My blog readers are so darn smart --- sometimes I think they should be writing the content for the blog.

 

They certainly have opinions about what I should write about and what I shouldn't... Maybe they are right.

If it's "Black Friday" it must be time to shop for cowboy boots. At least, that's what they (the public) seem to do in Austin, Texas.

 

I was out for a late afternoon stroll down South Congress Ave. I'd brought along an almost forgotten camera and a simple but glorious lens. The camera was the Panasonic S5 (original model) and the lens was the Sigma 90mm f2.8. After months of toying around with various Leicas and one big, chunky medium format camera I decided to see what I was missing while pal-ing around with "Veblen" goods. Turns out that the S5, combined with the Sigma 90mm, is quite a good combination. 

There was a crowd in Allen's Boots so, being an extrovert, I had to wade into the crowd and take photographs of the hot products of the day. Would I wear them? Oh hell no! I was snuggly and happy in a well broken in pair of Birkenstock sandals over a warm pair of wool socks. But the boots sure did look fun. And the mostly female crowd of shoppers seem to think they'd found a batch of essential items. Price be damned. 

The S5 is smaller and lighter than the Leica SLs. The viewfinder is of lower resolution. But the sensor is right on the money and the ability to use the L mount lenses makes it a fun "extra" for my toy chest of cameras. I have white hair now. No one pays attention to me at all if I walk into the middle of their bustling, busy store and spend half an hour making hundreds of photographs. Always looking for the silver lining....just didn't know it would be under my hat!

off searching for more pecan pie. Hope your weekend is filled with fun photographs...

They are right outside your door.

Neophobic. Fearing new things.

 

Renae with my ancient Seagull camera.

Lately, for what might be good reason, many "experienced" photographers have rallied to the cause of damning generative A.I. all the while demanding its partial inclusion in their own post production applications. Seems they'd like just a tad of A.I. magic in their noise reduction, subject separation and content aware fill, but not so much that it might threaten the sovereignty of their own "hand-crafted" creativity. But the reality is that every move forward in technology is one more angle of "slide" on the slippery slope of change. 

I've been playing around with making black and white files from modern, full  color digital cameras. The lure of black and white images is strong with photographers of a certain age. And, in truth, the graphic nature of a good black and white image is alluring to nearly all lovers of photography. But the decision to completely repudiate and remove color from our tools strikes me as the height of craft folly. Sure, I get that you might love working in black and white and intend that for all your art work. In a way it makes sense. But intentionally hobbling a camera's abilities can be self defeating, especially when a color file, as a starting point, allows for the use of color channels to make a more convincing, final black and white image than one generated by a camera with a monochrome sensor. You are effectively tossing out a whole range of creative tools in order to embrace....dogma. 

Many who do this think it's a way of making a stand against the forward creep of technology. That this engineering retardation of sensors will stand as a buffer of sorts against the introduction of ever newer technology which threatens long time practitioners by dint of requiring them to evolve their methodologies. Their approach to imaging. Their idea of work.  I get that this can be scary. And there is a word for it. It's: Neophobic.

I've been trying out all manner of ways to get to "black and white." What I've found is that modern color cameras, matched up with current post processing tools, or even just great profile "recipes" in camera, can actually do as good or better of a job making black and white images as the cameras dedicated to just making black and white images. 

I was out last week with the Fuji GFX camera and I had it set to make (very convincing) Tri-X style black and white Jpegs. The argument for having a dedicated B&W camera is that your eye and your brain, when used in conjunction with a black and white only camera, condition themselves to look only for subject matter that is considered to be appropriate for monochrome-only output. But the reality is that a lot of photography just works much, much better in color. 

I would walk down the street looking for certain subjects or light contrasts, or graphics shapes and constructions and I could find them easily enough but for every cool black and white "friendly" subject I came upon I stumbled across dozens and dozens of images in which color was a significant driver of interest and overall photographic success in a subject. Should I just walk on by lots of potentially great images in order to satisfy an intellectual and arbitrary practice construction created and implemented mostly to harken back to the days in which color film was iffy and expensive, black and white cheaper and more friendly to DIY? But why? Now we can have our color cake and convert it to delicious black and white gateau as well. Double duty from one frame. Twice as delicious.

I toyed with the idea of buying a Leica M Monochrom camera all week long. One in particular was in and out of my shopping cart so often I'm assuming it developed vertigo. But in the end, after looking at my own photo catalogs, with hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of images, I found that my interest in black and white is only occasional and in nearly all cases an image I wanted to see in black and white didn't suffer from having started life as a color one. Not in the least. So, in the end, I have largely decided (always subject to sudden change) that I'd rather have another identical M 240 so I can do another last century affectation and carry two cameras around at once. One with a 28mm lens attached and the other with a 35mm or 50mm lens attached. Both set to make raw files. Both highly capable of rendering files in very pleasing and convincing black and white. No brain change required. 

I'm heading out now to go one more round with the Fuji MF set to "Tri-X". It's a fun exercise. The images look very good ---- when a subject is complicit. But, I'm not locked into the B&W cult. If I see a blood red font on a bright blue sign bookended by one beautiful woman with purple hair on one side and a second women, with lavender hair, on the other side I can pretty much guarantee you that I'll be making a color shot of the scene. Just makes sense. And keeps me from developing Neophobia; at least as it regards the relentless forward march of aesthetics. 

On a different note: I hope everyone had a wonderful and conflict free Thanksgiving and maybe took a moment to think about all the things they are grateful for. I spent the day with extended family, down in San Antonio and I can't imagine how the day could have been more pleasant. Even the drive down was a rare exception from the usual Mad Max nature of the IH-35 freeway. I didn't over-indulge but.....there is one more piece of rum, chocolate pecan pie in the fridge. If no one has claimed it by now it's mine!!!

I have too much to be thankful for to get it all mapped out in one blog post. Life has been mostly (almost completely) spectacular for me. Now, if I can manage to gracefully retire from working I'll have nailed it. Life is too short not to enjoy every single day. Living in the moment is a skill. I'm not perfect at that yet but I keep practicing. Not looking forward or backwards but staring into the kind eyes of right now. 

Made easier with an emotional support camera over one shoulder.

One sentence blog posts seem to be a thing now. Let's see what I can do with that.... Here's a quick peek at the output of the Carl Zeiss ZM 35mm f2.0 Biogon lens. Blog O' the day...

 

I like this lens because: It's quite small and makes the camera it's mounted on look bigger; it's sharp as a weasel's teeth; it has a lovely contrast overall; if focuses very accurately on my M series camera; it was very affordable compared to used Leica M lenses; it uses the same hood and filters as the 40mm f1.4 Voigtlander lens: the aperture ring and focusing ring are both delightful to use: it has a very neutral coloration; but mostly because it makes very lovely photographs and can be used, with adapters, on most of the cameras I own; in fact, all of them; well, except for the Fuji GFX.

Methinks, perchance, that was all in one sentence. Scholars can now debate.

Austin Ballet Traditions. 

A bar."Cockfight." Nice paint colors.

Bring on the colors. 

fini.

Emotional Support Camera.

 I realize that many of you; perhaps most of you, are so well grounded and so mentally healthy that the idea of any sort of additional emotional support might seem strange; even laughable. But some of us are not so fortunate. We have various phobias or anxieties that can interfere when things get rough. Or just make things worse.

A couple of decades ago I had a serious medical event and ended up in the emergency department of a local hospital. Then spent a week in intensive care. But on my way to the hospital I grabbed for my "security blanket." My old, crusty, Leica M3 and its 50mm Summicron lens. I kept it with me during my entire stay. It was a comforting companion. 

Back then I had a needle phobia. Stick me with an IV needle or even jab me with a simple injection and chances are I would immediately be in danger of hitting the floor and passing out. Either that or projectile vomiting. But somehow, with my camera in my hands I could make it through all the puncturing and injecting without falling completely apart. 

I can't remember taking any photographs during my stay. If I did they have not surfaced and most likely didn't survive.  And since my hair was a mess I'm glad I don't have to violate my own privacy and show selfies from that time. But I'm also glad that I kept my camera close and by focusing on it reduced my fears and trepidations about medical procedures. And the specter of a possible, untimely demise. 

Having something besides whatever catastrophe is unfolding in your life, that's out of your control, gives you an external thing upon which to focus. The distraction is a great thing. And the memory of your past time with the object of your distraction also brings back good feelings. Also medicinal. 

But, of course, most of you are immune to the foibles of being only human. And so maybe an Emotional Support Camera is unnecessary for you. That's nice.

Me? I still keep an ESC handy. You never know when you might need a good diversion from something less than fun. While my ESC at the time was a Leica I think any camera which you've used a lot and like a lot works well. I might have done equally well with the old Canonet QL17. But keep your ESC small enough to handle with one hand. Just in case the other hand is immobilized by an IV. Experience...

Sure. A Leica for a psychological support prop is expensive. But I'd rather have a prescription for a nice camera than for a bottle of Xanax.

Hope you have a fun and carefree Thanksgiving. Watch out for those "top ten" lists. They are sure to hit soon. 

Trying out the FujiXWeekly recipe for the Tri-X film emulation for Fuji cameras. Camera used is the Fuji GFX 50Sii. The recipe was originally created for use with X-tran sensor cameras. Seems to work fine here.

 

So, FujiXweekly is an app that is free to download from the Apple Store or the Google Play store. It gives you literally hundreds of "recipes" for setting your Fuji camera so that it works just like your favorite film in your favorite camera. It's aimed at Fuji camera users because it uses settings specific to Fuji camera menus in order to create the final profile. 

Here's a sample: (paragraph below from the FujiXweekly.com website). 

"I found that this recipe looks best when set to ISO 1600 or higher. From ISO 1600 to 3200, the results more resemble newer Tri-X 400 film. From ISO 6400 to ISO 12800, the results more resemble older Tri-X 400 film. I want to give a big thank-you to Anders Lindborg for creating this recipe, and sharing it—you are appreciated! Thank you!

Acros (+Y, +R, +G)
Dynamic Range: DR200
Highlight: 0
Shadow: +3
Noise Reduction: -4
Sharpening: +1
Clarity: +4
Grain Effect: Strong, Large
Color Chrome Effect: Strong
Color Chrome Effect Blue: Off
White Balance: Daylight,+9 Red & -9 Blue
ISO: ISO 1600 – 12800
Exposure Compensation: +1/3 to +1 (typically)"

The selection of film recipes is in no way limited to black and white or "monochrome." I like this Tri-X recipe so I tweaked it to my taste and saved it into on of the four available custom settings. Now, when I feel the desire to be more Robert Frank-ish I spin the dial from "A" to C1 and I'm ready to shoot.

As far as I know the apps on both platforms are free. If you have trouble with the phone apps or you are religiously or philosophically opposed to apps in general you could go to FujiXweekly.com and scroll around till you find the recipes you want. Just thought I'd share this so you can try a different way to dive into black and white imaging without tearing your hair out.

If you are going to browse the images please consider looking at them on a big screen. Thanks!