I wrote about the Leica Q3 rumors on the 16th of the month. Here it is, the 25th of the month. The new camera has launched and it looks like most of my observations are right on.

 

Here's what a I wrote on the 16th: https://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-rumors-around-launch-of-leica-q3.html

Now for the confirmation blog. I woke up today and got to the pool before I opened up any social media, email or other spoilers and so I missed have the adrenaline hit of the initial announcement along with my coffee first thing. But by the time I got dried off and back home the web was all abuzz with stories and gushy paeans to the latest Leica camera; the Q3. 

The splash this time was much bigger than the splash provided for the Q2 back in 2019 and much, much bigger than the cautious launch of the original Q back in 2015. No wonder. The Q2 became, over the last four years, the best selling of all the Leica cameras on the market, trouncing sales of all the M cameras and, of course, all of the SL cameras. With the middle iteration being a profit magnet it seems prudent that Leica would see the point of making as many popular changes as they could because the price point provides an entry point into the Leica system that is the only way many frugal buyers can rationalize buying the brand. After all, the very good camera body coupled with a very, very good lens is less money to purchase than just about any of their other camera bodies alone. Although I have to point out that their SL2-S is currently about $400 less than the price of the Q3 --- but again, that's for a body without a lens. No dummies there at Leica's marketing department. 

What is fascinating to me is that the same web reviewers who were thrilled to be using the Leica Q2 and didn't really have many things they would have improved about that camera instantly realized (like, this morning) that now they couldn't possibly live without a flippy screen, or 61 megapixels, or USB or wireless charging. They had, one imagines, been horribly mislead about the nature of their own wants and needs. As Steve Jobs once said about market research (paraphrasing here...): "The consumer doesn't know what they want until we make it for them!" 

Several reviewers who were lukewarm in reviews of the last camera had done 108° turns and have now decided that the Leica Q3 is neither "Veblen Goods" or "Luxury Brand Merchandise" but now, at $6.000 for a fixed lens compact camera it represents a true bargain and a sought after "photographic tool." I chuckled. 

Good old Hugh Brownstone almost wet himself extolling the virtues of the Q3 as a video camera, only grudgingly adding that it was incomplete as the camera doesn't have a microphone or headphone jack... I can't imagine that one would rush to use the Q3 as a video camera given its limitations but the Leica marketers summoned up the magic words of the moment to fuel the fires of video desire: "It's got 8K!!!"

Now there are three ways to get your files out of a Q3. You can use the newly updated Fotos 4.0 app along with your iPhone, you can spool off those big files with a USB-C cable directly to your computer (no. you could not do that with the two previous models) or.....primitive man.....you could pluck the SD card out of the slot on the bottom of the camera an plunge it into an SD card reader. Options, options. 

Sidebar/Prediction: Leica will very soon launch a USB-C compatible dongle which will, like the one they came up with for the original SL, provide both a microphone port and a headphone port. It will be a simple device. They will charge $350 to $400 for this add-on.  

Speaking of economizing and cost savings there is one bit of news in all this that has me grinning at my good fortune. Leica have upgraded the battery in the Q3 to one that is about 20% more powerful but which can be used across the SL cameras and the Q2. Even better, the new battery is retailing here for about $170 USD instead of the gasping for air overpriced original SL and Q2 battery which was less powerful but cost $285.  Sadly, this "battery bargain" comes a bit late for me as I have, over the last three years, purchased about ten of the older batteries. Cumulatively about the price of an inexpensive new Leica lens for the SL cameras....

There have been improvements to the Q3 camera overall. I like the idea of being able to charge the battery in the camera. I like that the EVF has been upgraded from 3.68 million dots to nearly six million dots. 

Will I buy one of the new Q3s? Well, certainly not for their video capabilities. And not for the 61 megapixels imaging sensor (would love a Q2 with a 24 megapixel sensor, actually....). I'm pretty darn happy with the Q2. Which will continue to sell alongside the Q3 until current production units are depleted. I might wait for something new and different. It's almost time for Leica to refresh their SL2 and then, a year from now, the SL2-S. I'm thinking they're going to put those bodies on diets for the new revs. Something along the lines of what Panasonic did with the S5mk2. Lots of good tech but a much smaller and lighter footprint than that of the the S1, S1R and S1H. A trimmed down SL body with a sensor that is also optimized for rangefinder lenses would find, I think, a ready market among Leica users of all stripes.

I'm sure I'll break down and buy some sort of new camera this year. Maybe closer to my birthday. Given that I've spoiled myself in the past with impulsive Leica buying frenzies I'm coming to grips with the inevitable. Now I'm starting to buy store brand foods, I'm scanning for and clipping coupons for everything in an attempt to save every penny. We're keeping the air conditioning at 95°. The heating at 46°. If we dine out it's because we have in-app discount for Happy Meals at McDonalds. Instead of resoling shoes I just put on another layer of gaffer's tape. Anything I can do, budget-wise, to get closer to a cost that V-loggers assure me is now, suddenly, a bargain. 

As I'm sitting here browsing the rave reviews for the new product I can feel my own Q2 slowly turning to a goof ridden mush. An obsolete husk. How can I go on aimlessly photographing downtown buildings for the blog with "only" 47.5 megapixels of image resolution? My clients, seeing the old tech, will be so ashamed of me. 

Oh wait. Just a bad dream. My real plan? Buy a battery. Call it a day. 

Hey, thanks to a local reader I was able to meet up with a bright photography student who is passionate about photographing portraits. I gave her enough gear to get started out in the right direction. No strings attached. It was fun. It felt great to lighten my load and at the same time help out a person early on the path. The rest of the gear is currently in stasis and feels well balanced for my needs. Thanks for the advice and the direction.

Putting up clean glasses after doing the dishes. Two days a week of no adult supervision...

I like glassware that casts interesting shadows. 

I think I like it even better in color. There goes my 

rationale for wanting a Leica Monochrom Q2...

It's been an interesting day. I've been thinning out the inventory of equipment in preparation for donating some of the gear to an enterprising, young photographer, or two. The amazing thing is how quickly one builds up a hoard of equipment and, on the other hand, how little equipment one really needs in order to do photography well. 

Over the last thirty years or so one of my most used and underrated pieces of gear has been my background stand system. It's been everywhere with me and has held up countless rolls of seamless background paper, home made canvases and more muslin drapes than I can count. The background stands are staying with me. Basically two stands and a crossbar.  They are on their last legs. Almost an allegorical nod to the photographer. But they've done such good service that not letting them ride off into the sunset together would feel heartless. 

All the big flashes that plug into a wall socket are going away. I did a portrait session with one set yesterday, for old time's sake and then wrapped the cord, put the trigger on the pile and said "goodbye." The same with any number of soft boxes which seem to breed faster than bunnies. I have always both loved and hated soft boxes. So bitchy to set up but when positioned correctly, so sweet and easy to light with. (Maybe too easy....).

I'm keeping my LED lights as a reminder that I was right, and prescient, thirteen years ago when my publisher asked me what I would like to write new book about and I said, "the future will be LED lighting." And now they are everywhere. I like lighting with continuous light; especially for portraits. You see pretty much exactly what you are going to get while you are shooting your project. Once you've set up your lighting and dialed in your exposure you can turn off the automatic review on your digital camera and just get down to a more concentrated workflow. If nothing changes then nothing is going to change.

The big, C.O.B. LED lights I've ended up with (and will keep) are a joy to work with and have enough power to do anything but go toe-to-toe with sunlight. 

I'm getting rid of five different on-camera flashes. Too much mindless duplication. But I am keeping a couple of the small flashes that are dedicated to the Panasonic camera. They might come in handy when I'm asked to photograph an event. And I'm keeping three of the Godox AD200 Pro lights because they are useful and cute, and eminently portable and fun. I did order an adapter for them that allows me to attach two AD 200 Pro power sections to two bare tubes on one device which also doubles as a speed ring and stand adapter. It also gives my battery powered units a decent LED modeling light. So, with two of the AD200 Pros firing into one modifier you get the equivalent power of one 400 W/S flash. Just about right.

What I won't be thinning out just yet is the collection of seven cameras and a million weird lenses. Why? Because for some strange and unexplainable reason I like all of them. And I can carry them around and have fun with them. Eventually I'll distill the collection down. First on the chopping block will no doubt be the Panasonic Lumix 70-200mm f4.0 S lens. It's lovely! It has a tripod mount that works well and the lens itself is "Leica Certified"; whatever that means. But sadly, I haven't used it since I passed the torch on theater photography a year or so ago (it's always a process...). It just sits in an equipment drawer looking heavy and neglected. Same with the Panasonic 24-105mm zoom lens. Since the Leica 24-90mm Elmarit got here the Lumix has barely seen the light of day....or night. And so on, and so on. 

I wish I could get rid of the two, big filing cabinets next to my desk but they are filled with negatives, transparencies, hard drives, DVDs and CDs. I need to hire someone to go through them and dispassionately separate family photos from business stuff. One pile for disposal and one pile for keeping...

It feels good to reduce the pile of stuff. It doesn't at all diminish my joy for photography or my passion for taking photographs but at some point I realized that there are always sub-routines running in my brain trying to keep track of all the gear, when I last charged the endless parade of batteries, where all the adapters live and, in fact, I always feel a bit guilty when I buy stuff and then end up not using it. Or not using it enough. Everything has some sort of expiration date implied and something in my mental make-up is sensitive to the lost potential of a piece of gear that becomes wholly obsolete before it's actually used up. Even now I worry about how well I'm rotating through Leica batteries in order to keep them well formed and healthy. You can imagine how much brain power I waste worrying about ten times as many rechargeable batteries spread through the office and the gear bags. 

Wow. I just realized that this will create a lot more space in the office. Enough space for more lenses? I'm sure we'll find out. 

Why, today, does this feel to me like the last photo blog standing? Something wacky going on with the universe....

 

Every day is more exciting when we mix up cameras and lenses. Same camera everyday? Hmmm. Not for me.

 

today's little photo monster.

 Old, grizzled photographers are constantly advising newbies to find one camera that they like and one lens that they adore and to just use them forever. I think that's good advice for "year number one" but I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who has used enough cameras to feel pretty fluid with everything (except a camera with a Sony menu). If you've shot your 10,000 hours with one camera. Or your one millionth photo with a dozen or so cameras it's okay to admit that it's fun to mix stuff up. Play with new cameras and lenses, try new color profiles and what not. In my way of thinking using the same camera all the time is like watching the same movie every single evening. Or having the same sandwich for lunch every day. 

Right now I have seven cameras in my studio inventory. Of the seven two are duplicates of others in the drawer ( 2 x CLs and 2 x Leica SLs). But this means I have one different camera for each weekday; if I want to choose them that way. In reality I find myself using camera and a lens for a week or two at a time before I get bored and want to move on to a different set up. For the first time that I can remember all of my camera bodies take the same lenses, and all of my lenses fit on all my cameras ---- albeit some do so natively while some do so with adapters. 

But there really is no rationale for when I'll use one camera and when I'll dump it back in the drawer and pull out something else. It's not like I'm printing out spreadsheets of which cameras I have to use on specific days. I also don't have a camera/lens interchange matrix that I slavishly abide by. Instead, I might have a conversation with a photographer friend who mentions how much he likes the color and tonality he's getting from his Panasonic Sx camera. He might even show me a few examples. And I might really like them so that by the time I get back to my studio I'm primed to pull out the S5 and a couple lenses and reacquaint myself with them for a few days. Then I might remember how much I liked the finder on the SL2 and how much I like the way that camera and the 24-90mm lens work together and I'll ditch the Lumix and pick up the big Leica. 

This morning I did a studio portrait of a person whom I have photographed during his engagements with four previous companies. It was a fun, lighthearted portrait shoot during which we spent as much time catching up about new chapters in our lives, what our kids are up to, and which way technology is headed. He is a technologist by trade... I used the SL2 for the shoot along with the big zoom. And just to make it all seem official I used a big electronic flash monolight and a big octabox. So legit.

But after we'd shot the 200th frame and the third wardrobe change we wrapped up and did the "hail fellow, well met" thing and got on with the day. After lunch I wanted to go out and take some photographs just for fun but I having dragged around big cameras now for a couple of weeks and I was ready for a change. 

It dawned on me that while I've been going through a steamy affair with full frame cameras and classic  50mm lenses I hadn't given the little APS-C cameras and the new (to me) Carl Zeiss 35mm f2.0 Biogon much of a try out. In fact, the last time I used that pretty little lens was a few days ago with big SL2. How would it feel to go back to the smaller camera and the smallest "normal lens" equivalent I have for the "cropped format"?

LSS (long story short) I loved changing it all up today. I grabbed the closest CL, added a front grip and a rear thumbgrip, stuck an extra battery in a pocket and clicked on the little Zeiss 35mm. The total volume of that system is about half that of the SL2 with one of my many "real" 50mm lenses mounted on front. But I had forgotten that the CL is robustly built and has a lot of heft for its size. Nothing like the full frame cameras but still enough to let you know the camera is there and it's serious. 

I was using the lens with a Leica branded M to L mount adapter. Happily, the adapter is well calibrated and the distance scale on the lens lines up with reality perfectly. Or as close to perfect as I am able to eyeball. 

This meant (deliriously happy here) that I could zone focus the lens all day long. And doing the zone focusing with the lens set to f8.0 meant that I could just put the focusing ring at 15 feet and everything from about 7 feet to infinity would be in acceptable focus! Geez. It's like having a fully automatic camera. 

Variable rust tone grating. The newest fad...?

Yes. You can comfortably use the Carl Zeiss 35mm Biogon wide open at f2.0.

Just be sure to take a moment to focus carefully...

There is more depth of field on an APS-C system. Good for keeping everything sharp.

While I photograph this building (the Frost Bank Tower) often it's a fine building and 

it looks different depending on the prevailing light.

I'm confused. Is "Overhead Work" work that one does to cover the overhead? Or does it mean, literally, that work is over my head? (Two different meanings there....). 

Zone focused and displayed here just for nerd fun.

I'm happy I tried this combination. I shot in Jpeg and none of the files exhibited any of the color shift across the frame that I sometimes run into when using this lens on full frame cameras. Not having to worry about corner/edge color shift makes using the lens that much more fun.

The Carl Zeiss 35mm f2.0 Biogon is NOT a "modern" lens in that it was not, I think, designed with digital sensors in mind. In fact, it was designed to be a companion lens for the Zeiss Ikon 35mm film rangefinder camera that came onto the market in somewhere around 2004-2005 and has since been discontinued. At the time Zeiss brought forward a whole group of M mount rangefinder lenses (labelled "ZM") to use with that camera. Film is much, much more forgiving at the edges and the corners of the image frames. Film can "see" more oblique light rays while digital image sensor pixels exist in individual "wells" that have depth. Image forming light gets trickier to direct when there are obstacles to the light path... You can also see these kinds of effects when using non-telecentric lenses with digital cameras that have very thick filter packs in front of their sensors. Sony cameras are pretty well known for providing less than optimal results with wide angle lenses that are not retrofocus designs. Most of the degradation of image occurs in the outer parts of the frames.

If I were to depend on full frame digital cameras only, and had to use these cameras as my only work tools I would not, after having experienced some of these optical foibles, buy "pre-modern" wide angle lenses for client work. The color shift across the frame is tough to fix. In black and white it's never a problem but....

The one camera I have used that works around any of these problems is the Sigma fp. If you look in the menu you can find a feature that allows you to take an older lens (any lens, really), shoot a white target and then have the camera calculate and make a profile for that particular lens which fixes the color shift across the frame. I've used the feature. It actually works! And it works well. Which leads me to believe that Sigma is one of the few camera makers who takes into consideration the wide range of lenses that artists like to work with. 

Used on a cropped frame camera the 35mm Biogon is very sharp and delivers nice color and rich detail. If you also shoot with M mount rangefinders I'm sure you'll find it to be a great addition to your kit at a price far below those from Leica. If you just love the look of this series of ZM lenses but want the control and precision of a mirrorless full frame camera you might want to look at pairing them with the Sigma fp or fpL cameras. They would be a nice match where excellent optical performance is the primary goal. The color shift is not a "fault". It's part of a design compromise for a lens that's meant to be used with film cameras but pressed into service on cameras with a different set of technical constraints. 

Interestingly, many, many new cameras and new AF lenses also have color shifts across their frames but are software corrected in both raw and Jpeg formats to hide this. More graciously I should say: "they are optimized as part of a unified system to take care of this intentional shifting in order to better fit the constraints of current lens design criteria --- including budgets." If you want to splash out some cash and subscribe to Reid's Reviews there is much discussion there of color shift in modern cameras and lenses. I'm not howling at the moon by myself. 

Now off to try the 28mm ZM on the Sigma fp to see how well it corrects for the older lens design. 

Health news: Today is filled with medical excitement. At 10:10 I have an appointment to get a second pneumonia vaccine. It's the latest formulation and doesn't require as frequent boosters as the previous generation. I think most people over 50 would do well to get a pneumonia vaccine as those nasty bacteria are frequent killers of people checking into hospitals, or trying to recover from respiratory events. Free with Medicare. 

Second up. After lunch, the yearly eye exam. This year I'm headed over to Warby Parker to get the exam done because I've trashed my usual pair of bifocals and need to replace them. And you know I am so, so, so fashion forward. No Texas State Prison eyeglass frames for me. Mixing shopping and prevention. Who knew healthcare could be so much fun? This time....progressives. 

Divestment news: One of my local VSL readers got me in touch with a young, aspiring but under-equipped portrait photography student/early stage professional. I'm meeting with her tomorrow to fill in some big gaps in her needed gear inventory. Finally! I get to lighten the load a bit. Remind me not to run out and "refill" my studio lighting inventory/prescription in a few weeks....  Time to do some cord cutting.

It's starting to get warmer in Austin. Summer is on the way. Must buy more cool hats. No Tilleys. They are NOT covered by Medicare. 

Final thought. The Leica CL is a great little system camera. I have the full range of Sigma Contemporary lenses for that format. All in the L mount. It's the best travel system I can imagine. Glad I pulled one of the cameras out of the drawer for a bit of rediscovery. 

Sunday organization stops in its tracks as I find a new trove of B. photos from 1979.

 

Muse caught while painting in the studios at UT's College of Fine Arts.

 Art students spent a lot of evening/night time working hard on their projects. While the business majors were out drinking beer the artists were mixing paint, putting gesso on canvases and drinking coffee. You can argue but you would be wrong. It's still the same today. All the cool people seem to work harder.  Artists are motivated by a passion for their projects. Non-artists seem motivated by greed and fear. 

Some of the artists were very beautiful. I've always been amazed by this one in particular...

Sunday morning observation while wading through boxes and boxes of prints from the late 1970's.

Checking out the new adapter and a relatively new lens. How? With photos, of course.

I've been buying up rangefinder lenses lately. Don't know why except that I like the small sizes and the high center sharpness. One thing to be aware of is that most rangefinder lenses, designed for film, have rear elements that sit very close to the sensor planes of modern cameras. The light rays that reach the sensor edges do so at a very oblique angle which means there will be vignetting. Also, some are not as well corrected for even color across the sensor plane so one can experience color drift across the frames. This is mostly seen in the corners. Because of their thick filter packs it's not recommended that one use rangefinder lenses on Sony's current cameras. Just an FYI.

Because of the color shift across the sensor I tend to use these rangefinder lenses with cameras set to raw. The raw files allow me to use dedicated lens profiles in Lightroom Classic. You don't get the same options when processing Jpeg files. It's a good reason to shoot raw when using this older tech.

I didn't really pay as much attention as I should have to some of the issues that crop up when using lenses initially designed for film rangefinders. I have successfully adapted several different types of SLR and DSLR lenses to L mount cameras with complete success. These include Canon FD lenses and a range of Nikon F lenses (any Nikon lens, or Voigtlander lens in a Nikon F mount, that has an external aperture ring!). These adaptations give good results and it's only a very rare lens that shows any color shift across the sensor. I expected to get the same performance from M mount rangefinder lenses adapted to the L mount. It didn't work out that way. I had some "teething issues" getting started.

The first M mount lens I picked up was a brand new Voigtlander 40mm f1.4 Nokton lens. I bought an inexpensive, Urth M to L mount adapter and then took that lens and a Panasonic S5 on a vacation trip to Vancouver. I didn't notice until I got to my destination that the lens in the adapter was able to focus past infinity. That's okay, I guess. I'm pretty vigilant about nailing exact focus so not having the hard stop wasn't a disaster. But it did preclude my sometimes practice of zone focusing. I couldn't depend on the distance scale on the lens. It was all shifted by about 3 or 4 feet away from infinity (and beyond). This also altered the system's close focusing abilities. Now I could not focus anywhere near as close as I should have been able to. 

I never had a focus issue with any of the dozens of adapters I've been using since around 2009 so my first thought was that the lens was mis-calibrated. But then I read grumblings around the web about the "inaccuracy" of M mount adapters when it comes to focusing. Many makers of the adapters can machine their products to high standards but choose engineer them to allow lenses to focus past infinity because poorly calibrated rangefinder cameras are sometimes part of the problem. Armed with the consensus that there is wild variation in the calibration of the adapter rings for M lenses I experimented with two different varieties of Fotodiox adapters and also an additional Urth adapter. All of them allowed for focusing beyond where infinity should have been. All limited my close focusing capability.

My next step was to borrow a couple of Leica M lenses which were known to be very accurately focus calibrated. They exhibited the same behavior as the 40mm VM lens. At that point I came to understand that adapter makers live in fear that their customers won't be able to focus on infinity so they err in that direction while gutting the attached lenses' close focusing abilities. An interesting trade-off.

In all my reading there were two exceptions to the prevailing fashion of adapter compromise. One was from Hoage. They make an M to L adapter that does hit right at infinity but also provides a helicoid ring that allows for a range of close focusing distances as well. Adapter meets close focus ring. I ordered one for $89 and tested it. It's perfect. It's perfect as long as you make sure the helicoid is set for infinity. If you bump the assemblage in the camera bag or with your hand you will end up moving the ring off infinity and into the close-up regions. That's fine if you are carefully focusing through an EVF but if you are using zone focusing techniques it can make for a lot of out-of-focus frames... A LOT.

I liked the accurate infinity focus stop of the Hoage adapter and bought a second one for one of the other rangefinder lenses I've recently picked up. 

But the other exception to the sloppy adapter rings was the one I heard most often and that was about the Leica branded M to L adapter. While all the other adapters are "dumb" adapters that transfer no information between lens and cameras the Leica model has pass through electronic contacts that allow a Leica lens with coding (lens model) to communicate with a Leica camera. Across all the current interchangeable lens cameras. Attach a current Summicron via the Leica adapter and it will tell your Leica SL2 or M11 which lens it is and what kind of profile it needs to cut down on vignetting, correct distortion and cure color shift across the frame. While this is all well and good for Leica owners with recent vintage M series Leica lenses all it does for me in the moment is add cost to an adapter. 

But I decided to buy one to see if it was as accurate as so many other users declared. Would it stop neatly and accurately at infinity? Was it worth a new price of $450? Was it worth the $325 I paid for a mint condition used one?

The Leica adapter arrived yesterday around noon and after a hard day at the office (nap, novel reading, web browsing, snacking) I attached the adapter to an SL2 on one side and the Carl Zeiss 35mm f2.0 Biogon ZM to the other side and walked over to the UT Campus area to make a bunch of photos before the light faded away. 

Yes. The Leica adapter is as accurate as its reputation suggests. I can confidently hit infinity and I can also, happily, zone focus. I kind of expected, for the price, that it would deliver. 

But, since the adapter is not transferring any information from the lens to the camera I found that some of the corners of Jpeg images had turquoise color casts. I switched to (dot)DNG (raw files) and then pasted the exact lens correction found in the Lightroom lens profiles across the entire folder of imported files. It worked very well. Now I could get to work post processing without distraction. The profile cleaned up things nicely!

I'll likely use this adapter most with the 40mm and 35mm lenses since I use them most. When I shoot with the CZ 28mm Biogon ZM lens I am slower and more careful so I'll be fine using the Hoage adapter with that one. I reflexively check the adapter now, from time to time, to make sure it's firmly stopped at infinity. I tend to shoot more off the cuff with the other two lenses. The Leica adapter will compensate for my sloppy handling.

So, what have I found out about shooting with the 35mm lens now that I have a proper adapter in the mix? That it's quite sharp, the colors are very rich, the size and layout are perfect for me, and that I like the lens very much. So, all good here. Now ready to go out shooting --- as soon as that new passport hits the mail box. 

Swim comments and more below....

St. Austin's Church is somewhere on the other side of this protected 

pedestrian walkway. Hence the paintings on this side. Always lots of color 

in urban Austin. 

If you take a moment to enlarge and really look at the image just above you'll see that the 

lens profile works well, that the lens is quite sharp, and that the colors are wonderful.

The SL2 really is a nice camera to use with the rangefinder lenses. It's nice to be

able to view through a very high resolution EVF. 

At one point, in the late 1970's, I lived at the 21st Co-op. It was pretty modern back then. And very "green" for the times. We actually had a solar water heating system which consisted of most of the roof areas covered by metal boxes which had black pipes running their lengths in between mirrored reflectors. The sun would heat the pipes which would heat the water and the water was then pumped into a 20,000 gallon, very well insulated, storage tank. The system worked well. Even in the winter month (not a typo.. it really only got very cold about one month out of the year). 

Since it was a co-op we all had to sign up for jobs. My girlfriend and I volunteered to cook breakfast twice a week for nearly 60 residents. We even made donuts from scratch one day. It was a fabulous place to live and only a five minute walk to campus. 

The 21st Street CO-OP is still there. Now it's behind metal gates and it's starting to show its age.

The 21st Street property was one of many co-op living set-ups close to campus. A "flagship" in its day. Some others were a lot more barebones. The next two images are just details of another old house adjacent to 21st Street which is also a co-op. It's a fun idea for housing and dining. You just have to make sure that your co-op is organized and that everyone pulls their own weight....

Around the corner from my old co-op is the Ark co-op. It's bigger and used to be the Tri-Delta sorority house back in the 1960s. It's built around a big central court yard with a swimming pool. Friday and Saturday parties at the poolside were legend around campus. The Ark is where several of my friends and I built a co-operative darkroom, complete with an Omega D2 Enlarger. Legend is that the room we converted to a fully functional darkroom was once the dorm room of actor, Farah Fawcett. The rumor was that she was expelled from the Tri-Delts for sleeping with an African American football player. Never solidly proven but still a rumor swirling around the property to this day....

Sadly, the darkroom is no longer there. Sign of the times. 

The area just to the West of the UT campus is now a jungle of enormous dormitories that are more like luxury hotels than any dorm I ever set foot in. I walked by one multi-story development that even featured valet parking for the students. Must be nice....Gotta take care of those Lambos.

Swim news. Another gray day. The water was too warm at 83°. But one of my favorite coaches was on deck and writing a fun workout. J.T. swam for UT and graduated about a year and a half ago. He's working for a software company but still coaches Saturday mornings and fills in at other times. 

He writes workouts that mix up short and long distance sets so we get some endurance work mixed with speed work. I did too much ab strength training at the gym on Thursday and I could really feel it as I stretched out and swam freestyle this morning. It's always a bittersweet experience to do good strength training. Mostly sweet and not very bitter. You get to be sore but you also get to experience a better core, more stroke control and better rotation in your stroke. Some core work and a lot of lat work and you can count on faster swims. 

Ben recommends doing push ups every day. 50 or 60 of them. Now that I'm spending time at the gym doing strength training I've lowered my push-up target to two sets of 20. That seems to be enough to maintain for now. 

All good here. No other news to report. Not yet, anyway.

 

 

New Hobby: Tossing out stuff. Trying to figure out how to give away gear in a milieu when no one really wants studio lights, softboxes and light stands....

I find myself embarrassingly over-equipped given my desire to simplify and reduce clutter. How to manage bags full of generic speed lights (on camera flashes...) and their attendant batteries and chargers? I tried to donate them to four of the many colleges we seem to have here in Austin. I thought they could stick 'em in a box in the photo classes and students could take whatever they needed. But no takers. No longer any big programs just dedicated to photography. And not much interest from dept. heads for on camera flashes.

Then there is the overstock of LED light fixtures. I really only need to keep a couple for my own projects and I never intend to do another paid video project (such a thankless undertaking...) but here I am with four excess, mono-light style fixtures that plug in the wall. But in the current stages of image creation no one seems interested in anything that has to be plugged in. 

And I'm just getting started when it comes to modifiers for lights and other accessories. My tastes tend toward big units. Six foot umbrellas. Seven foot diameter octa-boxes. Six foot by six foot scrims. C-stands (no! I'm not shipping them to you. They weigh ton and you don't need them!). Again, no takers. Not even considering that they would be free.

When it comes to cameras I don't have any issues. Cameras and lenses are small enough to store anywhere and given the cyclical nature of my attention I know I'll pretty much always circle back to re-discover them again and again. 

I used to depend on the local camera store to somehow get unwanted stuff to young photogs just starting out, and to students, but they laid off my favorite sales associate (of the last 15 years) and have also become quite mercenary. The original owners (whom I loved) sold the store to a right wing business zealot who will gladly accept free gear donations but none of them will ever see the hands of a needy first year photographer. Nope, he'd doubtless move whatever I "donated" straight on to the sales floor. And I'd rather just leave the stuff in the street for someone to find than to support the new, fascist, retail regime. In fact, I've gone from trying to buy everything locally to giving up on the far right bricks and mortar owner and sourcing everything but seamless backdrop paper from B&H or some other straightforward, high service organization.

If you are in Austin and wanna be a photographer, and are in school or just out of school, drop a line and we'll see if there is anything you can use. Otherwise, we'll leave it in a pile somewhere near where local, young photographers congregate. 

To recap. Excess gear = bad. Donating = futile. Cameras and lenses = still coveted. Almost all the stuff I want to get rid of is too heavy to cost effectively ship to anyone. And if you read this blog you don't need it because, demographically, you can likely to be able to afford better stuff-- and probably want better stuff. Don't ask me for a list; it's not forthcoming. But if you have ideas for disposing of unwanted gear in local markets, drop a comment.

Today's gear news: The Leica M to L adapter arrived today from CameraWest and was immediately pressed into use putting a Carl Zeiss 35mm f2.0 Bigon ZM lens onto the front of a Leica SL2. It's a wonderful package as the lens makes the whole of the system that much smaller and lighter. Now heading out to shoot it and confirm accurate infinity focusing. If Leica can't get it right with a $450 adapter ring then I'm giving up. 

That's all the news I've got fit to print. Have fun out there.