A new version of formal wear.

 Last week I surprised myself by pulling the Sigma 70mm Macro, Art Series lens out of the drawer and tossing it onto a Leica SL for a tromp through the streets. I found this dinner jacket to be hilariously over-tooled....until I decided that I really like it. Maybe not for me but on someone...

That lens is a real sleeper. Might be the sharpest lens I have in the whole bucket of glassware.

Today's combo is a CL with the Sigma 56mm f1.4, set up for monochrome. Gee, it just dawned on me how much Sigma stuff I've accumulated and how good all of it is. Saved a fortune compared to some other L mount company's products....

SXSW coming soon to a city near me... Austin girds itself for the onslaught of SXSW 2023. Coming in March.

These date back to 2019. We're about to do the drill again...

 No better time to do "street photography" in Austin than during our (used to be...) annual SXSW Conference and musical showcase. Expecting a hundred thousand extra people in Austin for a long week in March. I'm practicing my black and white chops in preparation. Pent up demand indeed!

Enjoying a different type of subject matter. Making one (really lucky) processing "error." And a TLDR bit of health news below.

 

When I was teaching my one person workshop this week I made a point to bring along the same camera and lens that my student brought. We both dug into the Panasonic S5 equipped the 20-60mm Lumix lens. I had no intention at all to make photographs for myself but wanted to have a camera in my hands to match menus and shooting parameters so I could be quicker with fixes and explanations of the features and settings. 

I put my camera in the "vivid" color profile, set the color balance to the little "sun" icon and shot with manual exposure. Everything was a Jpeg. When we found something that provided a teachable scene we'd both stop and shoot it in the way each of us liked best. 

I've always thought of myself as a portrait photographer or a people photographer but lately I feel like I'm shifting into what I can only think of an urban landscape photographer instead. Sure, I still like to make images of people but I've expanded my circle of what interests me when I have a camera in my hand. 

We were out at the Wildflower center and on our walk around when we found this area which incorporated a series of greenhouses on the West side. For some unexplainable reason I found myself captivated by the lines, colors and atmosphere of these functional and simple structures. I guess I was lucky in that the high, thin clouds worked well to impart both contrast and a lack of contrast at the same time. 

When we describe photographs that we generally like we often talk about an image's three dimensional quality. I think we mistakenly imagine that the effect is the provenance of very expensive lenses coupled with very elite cameras but reality likes to smack us on the head and show, sometimes, that even modest cameras and lenses are more than capable of realizing the same effects. 

When I got back to the office I imported the files into Lightroom. Normally I do this without applying a preset so I'm starting with a neutral image that's been modified only by the in-camera settings. However, the last time I imported files I was importing raw test files from the Leica SL2 and I imported them with a profile/preset I got from David at Leica Store Miami. I made a few modifications to the preset to better align it to my tastes in images but all the starting points came from David. I forgot to turn off the preset. Forgot to uncheck the little box in the import panel. So all the already vivid files got a dose of SL2 preset added to the overall color, contrast and dynamic range settings already selected in camera. 

It was, by definition, an accident; but a happy one. I loved the way the balanced dynamic range of these shots is shown here. I also appreciate the saturation of the blue in the skies. In fact, thinking back, these are my favorite non-human images of the last three or four months. They seem to capture a time and look that really resonates with me. 

What a happy bit of happenstance. 

Health notes: I've lately become more focused on maintaining good health. My elevated interests in personal fitness were magnified by my reading of Michael Johnston's medical scare over at "TheOnlinePhotographer.com"...

I've never been a fan of pharmaceutical cures or crutches but I've been forced to pay attention when a routine calcium CT scan returned some less than perfect numbers. That was behind my recent interest in Vitamin K2, M7 (not all K2 is the same. do the research!). Under the supervision of both my primary doctor and my cardiologist (everyone should have a great cardiologist who returns email and stays current) I've started to take 150 mcg of K2, M7 along with 5,000 mcg of vitamin D3. I also added 100 mg of Niacin along with my usual 150 mg of CoEnzyme Q10, too. I feel like I've opened a pharmacy now. 

Scans done a decade or so ago showed that swimming and running have succeeded in adding much brachiation of capillaries around my heart and lungs. Essentially I've developed lots of pathways for good circulation and am not depending on "one road in and one road out" for blood flow. According to my medical team that's a really good thing. (An older Texan probably would be wise to have the following: cardiologist, general practitioner, dermatologist, and dentist and to see them once a year). 

Diet crazies would suggest that I need to radically increase all the dosages of the above supplements if I'm to see any real changes in function, flow and arterial calcification, and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn cautioned me in a phone conversation a year ago that reversing any arterial build up is tough to nearly impossible without the world's strictest diet. I'm conservative enough to want to go slow with new stuff. 

But all three of the people I trust with my cardio health are adamant about the same message: Exercise is the magic bullet. Exercise is the fountain of youth (not immortality). 

I've never smoked. I've never had more than a few glasses of wine during a week. I don't eat much sugar. I love peanut butter (which I predict will be the next insanely popular new "cure" for everything, and trendy health food). I eat a lot of fresh caught King Salmon. I eat fresh berries and apples pretty much daily. I've held my weight to a max of 158 pounds for the last 20 years. I sleep  seven to eight hours a night. I don't snore. I'm happily, happily married to the same person for nearly 4 decades. I have reduced stress to such small levels that my main worries revolve around whether the pipes at the house will freeze if we have a prolonged cold snap....

I swim, hard, five days a week. I walk at least three miles, seven days a week. 

To be clear, I'm not trying to live forever but I want to live well, pain free and with abundant energy while I'm here. So many people my age (67) seem to have an acceptance of the narrative that ALL of us will have horrible symptoms of decline by the time we hit our sixth decade. I believe that can be true but I think it applies only to those who are constantly willing to cut corners with their health when they know better. The people who give up. Who resign themselves. Who think staying in shape is too hard. But...

We weren't constructed to live with constant pain. We weren't destined to fall apart once we've retired from work and child rearing. Just as giving up smoking prolongs life so do all the things I mention just above. And just like giving up smoking they all revolve around personal choice.

Life's a gamble. There are some of us who, at no fault of their own, will contract some sort of disease or malady that truly is beyond their control. But that in no way constitutes the overwhelming majority of people over 60. Most of the decline the majority experiences is in one way or another self-inflicted. And a large part of the decline caused by casual disregard for good choices can, to an extent, be stopped and even reversed. Mostly by eating a much better diet and getting good, daily exercise. 

But a person has to WANT to do it. Yes, getting back in shape is much harder than staying in shape but the benefits are obvious and the costs of not staying in shape become more and more apparent as the years go by. We all get to choose. 

The biggest impediment to staying in shape is being surrounded by a negative community of family and friends, co-workers and neighbors. If no one around you exercises that factor alone pounds a message into your brain that says, "Don't bother." Many studies have shown that people with overweight friends quickly become overweight themselves when they become part of that group. Drinkers whose friends regularly drink alcohol drink more alcohol. BUT...

People who exercise with a group tend to stick to the program with much more tenacity. A spouse on a healthy diet helps to bring along everyone in the house on the adventure of improving their eating habits. 

An unsettling thought: Since it takes less energy to carry around smaller and smaller, lighter and lighter cameras are the ever shrinking burdens of carrying around ever smaller, lighter cameras actually reducing the exercise we get from good, long photo walks? Should I find a battery grip for my SL2 to add some weight? (somewhat kidding here...). 

Most of us get wake up calls from our bodies warning us that we've made some bad choices. The few who don't get the wake up calls are the ones who sometimes suffer cardiac arrest and go out in a flash. Maybe we should work on being supporters of each other's healthy habits. I'll stop thinking of donuts now.....

I feel sympathy for folks in rural communities. They often lack the easy availability of resources some need to stay in good physical shape. Weather, lack of access to facilities, lack of easy access to friends and exercise partners, all play a huge part in reducing compliance to good health habits. It either takes more discipline to stay fit and healthy or requires a re-location to someplace more conducive to living a healthy existence. 

All the cameras in the world won't help. So much off topic stuff for a Wednesday. I'm done. I'm going to grab a heavy camera and go for a loooonnng walk. 

A private photography workshop for a single client. A chance to see the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Winter. Another check-in with the Panasonic 20-60mm zoom lens.

 

A client of many years got in touch with me last year to ask about getting a camera. She's an art director with decades of design and art direction experience but a relative newbie when it comes to taking her own photographs. We talked for a while and it became clear to both of us that she has a passion for landscape photography (actually lives far to the West of Austin on a picturesque ranch) but also wanted a camera that would fill in for routine and quick photo jobs around a corporate office as well as being able to handle some very informal video interviews. 

With all those things in mind my recommendation (six months ago, or longer) was one of my favorite, inexpensive cameras, the Panasonic S5. I also suggested that she buy it with the "kit" lens because I have found the 20-60mm Lumix zoom lens to be very, very good. Far better than what one normally associates with "kit" lens. She bought the camera, the lens and also the 24mm f1.8 Lumix lens because she thought she might want a faster lens in the same focal range that she already likes. She took my advice and also got a second battery to go with the camera. 

If one is coming to an interchangeable digital camera directly from an old film SLR in 2023 it is understandable that the complexity of the menus in a new digital camera and the sheer range of controls and customizations can be daunting; even overwhelming. My client watched some videos about the camera on YouTube, took a stab at reading the manual and also did a number of adventures around the ranch to get a feel for the camera but there were still a lot of things that perplexed. And some fundamental idea about digital that we pick up over time but are not always obvious. 

So right after the holidays she got in touch and asked if I would do a private, half day workshop to help her better understand her camera. Since she is smart, curious and delightful I was happy to carve out the time from my busy schedule of drinking coffee, swimming and strolling around with eccentric camera and lens combinations. 

Yesterday I pulled out my Lumix S5 and my 20-60mm zoom lens, tossed a couple extra batteries and a Rocket bulb blower into an old, worn Domke bag and met my client at the front gate of Austin's Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. A favorite haunt also of highly competent photographer and VSL reader, Frank. Here's the info about the Wildflower Center. 

With a cup of coffee in hand we settled into the on site coffee shop to go over basics, theories of use for landscapes, and basic digital camera use. We'd both been on a number of shoots together over the years. She was the lead creative person on several annual reports we did for the corporate client she works for, and as recently as last Summer she hired me to photograph the co-CEOs of the same company. I knew she had the creative vision she'd need to get good photographs and she trusted my knowledge about the technology and how to leverage it in the service of making good photographs. 

One thing that impressed me was her desire to learn how to work with the camera in fully manual settings.  She really wanted to understand and master the exposure triangle and like most people who are new to working with a manual camera her biggest question was: how do you establish a baseline for the settings? How do you know which to set first and what the optimum settings for good photographs really are?

My take on all things exposure is that unless you shoot only fast moving sports the single most impactful setting you can make is your choice of aperture. We did the usual march through the apertures on the lens to show directly the affects changing from wide open to stopped down have on depth of field. And distributed sharpness. Then we discussed shutter speed as it relates to being able effectively hand hold one's camera and also (but very importantly) the impact of shutter speed settings on subjects that move. 

Once we've figured out those two settings we can select an ISO that gives the correct exposure for a given scene. With a current, full frame camera like the S5 one can more or less confidently set the ISO in a range between 100 and 3200 and not suffer from much image degradation at all. 

Then we drilled down to understand what to do if you set the aperture you want but the scene in front of you lacks enough light to set the shutter speed you want and stay at a workable ISO. That brought us into the real of slower shutter speeds and the ability to keep the ISO low for lower noise and better color. I was impressed when she pulled a very competent tripod out of her vehicle. 

After a couple hours of menu diving, theory and demonstrations we did a long walk around the gardens. She was able to shoot a bunch of shots and work with me to fine tune her applications of what we went over. By the end she was able to master the manual settings she had been intimidated by earlier. 

It was really fun for me to work one to one with an aspiring photographer instead of having to do a workshop in a group situation. In groups there is always someone who has a hard time understanding basics bookended by an impatient prodigy who already knows it all. With a single person and a well known camera you can tailor your teaching to exactly what your "student" wants and needs to learn and you can do it even better if you own and use the same camera. 

She asked me why I default to the S5 from time to time when I have other more expensive options at hand. I had to admit that the S5 is every bit the image maker my other cameras are but it also combines long battery life, cheaper to buy batteries (great for travel), the ability to charge over USB, and it's lighter and smaller than my other full frame, interchangeable lens cameras. I also mentioned to her that the S5 was the only camera I took with me on my last travel adventure and that it worked out swell. 

Finally, if the S5 is lost or stolen it would be much easier to replace. 

The client was thrilled with the workshop and really did master manual exposure in one long session. I saw the proof in her subsequent photos. I headed for home feeling happy and somewhat proud for helping to launch someone on a fun photography adventure. I'm sure this won't be our only workshop together. We could spend a day talking about style, and ways to go through the process of shooting. 

But for now I think she'll advance quickly if she takes my advice and keeps the camera with her always and shoots on a daily basis. The feedback loop with a good digital camera is priceless for accelerated learning. 

And that's what I did on Monday.

tons of families with small children at the Center yesterday. It was gorgeous, warm 

day in January. That's for sure. 

Lens arrives. We take it for a walk. We approve. Welcome ancient artifact!!!

Coffee under the big awning at Mañana Coffee.

Good drip stuff. Better cappuccinos. 

Clean, new tables outside. 

Yesterday I took possession of a used Zeiss 50mm f1.4 ZF.2. It's a manually focusing normal lens and this copy was made for use with Nikon SLRs and DSLRs. It will communicate with a Nikon camera body but since I'm using it with a simple adapter on the L mount cameras it's essentially completely incommunicado with the cameras I use. I have both an F and an F2 Nikon around the studio but I prefer to use this lens on one of the Leica SL or Panasonic S bodies. 

While I purchased the lens lightly (if at all) used you can still buy this lens new at B&H. I much preferred the used price I got shopping at CameraWest.com. The copy I received is nearly flawless. 

I always like to test lenses as they come into my possession. I want to make sure there aren't any surprises if I go on to use the lens for a client job. I hate surprises that make me look bad too.

The lens is built in the old school style. All metal, as heavy as it needs to be, but much smaller than comparable lenses from Leica, Panasonic, et al. A 58mm filter size. A long, long throw focusing ring. A focusing ring so perfectly smooth that you might tear up just a little bit the first time you put your finger on it to move it in one direction or another. A perfect example of lenses built to work for decades. But only if you are willing to focus manually; and in the case of using it on L mount cameras an additional willingness to meter only manually or in aperture priority. 

Initial reviews by people using them on early (pre-2010) Nikon digital camera bodies mention that the lens is not so sharp wide open. That perception changed when mirrorless cameras were enhanced with the ability to "punch in" and magnify the spot being focused for greater accuracy. My take is that the lens if as sharp as any other reasonably priced 50mm high speed lens, if you have the means to make an accurate focusing technique bolstered by lots of finder magnification. (See image just above...).

Today was a poor day on which to test a lens like this one. After lunch, and before I could get downtown, the day turned windy and very overcast. The weather seemed to suck all the color out of the scenes in front of me. But that's fine. The walk itself is a reward. 

Today I put the Zeiss 50mm ZF on an adapter and onto a Leica SL2. There were no fun events downtown, no throngs of glamorous people to photograph. No parades. No vendors. Just a few folks milling around looking in shop windows and channeling their central Texas tourist energy. And beer.

I shot what I could and then returned to home base to review the results. My take? It's fun to use. Rides well on the camera. Does beautiful out of focus areas at wide apertures. Has neutral color. Gets contrasty when you glide by f5.6 and up. In short it's a treasure. And it looks serious on the front of the SL2.

Even with the F to L mount adapter it's still smaller and tidier than the big Sigma 50mm f1.4 or the Leica 50mm f2.0 Summicron SL. I can't wait to line up a model and do a photo shoot to really test out how this lens performs with skin and skin tone. 

This time around with this lens makes me feel unsettled about my short relationship with its sibling the 85mm f1.4 from Zeiss. When I had that lens live view had not yet been implemented into Nikon DSLRs and I could never hit sharp focus with that lens wide open. I also found the lens to have some focus shift so that if one focused with the aperture wide open and then stopped the lens down before shooting the plane of focus would shift in front or behind the point you assumed you focused upon. With the high hit rate of EVF cameras with built-in live view and "punch in" capability it may be that the 85mm needs an updated trial. That's certainly my feeling after having shot a couple hundred images with the 50mm. 

In the days of DSLRs with optical finders that were no where near optimized for manual focusing it was easy to just blame the lens. Once the focus becomes more fool proof there may be a long of lenses that can deliver very high quality files but fell victim to the vagaries of bad focusing screens. Sad realization. 

Now ogling the 85mm which is still available new for around $1300 or used, but nice, for around $750. 

The 50mm is enough to keep me distracted and happy for a while. It's a sweet lens and it feels just right.

Happy that it also performs quite well. 

Branches included for those who like to look for chromatic aberrations and 

purple fringing. Done at f4.0. None that I can see and I have the big files

here with me....

What a happy flare test...

luscious bokeh. Almost as edible as whipped creme. 

Not "old." But quite VINTAGE (referring to the photographer...).  Focused on the type in the lens right on the front of the lens.Seems to work fine. Tried it in color and black and white (in post). 

Seems very workable.

Nice color even in low light and with a single lighting fixture 

fitted with a crappy, non-corrected LED bulb. 

She's back!!!

Watching the big game from the sidewalk in front of the bar at the Marriott.

Austin's latest bout of never-ending construction. 

It just won't die off....

f4.0.

A blog post from the distant past. Just the perfect summation of Summer Swimming...

 https://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2010/06/summer-time-is-swim-time.html

Timmie's News Alert. Mostly written to rile up my Canadian friends....

 On January 2nd I wrote a blog post expressing alarm and a sense of deprivation because of Austin not having enough good donut shops. Later I found that a campus favorite, Ken's Donuts, had permanently closed. Despair. 

But last week our local newspaper announced the intention of Tim Horton's donut chain to install not one or two but up to 40 retail locations across the Austin area over the next two years. Starting in 2023. 

I am keenly aware that TM's are not the "best" donuts on the planet but it certainly is a step in the right direction. Soon we will no longer be a "donut desert."

And, of course, since my ego knows no bounds, I am fully convinced that it was my post in the earliest days of the year that induced (or compelled) Tim Horton's to rise to the Texas challenge and bestow at least adequate donuts on a much deprived community. (Apologies to Salty Donuts.... it's a matter of scale). 

So there. 

Strolling down the main drag across from my alma mater and banging away with the Leica Q2. Loving the way that sensor holds onto shadow detail and highlights. Really nice.

 

Construction never ends around the UT campus. A lot of the buildings that were lining the streets when I was at UT from 1974 to 1982 are getting torn down and buildings five times bigger are replacing them. Luxury dorms everywhere. When I lived on campus I lived, for a couple years, in an un-air conditioned dorm room. Yes, in Texas. My parents thought it might build character. I thought it would make me sweat. 

Air conditioned study lounge in the basement always kept at a Texas mandated 68°. You brought along a sweat shirt if it was a long study period....

Worked with the Q2 today. 

When I got home I found that FedEx had delivered the new (to me) used Zeiss 50mm f1.4 lens I ordered from Camera West. It looks perfect and the focus and aperture rings are like butter. Or, if you are doing the Mediterranean diet; like olive oil. Smooth and easy. 

I'll take it out for a spin on an appropriate camera tomorrow. Love the look through the finder of an SL2 so far.....

Anybody know how MJ is doing? 

I'm not recommending cameras to friends anymore. I either underestimate or overestimate their technical needs and their passion for the art.

 I have a friend who has an MFA and is the quintessential artist-not-gear guy. He's owned a lot of cameras and he has a great sense of finding the right subjects and making great compositions. I hate to admit it but he's a much more creative photographer than me. I know a lot about cameras and lenses, having owned plenty of them. I can test them with the best of the online reviewers. I use the heck out of the ones I like. But he's the better artist. He cares more acutely about the finished image and less about how he gets there. 

Over the years he's owned a fair number of cameras as well but he's not good at remembering all the ins and outs of complicated menus and he's not always thrilled with the color science he gets out of his cameras. The techie details seem to elude him. I guess it's a trade-off. 

Lately he's been looking through some video projects I've recently done and also through various sharing feeds I have both privately and publicly online. He's called me to tell me that he really likes the color I get from my cameras and he's convinced himself that it must be because I'm shooting with Leica cameras, and sometimes Leica lenses. He's buying into the hype that somehow the image pipeline of the Leicas is vastly different (and superior?) from all the other current cameras. And he recently queried me to ask which Leicas he should consider. 

I was at a loss for what to tell him. I don't think he'd be happy with a Q2 because he likes to play around with anamorphic lenses and he still needs to shoot video with his camera. The Q2 video itself is great but it's the least friendly camera for a professional to use as it lacks any sort of ports or interfaces. Not even a USB port. Certainly no microphone or headphone jacks. And I'm not sure you could even adapt an anamorphic lens on top of the fixed 28mm lens...

While I really like the SL2 my friend has a much different sensitivity than I do when it comes to high ISO noise. He hates it. As long as my noisy camera is monochrome-ish and film grain-like I'm pretty much okay with noise at ISOs from 1600 & up. It's the logical trade-off (to me) for the increased resolution. 

The CL cameras are a non-starter for him as he is resolutely convinced that full frame is always the way to go. And, again, while I love the CLs for still photography it's just a mean-spirited camera for video shooters. Again, no ports. No interaction. And, in the case of the CLs, no waveforms or color meters for video.

That leaves the SL (601) cameras which have been my favorite mirrorless Leica choice since I put the first one into my hands. But it's absolutely a non-starter for my friend. The camera is clunky, the finder is less impressive than the one in the current SL2 models, the sensor has less dynamic range and it's slow to focus when using C-AF. And at heart he's a video guy with a bag full of Sonys who believes with all of his heart that current, modern video demands instantaneous, locked-on AF. The SL would quickly drive him crazy. And his less than rigorous regard for memorizing camera controls means the unmarked buttons on the back of the SL will repeatedly mystify him at exactly the wrong times. Imagine camera flying into wall...

As you can see there's no way I can recommend the cameras I use (and like) knowing how he works with cameras in general. Any recommendation would be a disservice. 

And that's just the cameras themselves. Trying to convince him that the cameras are only half the puzzle and that an ample portion of what he likes in most of the photographs also comes from the Leica lenses. He loves lenses and the idea that the lenses he would really want in the system retail for about $5500 each would be incredibly frustrating. Especially since he likes lots of lenses with his systems. 

He's currently using Sony cameras and lenses and with the exception of the color science (which I think he can correct in post --- if willing) he seems right at home with them. I, on the other hand, dislike just about everything in the Sony camera line up. From the haptics to the menus to the color and the general build quality of the cameras (try finding a marked IP dust and moisture rating on one of them...). I could use them in a pinch but as far as nice camera bodies (not systems, just bodies) goes my first preference is the big Leicas followed by the bigger Panasonic S1 cameras and then the bigger Canons followed by the Nikon Z series and finally, in last place, the Sony cameras. 

For him the whole equation is exactly opposite. So why in the world would I believe myself to be at all capable of making any sort of smart camera system recommendation? I personally think he'd be thrilled with the Panasonic S1H and the Lumix lenses; especially since his full time job is all about making great video, but he bought into the (over blown) trauma and drama of Panasonic not having the perfect C-AF, a la PDAF, and won't touch em. 

On the other hand a neighbor recently asked me to recommend a camera for his wife. She doesn't currently have one and wanted one to photograph her (almost) grown kids, vacations, travel, some nature stuff, etc. I listened and thought that a good camera for her might be the Sony RX100 VII. Her husband and I looked at the camera and specs on B&H's website and he agreed that it looked pretty great to him. Small and light enough for travel but still possessed of a 200mm equivalent lens on the long end. I did advise him to keep all the boxes, packaging, bits and pieces and NOT to fill out the warranty cards. Lucky me. 

She didn't like the camera at all. Zoomed out to 200mm and decided that was far too short for her way of working. They're sending the camera back and have decided (with less input from me) to invest in a Sony A7iii camera, a standard zoom and a long Sony zoom that extends to 400mm. I would never have guessed. Especially since in our first talks the husband seemed price sensitive and it seemed that the $1299 for the first camera felt like a stretch to him. I should have known better than to take his budget sensitivity seriously. They are both high income professionals. 

So, each time I advise someone on cameras I strike out. I'm bad at figuring out what other people want and what they'll be most comfortable with. 

And it's dawned on me that I'm a bit of an eccentric when it comes to cameras and lenses. I like stuff that pushes back a bit. I like stuff that's built like a tank more than I like stuff that's just easy to carry. And I mostly like the idea of state of the art optics --- even if objectively they are not better than any other brand's top line stuff. I like weird, counterintuitive cameras. I like weird, vintage lenses. But I also like grossly expensive lenses too.

In fact, I think I really suck at helping people choose cameras. Or lenses. And I'm going to stop trying before I lose some of my otherwise kind and wonderful friends. And neighbors. 

I have just been telling everyone to use their phones. Or I give them the URL for DPReview and invite them to step into the maelstrom of subjective, brand terrorism on their own. Ah, the forae. 

A word to the wise: If I write about a camera or a lens here be sure to take any positivity you might sense in my appraisal with a massive block of salt. A mountain of salt.  Chances are that anything I profess to love will drive you crazy, not work the way you'd like, focus like a sloth, have limited dynamic range and cost you the equivalent of a small, but functional, used car. 

You have been warned. 

Coming up next on the blog: Why you must run out right now and buy a Pentax K-01 !!!!

(satire?)