to look at or process the photographs there are already very close to what I had in mind. I imagine that Leica engineered the profile with a built-in nod to either a yellow or light orange filter effect since the files straight from the camera render skies very well. Much better than a straight flush of saturation would have done.

The combination of the CL and the small, lightweight 23mm f1.4 TTArtisan lens makes for a near perfect walking around camera. As you can see from the examples though the lens is dirt cheap to purchase it's really quite a good semi-wide-angle contender. Much better than I imagined it would be when I ordered it.

The camera is one half the size and one half the weight of my Leica SL camera body which makes it a pleasure to hang over one shoulder while plodding around town. The camera boasts a really fine 24 megapixel sensor which is unencumbered by an "AA" filter so it makes really sharp files. And the Leica color science is my favorite. Even in Jpeg files. 

CL users who use autofocus lenses with the camera and who also use the auto switching between the EVF and the LCD often complain about miserable battery life and I'd have to agree in that use case. But if one uses the "extended EVF" setting which always sends the image to the EVF unless you push the menu button or the play button, and you use the correct power saving mode, along with a manual focus lens, you can get 500 or 600 files from a single small, cheap battery. An extra battery in one pocket is always a welcome tagalong. 

I am experimenting with a small, light kit for travel and leisure and so far it's looking like the CL with the Sigma 18-50mm f2.8 paired with two small primes; the 23mm mentioned above and the 50mm f1.2 TTArtisan lens which I've written about before.Those three lenses and a back-up body would easily fit in my smallest camera bag or my smallest daypack and would cover everything I usually want, in terms of focal length range, for just about any casual photography. Especially on the road. 

I'm very happy with the rendering of the metal tube running vertically near the middle of the frame. Seems just like it did when I looked at it with my eyes. Only with less color here....

The sky was deep blue on this day and my conjecture about Leica pumping in some computational color filtering was triggered by the contrast between the sky and the building and chimney.

The images below were shot in color and stayed that way. 

There are a few self-portraits below, in black and white,  but they are mostly included because several of them were shot at 10,000 ISO and I was pleased by the way the camera handled noise and wanted to show you what I was seeing. 

Above image was taken early in the afternoon as I was heading into the heart of downtown.

The image below was taken a couple hours later as I trudged back to my car.

I enjoy seeing how much prevailing light influences a photograph over time.

Camouflaged as a worker with work boots, nondescript work pants and a bland shirt.

I like the way current Leicas handle reds and flesh tones. 

And I like how sharp the files appear.

Shot in the late evening with very low light. ISO 10,000 with the 23mm lens used at its full f1.4 aperture.

Having big, full frame cameras is great for lots of stuff where absolutely getting the exact shot a client wants is mandatory (or urgently preferred) but having a smaller system that doesn't require a bunch of bandwidth to move around with is nice too. It is possible to have the best of both worlds. Just scrimp a bit on that new car. 
 

I'm slowly discovering just how good the Sigma 65mm f2.0 lens can be for making photographs while out walking. The secret, for me, is to stick with the fast apertures...

You've probably guessed by now that I like to swim, I like to walk, and I like to make photographs of three different mannequins that live over on 2nd St. Whoever designed the mannequins put a lot of time and effort into their gesture and the expressiveness of their hands. That sort of attention to design gives them an equivalency to commercial photography, as a practice. 

When I photographed this pose back in early 2021 there was a young man who dressed and positioned the window facing mannequins at this shop. He was meticulous in his fashion sense and each time I walked by the shop something was repositioned, partly re-clothed or completely re-dressed. The window designer seemed to know where to position each "model" so that there was attention to how the reflections on the windows would affect the overall look. 

This designer seemed to have left the shop back in the Fall of the same year and the windows have struggled to maintain his high standard. 

I've photographed the windows with all manner of lenses but I never really nailed the look I was trying for until I took a lens along that might seem counterintuitive for "street" photography; the Sigma 65mm. 

In recent years I've worked hard at making peace with wider angle lenses. Lenses like the 20mm and 24mm were tough for me because, I think, I've spent so many years making portraits and my portrait style favors longer lenses. When photographing faces I seem most comfortable with the angle of view provided by a 135mm lens on a 35mm camera. Or a 180mm lens on a square 6x6 cm camera.

Everyone else seems to be in love with the 28mm or 35mm lenses for "urban adventure" work and I've tried mightily to "see" in those focal lengths. Obviously with mixed success. As I venture toward 50mm I get less and less antsy about composition and depth. When I bought the Sigma 65mm I thought it would be love at first sight. But every unfamiliar angle of view takes time for me to become really familiar with. 

The first few outings with the lens left me feeling a bit incompetent. I'd choose the lens as my sole walking companion but suddenly all those wide angle vistas kept rushing towards me. It seemed almost as if the universe art directed perfect 28-35mm frames just to taunt me. To challenge me for bringing along a lens that requires some space. Some distance in order to work well. 

Over the last month or so I've been tossing the 65mm back into the mix. I reviewed some of my favorite shots with the combination of the Sigma 65mm and the Leica SL this morning and this image popped up and waved at me. And it was interesting that, at the time, I was also playing with converting many of the images I was making from color into black and white. Monochrome. 

At the time I thought the B&W image was the keeper. But now, a year and a half later I'm not so sure. There's a lot I like about the low contrast color image and I keep coming back to it. Part of the appeal is the intermixing of the blues and the greens. Another facet is that shallow depth of field and the ephemeral rendition of the background. I'm happy to have both versions. 

Lately, I've chosen to work with the 65mm on a cropped frame (APS-C) camera for some corporate portrait work. I'm using it on a Leica CL and the combination gives me the effect of a 98mm lens on a full frame camera. The lens is one of the sharpest lenses that most test sites have tested. I find it to be amazingly sharp and detailed at its widest aperture. Stopping down gives incremental improvements but it's sharper wide open than many other similar lenses are two or three stops down. 

The CL isn't a popular camera because of its initial pricing and its limited range of trendy features. But the one thing in its favor is a really great sensor with no anti-aliasing filter at all. The color science is great and the high pixel density, coupled with high sharpness, is a great test for lenses. The 65mm is definitely up to the challenge. 

My use case for the combo in commercial work is when I'm doing available light or continuous light portraits of men. I like having extra sharpness and definition in this genre and I always want to start with maximum sharpness with the idea that I can easily take away unwanted sharpness in post. That's much easier than adding sharpness that wasn't present in the first place.

The use of the 65mm or 90mm Sigma lenses on the CL is refreshing for me. The biting sharpness coupled with the fine detail at maximum apertures delivers a style of its own. 

That's today's morning thoughts about photography. Pondered in the pool and then fleshed out after I cleaned the windows at the front of the house. 

checking in with my medical providers.

I've been working on my flossing. I asked my favorite cardiologist for a list of all the things I could do to stay "cardio" healthy and near the top of the list was the active prevention of gum disease. Apparently bad bacteria in one's mouth causes pernicious inflammation in the rest of the body, but especially in one's arterial walls. Which leads to stenosis and other Latin-esque words that cause fear (although that word seems more ancient Greek to me..). His suggestion was to be mindful and resolute about brushing one's teeth with a Sonicare or Oral B electric toothbrush at least twice a day and to be sure to floss, and floss well each evening. 

I see my dentist twice a year. Her hygienist is like badger when it comes to looking for periodontal dismay and decay. I floss so that I don't have to endure her disappointed look when it comes to gum probing. After all, who could be proud of "deep pockets" when it comes to gums?  I look at it as a challenge. I saw my dentist and my hygienist on Thursday and after an hour of looking, scrapping and measuring the general pronouncement was, "Good Job." Putting off any random ambulance rides for as long as I can with the simple habit of playing with string.

Since I was peppering my calendar with medical stuff (I also photographed a couple of oral surgeons in the middle of the day) I thought I'd start off the morning with a seven a.m. visit to my favorite dermatologist, Dan. He's got a photographic record of all my spots and bumps that goes back five or so years. I strip down to my boxers and he uses a UV light and magnifier to examine every dark speckle of skin on my entire body; all the way down to the bottoms of my feet. 

He loves to use his spray can of liquid nitrogen to zap stuff so he was happy to find a number of "SKs" and "AKs" that were just begging to be annihilated. He hit a couple on my face that now makes it look like I've recently been in a fist fight. But he hit a big sebborheic keratosis spot that's been rubbing on my waist line for years. I thought it would be great to have it gone but .... damn.... that hurt. 

But, at the end of the early morning venture, he proclaimed that I am currently "skin cancer free." Now, I know a lot of you live in the Northern climes and you don't see sunlight for years, sometimes decades, and all this talk of visiting dermatologists twice a year seems like lunacy. Or a sheer waste of dough. But consider a lifetime swimming in the Texas sun and you'll understand my caution when it comes to things I can live through --- if they are caught early. 

Next week is the yearly visit to my cardiologist. The guy who is the big fan of flossing. I guess I'll run on the treadmill with wires hanging off my chest and stomach but I'd much rather do a stress test in the pool. Too back they don't make underwater EKG machines. I'm hoping I get the same response from the heart guy as I got from my dentist and dermatologist. But however it pans out I know I'm doing my part to keep the economy thriving and the medical professionals in the black. Not enough stuff going south with my health to help any one of them finance their new BMW but that's a net positive for me.

It's a beautiful day in Austin. It would be even better if it was 20 or 30 degrees cooler. Wouldn't that be nice?

Posting a Portrait of Michelle. Thinking about how important the light is...

 

©Kirk Tuck. 

I think in the middle years of my career as a photographer what I really spent most of my work time doing was designing and contructing light. And mixing it with dark. 

Sure, the rapport with a friend who dropped by for a portrait was important but the lighting was equally a priority for me then. 

For this portrait of Michelle I came into the studio hours and hours before she arrived. I started by setting  up my favorite canvas background far behind her. It was an era when space was cheap in Austin and I had about 60 feet from my camera position to the back wall to play with. I love the look of a background so far away that there was no way to keep it in focus. Then I'd bring in other drapes in between to play with cascading feelings of depth. I always used flag to tone down light anywhere on my subject but the face. 

My goal in those days was always to light a person so my light could come into the frame from the left (from camera position) and produce a triangle of light just under the eye on the (model's) left. I don't know why I always preferred to bring my main light in from the top left of the frame but it just felt so much more comfortable to me. 

My favorite expressions were the quiet ones. The contemplative moments. 

We had lots of cameras back then as well. It never seemed to matter which one I used as long as it was bigger than the 35mm frame and we had the right film in stock.

But however we shot one thing was constant --- I always printed my own final prints. There was just too much creative potential in a negative not to try and coax it out onto nice paper. 

I'm not sure it's a style I'm still completely comfortable with now but it's a nice starting point. 

My only tip: Long, long lenses and lots of distance. It's a look I don't see often these days and it's so visually interesting...

Regressing to happiness.

 

There was a period in my adult life when I was working as a creative director at an advertising agency. We all worked long hours, celebrated every success, emulated Mad Men before it was a TV show and basically were totally immersed in the creativity of advertising for nearly six years. But during that time my relief valve from the pressures of a "real job" was my hobby of photography. 

It's funny, in a way, to have a hobby that parallels what you do for work. I might spend a Friday supervising a still life photo shoot for our shopping mall client, working with an established photographer to make fanciful images of products for a co-op ad, and when I finished up at his or her studio I knew it would be Monday afternoon before we'd see any images. That meant I could put the work project out of my mind over the weekend and instead pursue something fun just for myself.

I'd put some gasoline in my ancient Volkswagen "Bug", grab one of my two cameras and head down IH-35 to San Antonio. I'd park a couple blocks from the Alamo, make sure my Olympus half frame camera was loaded with slide film, and then I'd head out to make images in the vital part of downtown that included long stretches of Commerce St. and then Houston St. I had one lens for that little system that was a favorite (and still is). It was the 40mm f1.4. It was bright, easy to focus and, at f2.8 it was sharp.

The meter in my Pen-f was never very accurate. I defaulted to using the pictograms that came printed on the inside of the Kodak film boxes to set my exposures. After a while, I splurged and bought a Gossen Luna Pro light meter. I quickly figured out that as long as the light wasn't changing you could make one reading and not change exposures until the light dropped, or radically changed. 

I was a bit fearless in those days because so much of  the nasty parts of human history hadn't happened yet. At least not here. Not to me. There weren't drive by shootings that I was at all aware of. People weren't in such a hurry. Nearly everyone on the streets had a camera with them because it was that era and we were all milling around in the ground zero of tourism, in one of America's most touristic cities. And, as I've come to understand, the walking and the absorbing of all the visual stimuli and the montage of cultures, was as important to me as the photography itself.

When you are young, single, professionally employed and mostly satisfied with the trajectory of life in the moment there seems to be a force field around you that keeps out stress and anxiety. When you have little or no real responsibility there's not a heck of a lot to worry about. Which makes me wonder why we shoulder so much as we get older...

Since I didn't have clients waiting to judge the photographs I was making for myself I didn't artificially curate my images for anyone else. There was no internet on which to fish for approval. No social media on which to share pictures made and slanted for other peoples' approvals. I just made images because I liked what I was seeing and I liked the process of translating real life into slides and prints. 

In the ensuing years I worked for a few decades with packed schedules, started a family, welcomed a child and bought a succession of houses. Each step called for new expenditures. In the business it was mostly expenditures of time and energy. In nurturing a family there were expenditures for mortgages, private schools, college funds, groceries, utilities, car payments, health insurance, life insurance and, of course, taxes. 

You think it will all abate once you've launched that kiddo off to college. Or better yet, when he nails down his first professional job but then you discover that you've become the parent to your parents. 

But that's over all too soon. And one day you wake up and you wonder "what's next?"

I've lived with a camera over one shoulder (or both shoulders) for the better part of 35 years. It's a habit. But these days I don't see the camera as a tool for profit or personal advancement in the way I have viewed  cameras for all the work years. Now I'm coming to see the cameras as quiet companions. Welcome adjuncts to being outside and immersed in current culture. Almost like friends. 

The last two years, with Covid and the general tenor of the world, have made me realize that I don't really need to schedule so many paying jobs if I don't want to. I've stopped worrying about money and I'm trying to stop worrying whether I am relevant in the same way to the industries I labored in for so long. I'm picking and choosing and my choices are based more of whether a job will be fun or not. Whether the people I'll work with are happy and a joy to be around. Whether the work projects will introduce me to new people who are interesting in and of themselves and, a bonus, new people to photograph just for me. 

Everyone loves to give advice. I "should volunteer." I "should travel relentlessly." I "should mentor someone." I "should devise a massive personal project." I "should become a philanthropist." I "should ditch all those nasty and over-priced Leicas." "Life is short; you should buy a Porsche." "You should write more about gear on the blog." "You should write less about gear on the blog." And finally, "You should work relentlessly for charities." 

The problem is that I'm more or less immune to advice unless I seek it out and pay for it. I pay my attorney because she keeps me from making expensive mistakes. I pay my CPA because his advice keeps me solvent. I pay my doctor because he's good at catching medical stuff early --- before it becomes a big deal. Those three, and my spouse, seem to be the only people whose advice has a track record. A history of success. And it's funny to me that with the exception of B. they are the only ones I actually pay for advice. 

I think you have to find your own way to happiness in life. And it changes as you age through. Right now I'm actually enjoying stepping away from a relentless schedule in commercial photography. Right now I'm enjoying swimming more than at any time since high school (when we were all immortal, beautiful and thrilled with life). Right now I'm enjoying going back in time to those early days in advertising when my idea of a wonderful day was to walk around a city, smell it, taste it, feel it and capture some of that feeling in color slides. Or black and white prints. I'm finding that this is a constant with me. It's been restrained for long periods when all those other priorities seemed more vital. But it is kind of thrilling to realize that I can go out now, at will, and practice what I like to do to my heart's content. 

Perhaps it's comfortable to feel, for the first time in decades, that I don't need to make photography an all encompassing thing in my life. Just a very fun part of a larger existence. 

I was told in a comment that pros overwhelming use Nikon and Canon gear and that Leica users are "B" team. No mention of Sony?

 

Made with a dinosaur camera and lens. The Nikon D810 and the 80-200mm f2.8.

People tend to get stuck at whichever point in time they seriously entered into photography. That makes sense; people are most comfortable with what they think they know. They are less comfortable with facts that point out how the world has changed since they acquired whatever knowledge they persist in relying upon. 

Is a fat SUV with a big V-8 motor really faster off the line than a Tesla S? Is a Nikon D850 really a sharper and better camera than a Sony Alpha One? Is coal the ultimate power source? Are we still cranking out large, glossy color brochures on thick, premium paper? Do we care at all which camera someone else is using?

Photographers, like nearly everyone else, tend to be tribal. They embrace the ethos of the tribe and then part of their sub-routine of life is to fly the flag of their tribe whether it's right or wrong. It's more important to remain within the tribe than to try new things and risk being cast out. 

If you tap on the shoulder of most people who've been in the photo industry as photographers for a decade or two you'll find their understanding about what tools content creators use in real business is more or less ossified and set to the standards they learned on entry.

I wrote a blog post talking about firmware updates for the Leica SL2, which is a camera I own and use for a bunch of different commercial projects. It's a good camera with an easy to navigate menu and a color palette that's more pleasing to me than the Canons or Nikons I've used (amply) in the past. I knew a fair number of photographers here use Leicas and would be interested in the information. But one photographer was not at all interested. And he or she let me know. His/her argument being that (and I'm paraphrasing here): most professionals use Nikon and Canon and most of us don't give a "hoot" about Leica news. 

I hate to tell him/her but....professional photographers are a tiny, tiny segment of the camera market (far less than 1%) and no one really gives a flying fuck anymore about what "pros" use. No even the pros. The diehard Canon fans of yesteryear, who work professionally seem to have found a nicer home in the Sony camp. Sony users who've tired of the Sony color palette and atrocious menus seem to have found a welcoming tribe over in the Nikon camp and the "real" professionals have long since moved on from DSLRs and small sensor cameras altogether, transitioning (as they probably should) to medium format digital cameras from Hasselblad, Leica and especially (because of the price advantages) to Fuji. Can you really hold your head up and call yourself a "professional photographer" if you aren't currently using MF? (sarcasm implied).

Well sure. Because with the exception of wedding photography and event photography a huge swath of actual business photography is being done now by people who don't really identify as "professional photographers" but are multi-disciplinary "content creators." These are the people who work in marketing departments, in-house a large companies, and at huge advertising agencies across the world. They create the majority of images that are used for commercial advertising and.....I'm sorry to tell you....but many of them use their smart phones to create images for their clients. 

Why? Because, if you disregard broadcast television and radio formats, the main target for most ads now is web advertising and social media. It's mostly going onto the internet. And given that most users are seeing the end results on the screens of iPhones and Android phones there is no technical reason to use any of the cameras our generation learned on and coveted. Their reign is over. Except for that tiny percentage of advertising photographers who are still called on to shoot big campaigns the likes of which have multiple uses across multiple formats, including print. You know, the guys who are using the big MF cameras because they are the ones who have the clients who can pay for them and uses that might actual still demand ne ultra plus technical quality. For everyone else? There's an iPhone. Or somebody else's phone. 

Today's ad agencies are filled with young people who've grown up using stock images and making composites and adjustments in post processing. Once web ad placement crested 75% of their total usage of photos, and their targets stabilized at approx. 4K resolutions, just about any camera they could get their hands on that was near 12 megapixels filled the bill nicely. These folks are hyper proficient in dropping out backgrounds, creating artificial but believable bokeh and piecing together the reality they want to see in an ad. But mostly they are now transitioning more and more to quick videos. Another area where Canon and Nikon are just now catching up to Sony (in non-dedicated video capable cameras) and an area where smart phones really shine for just about anything that's web use. 

So, if the majority of content for commercial intent is generated by smart phones is it really true that "professional photographers" only use Nikon and Canon? Of course not. Not anymore than most taxi drivers drive F-150 pick-up trucks. Or that most professional caterers serve Big Macs. Or that fashion models source their wardrobes from Walmart. 

It's funny that the commenter took a swipe at Leica, saying that their users are the "B" team. But that's such a subjective thing that I'll just ignore it and soldier on, remembering that when I entered the stream of professional photography the only photographers who didn't have or want a Leica were the ones who could not afford them. Today, at least with their camera bodies, Leica's prices are right in line with the top of the line cameras from N&C. They just look and feel better and have nicer menus and better color. But I guess that doesn't matter.

Sure, there are still people making a living with older DSLRs and such, and the latest rash of high resolution single purpose cameras. It takes time to turn a glacier around. And yes, there are still projects that benefit from larger, more potent cameras but.....

The owner of this particular blog is currently using a handful of cameras from Leica so, logically, you're going to see samples shot with those cameras, articles written about using those cameras, and even posts that note additions to the capabilities of those cameras. If all this is as agonizing as broken glass in one's eyes to you then this might not be the blog you want to read. "These are not the droids you are looking for...."

comment at will, I'm feeling feisty today. And I have the power of moderation. 

Revisiting one of my favorite posts from the first year of the blog: 2009.

 https://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2009/12/the-cave-you-fear-to-enter-holds.html

A really good article on making and using presets in Adobe Lightroom Classic.

 David Farkas, part of the braintrust at Leica Store Miami, wrote a really good and really understandable article on making and using presets for cameras. He published it a while back on Reddotforum.com

I re-read it yesterday as I wanted to fine tune some presets I've been using for various Leica bodies. 

But this is not something exclusive to Leica gear. It works for all cameras. You can fine tune the typical settings you use for a camera, as a starting point, and create an individual preset for that camera. You can apply the preset to all files at an import or selectively apply the preset onto individual photos. 

Here's a link to the article: https://www.reddotforum.com/content/2020/04/lightroom-presets-for-leica-cameras/

I made presets yesterday for the SL2, the SLs, the CLs and the TL2. Should save me some time and effort when importing big folders full of images. At least it gives me a better starting point than the Adobe Default. 

Pool full of potential happiness.

Leica CL camera. Sigma 18-50mm lens.

Portrait of Renee. Fixing stuff around the house. Planning a trip to Germany for Autumn.

 

This portrait came from an afternoon test shoot in my old studio in East Austin.  Shot on black and white film, printed on black and white paper and then, years later, copied via a digital camera so I could share it on the web. It's cropped square but I seem to have a specific memory of playing around with a Pentax 6x7 camera that day. When I used that big, thunderous beast I alway used the mirror lock-up before triggering the shutter. Otherwise, with the slow flash sync and the huge moving mirror, it was sometimes difficult to freeze motion in the frame or in the camera just using it "raw." 

I met Renee through a mutual friend with whom I shared a bakery. I'd head down on slow days to read the newspaper, swill coffee and occasionally indulge in some lavish pastry. My friend was a painter and had many beautiful friends. She introduced me to Renee and we set up several portrait sessions as tests. 

Life in old Austin was easier back then. Less traffic and less rushing around being busy. This must have been around 1995. You could actually buy a house back then for a reasonable amount and restaurant prices seemed....reasonable too. As did the price of film. Of which I seem to have shot ... lots and lots. 

I miss the days when everyone had time to play. Life has gotten more expensive for so many people that they've had to move faster to stay still. It's not good for the practice of art. 

Domestic crap: So, our old and well loved refrigerator died after 17 years of noble service and it had to be replaced. Parts were no longer available for a repair and believe me, I loved that old fridge enough to have willingly paid a "new refrigerator" price to have saved it. I hate having to recycle stuff that's designed well and made to be visually unobtrusive. 

We finally tracked down a decent unit that would work in our kitchen and which could be delivered within ten days and so we bought it. It got delivered to the house last Monday but the ham-fisted delivery people nicked our front door frame trying to shove the machine through without thinking about geometry. They also damaged a vital hose that runs up the back of the machine. 

I figured a repair person could fix or replace the hose in less than half an hour but big box appliance stores don't function that way. There was no option but to have the delivery people come back out, remove the damaged fridge and bring a new replacement along. We had to pay again for the new one but would be refunded the payment for the first try as soon as it got back to the store. What a fucking mess.

The trade of damaged for new happened on Wednesday. I wanted to be here to supervise but had already booked a portrait shoot downtown for that morning. Not to worry, B. was at the top of her game. The problem seems to have been one of the delivery people's inability to read a tape measure. The width of the front door is 35.75 inches. The width of the refrigerator is 33 inches. But they wanted to position a dolly on the side of the refrigerator and bring it in sideways. That's exactly what they did the first time around. But the depth of the machine is right at 35.50 inches and they were experts at misjudging distances and angles. 

When the delivery people arrived they decided that they would remove the doors and then the unit would slide right in. The problem that B. saw when she watched them take the doors off the old unit to get it out of the house was that none of the deliver people had a clue about how to remove the doors correctly and they banged and banged and ball bearing spilled out across the floor. 

B. told them in no uncertain terms not to attempt to do any disassembly on the new unit. But when she walked up the driveway to supervise the delivery people were just about to visit the same havoc and amateur hour deconstruction of the new refrigerator. She laid down the law. (She's Not the Person I would tell one thing to and then try to do the opposite).... She had the store manager on the line in minutes and the delivery people were "inspired" to at least try putting the machine in through the door as we had planned. 

Guess what? Measurements work. The new unit came in unscathed and was summarily hooked up to the water line and then B. went through every single step of customer quality control double-check one could imagine. We now have a workable refrigeration solution in place. The store offered a 15% discount on the final purchase price to compensate us for all the slapdash theatrics surrounding the two deliveries and we're now working with them on having them pay to rehab the door frame. Which, if B. has anything to do with it, will get repaired to like new. 

By the time I got back from my shoot the general atmosphere at the house was ..... distinctly.... on full alert. But she's much quicker to let stuff go than I am. I'm glad I skipped this one. 

So, over the last month we've replaced the kitchen door and door frame, had every door in the house re-weather stripped, had the sweeps under all the doors replaced, had one set of our five french doors repaired by a master carpenter, and we seem to just be getting started. 

We're getting estimates for repainting two bathrooms, a living room with very high ceilings, the exterior trim (Thankfully most of the house is rock which doesn't need paint) and both the studio door and the front door of the house. After all of this we will need a vacation. 

Thoughts about vacation: It's been so long since we traveled far. I had a blast in Berlin when I was there for the IFA show for ten days back in 2013. B. Hasn't been to Germany. I think it might be fun to go in the mid-Autumn time, squeaking in between trade shows, and seeing Frankfurt, Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden and, of course, Wetzlar. 

The idea of travel to Germany came when Lufthansa Airlines openly a weekly direct route to and from Austin, Texas. Ten hours and ten minutes from city to city. A complete bypassing of my least favorite airport in the known universe, Heathrow. And the rates in the off season (which for Americans means, "not Summer") seem cheap. There's 38 trains between Frankfurt and Berlin each day and the three hour trips costs a princely.....$10. 

Like all creatures of habit I have a favorite hotel in Berlin. It's inexpensive as well. We'll splurge outside Berlin but really, most hotel rates in Germany seem very reasonable. 

We're now jockeying with dates. We're trying to line up our favorite house sitter. We might actually follow through.  I wonder if there is a Leica Outlet Mall in Wetzlar. You know.... for scratch and dents...

Kidding. Just kidding. 

Now setting up for a portrait here in the studio for tomorrow afternoon. Not a beautiful woman but a very jaunty male oral surgeon. Now trying to decide between flash and LED lighting. Oh well, I have time to figure it out.

Just hope I can stop spending money on the house for a while. I walk around and look at a project and think: "OMG! That's a Leica SL2-S right there! Darn it." 

Leica Keeps Adding Cool Stuff to the SL2. It's like getting an upgraded model every few months. But why no mention of the update on the World's Biggest Digital Camera Review Site?

 

No question here. I'm a big fan of the Leica SL series cameras and especially the SL2. High resolution, beautiful color and beautiful industrial design. Besides the price, what's not to love?

I just became aware that Leica updated the firmware in the camera from 4.1 to 5.0. In doing so they added an internal perspective control feature, which I think is really great for all those architectural shooters out there, but what they added for me that put a big smile on my face is the ability to pair an old manual (non-Leica) lens with the camera's really good image stabilization. 

Previously the camera would look at whatever lens you put on it to see if it was: A. A native L mount lens from one of the three participants in that lens family. B. An R Rom lens mounted to the camera with a Leica R to L adapter. C. A coded Leica M lens mounted to the camera with a Leica M to L adapter. If you had Leica lenses that were not equipped with coding or rom you could look in the lens profiles and choose your Leica lens. There was no option to just key in the focal length of a non-profiled lens and take advantage of the in-body I.S. 

Sure, you could cheat and select a lens from one of the Leica lens on the profile lists and make due but the profile for, say, the 50mm R Summilux, includes more than just the focal length. The engineers built profiles that take into consideration things like color shifts across the frame and those are different from lens to lens. Same with distortion characteristics and vignetting. Using an included profile not specific to your actual lens might give you I.S. but it might also provide you with a host of unwanted issues as well. 

With the update to 5.0 you can now go into the menu and select a specific focal length for a "mystery" lens and the camera will use the information for the purposes of stabilization without messing up other parameters of the lens's imaging. It's really nice to have. 

The update to 5.0 also enhances the performance of other makers's L mount lenses (Think: Sigma and Panasonic) when used on the Leica SL2. I'd conjecture that we'll see greater battery life and more responsive AF performance as a result.

This and the previous major firmware update (4.0) both added to the camera's depth, performance and video chops. It's a continuous transformation of an already great product. 

But I have a pressing question.

Why is it that the world's "largest" digital camera review site made no mention of such an important upgrade on a current, production camera? Has DPR given up reporting on Leica products altogether or are they too busy noting what's in Chris Nichols's backpack when he goes out on a canoe ride to bother reporting major camera upgrades from a company that is both a legend in the industry and the most profitable (per unit) camera maker in the world?

I guess when Barney left we ended up depending on DPR's "B" team for timely info only to see laid bare that their real focus is on.......only contemporaneous, mainstream product launches and leaky articles about technology on which they have a very shaky grip. Caveat Emptor.

https://leica-camera.com/en-US/photography/cameras/sl/sl2-black/firmware