Photographed at Allen's Boots, I wanted to see once more how the
Sigma 56mm handled shooting wide open and whether or not a fast
shutter speed combined with auto ISO would be a decent alternative
to built in image stabilization. Seems to work fine.
I'd forgotten just how nice the colors and the tonalities in the Jpeg and raw files of the Leica CL could be. And I found myself loving the ability to shoot with the electronic shutter at speeds up to 1/25,000th of a second. It's like having a non-fiddly, built-in, always clean, neutral density filter at my disposal.
The camera has a 24 megapixel sensor and does a decent job at handling high ISO noise. Even better now that Lightroom Classic has a "next gen" A.I. flavored DeNoise feature. It only works on the raw files but I can routinely shoot a couple more stops worth of high ISO without seeing much in the way of artifacts or weirdness in smooth areas. The one fault I was reminded of yesterday was the short battery life, but it's offset by the fact that the battery isn't exclusive to the CL but is widely used by Panasonic and Sigma so there are many options for far less pricey batteries than those available from Leica. You can go really cheap and source batteries from Watson and Wasabi Power but I kinda draw the line at the top tier camera makers' products. About $40 a battery. My solution to the less than optimal battery endurance is to just stick a couple of extras in my pocket, camera bag or back pack. Bonus! The same battery is also used in one of my other favorite cameras; the Sigma fp (where the battery life is no better).
Re: Appearances. Several people noticed my camera and asked me if it was a vintage film camera. Its resemblance to just post WW2 Leica screw mount rangefinder cameras is pretty obvious.
Can you get shallow depth of field with a 56mm lens?
I'd say yes.
After an exhausting 30 minutes of casual snapshot photography I decided it was time to take a short break and rest my weary bones. Or, I just walked by Jo's Coffee and saw these really delicious looking apple tarts. Had to have one. Had to have coffee to wash it down with. And to paraphrase Hemmingway: "And it was good."
A deep dive into previous century lit at Jo's.
And, of course, the mannequins were out in full force. Animated by Formula One, The "No Kings" march in downtown and also "game day" at UT Austin. They all seemed sparkier than usual.
Which gets us all the way over to the Hermés store.
The windows are restrained and almost generic but I may be missing something.
The oscilloscope was actually working and showing sine waves so that
much was legit...
After several days of revisiting the CL I have to say that it's nice to have such a compact but powerful camera to tote around when I'm more interested in the whole idea of a good walk and not just focused on a particular photography project. The variety of APS-C Sigma lenses for L mount is an added bonus for me. Next time out I think I'll lean on the 30mm f1.4. It's a nice 45mm full frame equivalent.
Swim practice was good this morning. Lots of yardage. Not too crowded.
Nicely crafted sets on the white board. Good lane mates. Although that spot
where the dermatologist biopsied Thursday stung a bit when I first dived in...
Now chilling out and waiting on a delivery from The Leica Store Miami.
Nothing big. Just a used M to L lens adapter. I wanted one for both of
the SL2 bodies so I could put an APO 35mm VM on one and the APO 50mm VM on the second one.
Tired of changing lenses in the streets and then having to deal with sensor dust.
Always an experiment. Sometimes it works and sometimes not...
No comments:
Post a Comment