Just a quick notice. I"m leaving for Montreal in the morning tomorrow. I will NOT be taking an iPad, Laptop or other electronic writing device. This means that the blog will go silent until the late afternoon of October 3rd. Just thought you'd want to know.

 

I packed up on Saturday. You know, so I could fuss around with the idea of different cameras in the time in between. As it turns out I got food poisoning on Saturday evening and am just now on a good path to recovery. Not an auspicious start... But it did mean that I didn't waste time second guessing my camera or clothes packing. 

Feeling much better today but totally low energy; which is almost foreign to me. Everything else is fine.

observation about the Carl Zeiss ZM lenses when used on an actual M series digital camera. What happened to the color shift across the frame?

 a few months back I was pretty excited about picking up two mint condition, Carl Zeiss wide angle lenses that were designed to work with Leica M mount cameras (and, I think, also with the Zeiss ZM camera, which was a short lived product...). I bought a barely used 28mm f2.8 and an even less used 35mm f2.0 Biogon. That's back when I started experimenting more with various adapters. M to L mount, in particular. 

I used the lenses on a couple of Leica SL bodies and also on the Sigma fp. But even when I shot .DNG and developed the files using the lens profiles made for them, in Lightroom, I got some obvious color shifting across big swaths of the corners of the frames. This problem never appeared with the Voigtlander 50mm APO lens and it was most obvious with the 28mm lens. With the Sigma you can calibrate the color shifting by creating a file -- shooting a white target and letting the camera create a "workable" profile. But the ones from the 28mm were never quite perfect. 

when I put the 28mm lens on the Leica M240 everything cleared up. I set the lens profile in the camera. There is not one exactly for the Carl Zeiss lens in the M camera ---- they are, after all, competitors. But I found that one of the profiles for a recent, non-aspherical Leica 28mm worked just fine. And, if you are shooting raw/.DNG there is a more exact profile in Lightroom for that lens on the M body. Winner.

There is some variation in tone in the image above but no color shifting. It's just the normal variation you would see in the sky if you were actually a lens and a camera. 

I tried the same basic process with the Carl Zeiss 35mm Biogon and found it to be without any color shift as well.. 

So there is a reason after all to use lenses designed expressly for M cameras on M cameras. They work better. 

I'm packing the two Zeiss lenses and the Voigtlander 50mm f2.0 APO for the M240, for photographing in Montreal. I'l also taking the Q2 along as a back-up camera/lens combination. One small, dull green Domke F1 bag in the rugged finish. With an additional coat of wax on the top lid. Packed and ready now. 

I know, I know. I'm a couple days early. Still time to second guess myself, dump everything out and just take the SL2 and the 24-90mm lens. But I don't think so. Not this time. 

Med-info. My arm is sore from the Covid vaccine. And my head hurts. And I'm pretty wrung out today. But I did make it up at 7 and into the pool by 8. We got in a leisurely 2,900 yards. I've already returned a carry-on suit case I didn't like to Amazon. I ate a donut. First time in years. Tasted great while I was chewing it but the sugar rush was obnoxious. My arm is feeling better by the hour. 

I hope I recover by 6 pm. My friend, Keith Carter, is having an opening reception for his new photo book. It's at the Steve Clark gallery. Gotta show my face. And, I think his latest book, published by the University of Texas Press, will be amazing. Fun with Fine Art Photography. In person. As it should be.