I like this series from a café directly across from the Pantheon in Rome.

 All material ©2026 Kirk Tuck and presented exclusively at www.visualsciencelab.blogspot.com  If you are reading this on another site, without proper attribution, it is not an authorized use of the material. If you are reading this on unauthorized site DO NOT CLICK on any links in the body copy as it may infect your computer with serious viruses. Sorry to have to put this warning here but a recent search turned up dozens of similar infringements. Thanks for your authentic readership.   

Keeper. 

I love this image. I shot it many years ago and it's in the entry hall to our main house. I made a print that is much, much better than the above scan because it's on 20 x24 inch, double weight, Ilford Gallerie paper and I slaved over the burning and dodging for multiple renditions. It's beautifully framed and matted and has been hanging at the entry to the house for nearly 28 years now. It doesn't get old. 

I show it today to talk about a tendency some photographers have of seeing a scene, getting a quick snap and the rushing off; either out of fear of being discovered by the subjects or because they didn't slow down and think about ways they might have made the shot better either by changing the composition, changing the point of view or just slowing down and waiting for the scene in front of them to change on its own, in a natural way. 

The images below are the ones that came in the moments before the image above. Each has a different look and a different energy. I was waiting and sampling to see if I could get exactly what the fast part of my brain would identify as "the one." The slow and plodding part of my brain wanted to think about it some more and maybe go for some gelato. In all I shot eight frames. Not being very surreptitious because I was using a big, loud, medium format film Hasselblad camera with the shutter and mirror slap volume turned up to full. And I was maybe five or six feet behind the couple. I assumed that they assumed I was actually photographing the 2,000+ year old landmark in front of us (behind them) so why should they care? But to me the secret trick of this set of images is the thought/intention of not retreating after getting "a" frame. But waiting to get "the" frame. Maybe the waist level finder of the camera was an aid to the whole exercise. After all, who can work quickly looking at a screen that shows you everything backwards and dark? That sure slows one down. On the other hand I was using a 6x6cm camera so after 8 frames I was getting near the end of my 12 exposure roll and, well, film wasn't free. Usually. 

Printing an image quite large (for the times) and living with it in your home for nearly three decades goes a long way toward confirming how you feel about the work. We took all the art work down last year so the housepainters could work without endangering the frames and the glass on the prints. When the walls were bare B. and I both felt the house seemed empty and unsettled. Not finished. Once the prints went back up the equilibrium in the space returned. We have more wall space to fill but we haven't decided on more images just yet. Give us another 30 years. ...

I woke up with a start. I thought perhaps my camera and lens package was too small. Too light. And that carrying around more stuff would make my photographs better...

  All material ©2026 Kirk Tuck and presented exclusively at www.visualsciencelab.blogspot.com  If you are reading this on another site, without proper attribution, it is not an authorized use of the material. If you are reading this on unauthorized site DO NOT CLICK on any links in the body copy as it may infect your computer with serious viruses. Sorry to have to put this warning here but a recent search turned up dozens of similar infringements. Thanks for your authentic readership.  

Tech notes about this photo (above): 

It was lit with a Nanlite RGB FS-300C LED light

through a 36x48 inch softbox.

The camera used to take the image was the Sigma fp

The ISO used was 32 and the image started life 

as a Jpeg file. In Monochrome.

The lens was the Sigma 45mm f2.8 i set to f16

I decided to reward myself in advance for my extreme bravery in approaching my recent medical shenanigans. I am usually quite skittish, cowardly, anxious and unhappy to undergo any treatment but in this instance I thought I'd at least try to tough it out and appear less wimpy to my spouse, who has had years of experiences such as watching me faint at a routine blood test...

Since I thought in advance that I might finally pull off a courageous event with doctors and nurses and scary medical equipment I thought it only fair to reward myself for the effort. And since I didn't know how I'd be feeling afterwards I decided to pre-gift myself since shopping in advance might mean having a clearer head. More reliable decision making and what not. 

Knowing that I'd be out of the swimming pool and away from athletic pursuits of all kinds for about a week I was concerned about developing sarcopenia. Or muscle wasting. In order to stave that off I thought I should add a bit of weight and girth to one of my favorite cameras (the SL2-S) by adding a battery grip and by carrying the camera, the grip and a beefy lens around with me throughout the coming week. Post op.  I figured the added weight would help create a good workout scenario and at the same time would extend the run time of the camera package by way of the addition of a second battery!

So far it's working out mostly as planned. I say "mostly" because I don't think I was much more brave or resigned than usual but I have been using the camera package to do curls for my biceps and I've done quite a number so far. A big bonus is that I have not dropped the camera, lens and battery grip even once!!

The added battery grip makes the camera look as big as one of the giant Nikon or Canon sports oriented DSLRs from the first decade of the digital awakening. In retrospect, while the whole assemblage looks pretty cool as a still life subject, sitting on a tripod, it was probably one of my less well thought through purchases of late. Especially since I'm now rarely running through even one battery in a casual day of shooting and have never done jobs that require me to trudge on and on without the chance to stop and quickly change out a battery. But again, it all looks pretty sweet just sitting there. 

I rarely give out advice but if I did I might gently shoo you away from spending $400 on a used battery grip that you will most probably use once and then recant. But there it is.

The medical procedure went well. I no longer have the deed and title to a big, nasty kidney stone. Now...what to do with a heavy, ponderous battery grip? 

Just sayin. 

On the other hand the Sigma fp pretty much nails it as a studio camera. I'm loving playing around with ISOs as low as 6. That's right, SIX. Not much grain in the files but more detail than you can imagine. Perfect match for powerful LED lights....

New note: The battery grip for the SL2 is still available at some Leica dealers.

Current pricing for new?  $1,088.  USD

A guest post by Henry White. Progress report on my boss at VSL...

 All material ©2026 Kirk Tuck and presented exclusively at www.visualsciencelab.blogspot.com  If you are reading this on another site, without proper attribution, it is not an authorized use of the material. If you are reading this on unauthorized site DO NOT CLICK on any links in the body copy as it may infect your computer with serious viruses. Sorry to have to put this warning here but a recent search turned up dozens of similar infringements. Thanks for your authentic readership.   

As you might know my boss, Kirk, is usually as healthy as a ghost shark. Yesterday he went in to surgery to get a huge, recalcitrant kidney stone demolished by a high tech laser. He begged the doctors not to anesthetize him but rather to let him bring a camera into the O.R. to record every exciting minute. The request was denied. As was the request for the pre-op extra large latté with three extra shots of espresso. 

He was a bit groggy from the anesthesia when he got back home but wanted to "take a few laps around the neighborhood" and he was already tying his running shoes when the VSL chairwoman of the board stepped in and put a stop to it. Chagrined and multiple times denied he comforted himself with a large carton of Trader Joe's (amazing) Chocolate Mint Ice Cream. And then watched educational television from England old episodes of "The Big Bang Theory" intermixed with old James Bond movies...

It's less than 24 hours since the procedure but he already seems overwhelmed by having to "take it easy for a few days.." When I descended into the cavernous underground offices of VSL this morning at 7 a.m. he was already at his desk re-writing some Anthropic LLM code to make it quicker, neater and more proficient for his personal projects. And he had already sent a few suggestions about neutrino communications to a friend at Space-X who ..... quite frankly was stunned by the elegance of K's solutions. 

He seems to have made an effective and spirited overall recovery but every once in a while I hear a howl of agony from his bathroom as he attempts to pee. Screaming, "This too shall pass!!!" 

Argh. 

He should be well enough to write his own stuff tomorrow....   Best, H.W.

Revisiting the Sigma fp as a low light, night time camera. Plus: renewed respect for the Sigma 45mm f2.8 i lens.

 All material ©2026 Kirk Tuck and presented exclusively at www.visualsciencelab.blogspot.com  If you are reading this on another site, without proper attribution, it is not an authorized use of the material. If you are reading this on unauthorized site DO NOT CLICK on any links in the body copy as it may infect your computer with serious viruses. Sorry to have to put this warning here but a recent search turned up dozens of similar infringements. Thanks for your authentic readership.  

Spouse out of town. Dinner dishes washed up. No desire to spin my wheels streaming anything. What to do? Oh, yeah, grab a camera and a lens and go out for a night time walk and see how different everything looks after dark. But which camera? Which lens? Which shoes? 

The shoes were easy. It's been warm here this week so, of course, Birkenstock sandals. As far as cameras go I've been bumping into my little Sigma fp all week long so I took it as a sign that I should show that six year old studio veteran some attention. Seemed natural to pair it with the 45mm lens since it originally came bundled with one. I made sure the battery was charged and a memory card was inserted. Switched the camera to shoot black and white Jpegs and headed out the door. 

While an fp without an EVF, or the jumbo sized hood for the rear LCD, is never my first choice for shooting in bright daylight at night it's a totally different thing. The LCD is easy to see when everything but your subject is plunged into darkness... I like the monochrome settings on the fp after I've added a couple notches of contrast to the mix. I've got the camera set up to go to sleep pretty quickly and it's kind of annoying to have to wake it up but that goes a long way toward providing more battery life. Which can be a weakness with this camera since it's doing a lot of processing with a mini-sized battery. Add in an "always on" screen if that's your preference and you'll need to pocket a couple batteries to get through a shooting day.

The Sigma fp and the 45mm were an antidote for my recent foray into the Leica "nose bleed" region of SL APO lenses. When I bought the Sigma and its lens the purchase price was under $2K. And over the years I've often been impressed by Sigma's color artistry. (As opposed to the idea of "color science"). 

The fp is an odd-to-handle camera for those raised on the usual SLR, DSLR and mirrorless cameras from  other makers. It's a small brick with a few controls on it and no frills. No EVF ( you can add one...). No In-body-image-stabilization. No ergonomic grip for your right hand (you can add one). No comfy curves for happy handling. It's just a brick with a lens on the front and a (non-flippable) screen on the back. But it's the perfect camera for the photographer who keeps whining about "wanting more friction in the process..."

And, that would be me. 

The camera has a great imaging sensor that's 24 megapixels. It's got a generous range of color modes and a few techie touches such as ISOs down to 6 (six) (you'll want to use a tripod for those lower ISOs). Another feature that went missing is a mechanical shutter. You get an electronic shutter. You learn to live with it or you move on to another camera. I've learned to live with it since I am not a sports photographer. You won't see me at the F1 track sucking down Champagne and trying to decipher some arcane Sony menu so I can shoot at one hundred frames per second... But lacking so much equals so much less to break, wear out, fail. 

No mechanical shutter = far, far fewer moving parts. No floppy screen delivers self-explanatory robustness. No IBIS means no sissy photographers will own the camera... only those with arms of iron and wills of steel (dreadful hyperbole). Actually, I'd love it if this camera had IBIS...

And so, quite obviously, this is not the camera for everyone. But I had fun with it and that counts for something. It was a nice break from perfection. And a nod towards classical minimalism. Which is refreshing. Especially on a warm (but not too hot) evening when one just wants to ramble around and look in the windows of closed shops and restaurants and maybe photograph a few neon signs. 

The hardest part for me last night was resisting the urge to bring the camera up to my eye to focus or compose. I had to resort to dirty baby diaper hold (which has been subsequently renamed as: cellphone dysmorphia paralysis, a condition in which any photo subject causes you to have tiny Tyrannosaurus Rex arms with which to hold your picture taking apparatus at kinda, but not quite arm's length). I'm embarrassed to hold a camera in this fashion and embarrassed to compose on a rear screen with the camera held at arm's length but I'm working on it with a team of photographic psychologists, one of whom suggested sticking a two foot dowel out of the back of the camera to keep my face at the right distance. One poke in the eye is enough to convince that's a bad idea. Another suggested that the traditional grip, camera-to-face, had its birth during Freud's career, positing that those eye-to-machine photographers were suffering from the fear of loss of intimacy with the camera. And the camera being a substitute for a human partner. Alternately the result of unresolved Oedipal issues. 

But resisting the urge to commit face-to-camera contact I finally got used to using the camera in this primitive mode and soldiered on into the night. 

While it might be more exciting to write that I was in constant danger during my after sunset walk, that predators lurked around every corner, that the risk of theft or even armed robbery was enormous, the truth is that the walk was mundane, adrenaline and cortisol free, and actually quite comfortable. I am of the age now at which younger woman smile at me in passing almost with a small dose of pity. Young men nod and are well behaved when I walk by. Older couples seem delighted to see another of their cadre out enjoying the moment --- while I'm pursuing a hobby that most have just assumed has passed its expiration date. So, happily ignored or treated with gentle greetings. And if I had been robbed at gunpoint what would the perpetrators have gained? A six year old, well used and not very popular camera, and a couple replaceable credit cards. A lot of stress over not a lot...

I have an embarrassing little thing to confess. I do a better job fine-tuning unhurried compositions when I can see the image on a two dimensional screen. A flat screen. As opposed to putting my eye up to a finder tunnel. Even a very well made finder tunnel. It's probably mental muscle memory of the decade or so in which I used a Hasselblad with a waist level finder and....a flat focusing screen; no pentaprism. Or the decade before that when I did my composing on the upside down and reversed focusing screen of a 4x5 inch view camera.

Look at the file firmly holding on to the highlights on the polished, 

white surfaces of the shop mannequins. A nice test of highlight 

resilience. And with nice tones. 

I've written above about the faults and weirdness of using a brick of a camera without aids to better photography but now I should talk a bit about why I continue to like the camera and why I use it every time it surfaces from under a pile of paperwork or old swim towels. Or why it sometimes spends weeks at a time in the backseat of the car, also covered with old hats and books I meant to read at the coffee shops. 

I love it because the Sigma fp, with the 45mm f2.8 Sigma lens, is so small and easy to carry around with a rope style strap. It's because the sensor was near the first of a current generation of BSI, full frame sensors that can deliver relatively clean and noise free files at ISOs we only used to dream about. Some of the images included in this particular blog post were done at ISOs as high as 32,000 and even though they started life as Jpegs and were NOT subjected to A.I. noise reduction schemes, I can barely tell them apart from the ISO 1600 or even 800 photos. 

The files are not only clean but endowed with great dynamic range in that even Jpeg files, when shot at their highest quality, have highlights that don't burn out and shadows that beg to be opened a bit in post; and without penalty. Work with the raw files and the camera's imaging chain is incredibly competitive with anything currently on the market. And, to be honest, I prefer the Sigma fp color renditions to those from my herd of Leica cameras. I'm never sure which ones are more accurate but I'm certain about which I find more pleasing.

I'm sure the young couples walking along the sidewalk and eating bespoke ice creams from various posh vendors thought me odd as they passed me by while I was carefully making photographs of mannequins in my favorite windows. Thought me odd for using an actual camera instead of my phone. Thought it odd that an old man would be interested in female fashion. And found it exceedingly odd that I was able to resist the strong lure of freshly made ice cream, in all of its varieties. But they passed by and seemed, as a group, to be enjoying an uncrowded and comfortable visit to the area. 

Much has been written about the 45mm f2.8 Contemporary lens from Sigma. Some laud its "character" which is code for: this lens is blistered with anomalies. Others, who perhaps waved the lens next to a camera for a moment before writing about it, have bought into a fable that the lens is "soft", "unsharp" or soft focus-y when used at its maximum aperture.  But they are mostly wrong. Yes, the lens has its own look but it's not about lack of sharpness or contrast. One can see this in the texture of the clothes on the mannequin just above, or in the sharp edges of the in-focus ceiling fan in the shot just below. 

The lens is sharp even wide open as long as you aren't trying to trick it into becoming a macro lens. It's a lens that's designed, I think, to be used from about four of five feet to infinity for good sharpness. And, surprise!!! but most lenses without floating optical elements are only optimized to be at their best at one focused distance. Generally about 50X their focal length --- but in the end the actual, optimum distance is decided by the lens designer. If you want a lens that's sharp everywhere, at every focused distance, you'll want something like the Leica SL APO primes which have floating elements to compensate for every change in distance. But be ready to pay for them even if, for most images, it's hard to see the differences between them and fine lenses like the Sigma. I know. I own and use both...

I think I was drawn to this combination last night because I had been reviewing a post about my maiden voyage, as a young photographer, to Europe, and I liked the black and white images I took then. There was both a softness and a sharp focus to the images and even when I missed the "ultimate" point of sharp focus I liked the feel and the tonality of the files. Much the same way I like those from the fp. 

One of the big "knocks" on the fp is the lack of IBIS. I know, I know, once you've had it you never want to do without. But what I found is that by setting the Auto-ISO to about 1/125th of a second or, even more conservatively, 1/250th of a second as the slowest shutter speed, the need for IBIS vanishes with normal focal length lenses. Even more so with wide angles. Sure, the camera might need to venture up to 1/32000 ISO to nail the exposure but the camera can do that and any imperfections seem to add to my appreciation of the final image. 

IBIS really comes into its own when shooting things that don't move while using longer lenses. Introduce subject movement and faster shutter speeds take precedence as the primary means of making sharp photographs. I hedged my bets last night and used 1/125th of a second because there was little to nothing at stake. And because I've done this stuff before and could predict a lot of how things would turn out. Would I like it if the fp had IBIS? yes, but then it would be different; it might need to be bigger, heavier, or slower to use. I bought the camera knowing it didn't have IBIS and just as I thought six years ago, knowledge is as helpful as a feature. 

I only paid to park for an hour and a half and when I looked at my watch I found my time on the street was almost at an end. I kept looking as I walked back up the street I'd come down. I don't know why I thought the street would be different in appearance from the opposite direction but it was. And that felt nice. 

When I got home I looked at the images on the rear screen of the camera and I was pleased. The images had the feel I was looking for. A continuity with images I'd made almost fifty years ago with Tri-X film  and a rudimentary camera (which I don't really need to remind anyone but that old Canonet (film camera) lacked IBIS and fast ISOs and all the rest of the photo-crutches and we were still able to come away with images that have grown in nostalgic value over these long years). Having a current camera that focuses itself is about as much automation as I wanted last night. 

After I reviewed the images while sitting on the couch I called my spouse to check in with her. She was visiting relatives and all was well. After the call I raided the refrigerator and freed up the remaining chocolate mint ice cream from the freezer. It was delicious. A nice capper to a day and an evening well spent. 

The boot shine station at Tecovas Boots. 

shot of a Daft Punk (band) poster through a shop window. 

An early face plant at something silly I said some 50 years ago. 

A nice way to sum up a group of images about....nothing. 

What an adorable, little watch.

On Topic for some. Off topic for lots of others. If you own one of the APO SL prime lenses for your Leica SL(x) camera this is for you.

  All material ©2026 Kirk Tuck and presented exclusively at www.visualsciencelab.blogspot.com  If you are reading this on another site, without proper attribution, it is not an authorized use of the material. If you are reading this on unauthorized site DO NOT CLICK on any links in the body copy as it may infect your computer with serious viruses. Sorry to have to put this warning here but a recent search turned up dozens of similar infringements. Thanks for your authentic readership. 

Here's the 411...

 When I got my copy of the Leica 50mm APO Summicron SL I was delighted with just about every aspect of the lens. There was one glitch which seemed to show up most on my very recent SL2-S. When I used the lens I would look through the EVF or look at a preview image to judge the exposure of the frame I wanted to take. With everything looking perfect and the histogram right where it was supposed to be I would take the frame. When I reviewed the image I had just taken it was invariably about a stop lighter than what I saw on the LCD or the EVF. It was weird. And incredibly frustrating. 

I reset the camera, checked each  individual line item in the menu to see if I'd mis-set anything and started all over again. The engineering part of my brain suggested I change out lenses and see if the behavior changed. With a Leica 24-90mm Elmarit Zoom the issue didn't show up. I decided to switch out camera bodies. I put the 50mm lens on a Leica SL. I didn't see the same issue. But on both the SL2 cameras I was able to repeat the sequence and the problem I'd seen with the the SL2-S. A one stop overexposure when compared to the preview image. 

I could have gone down three paths. Send the lens back to the seller with a note. Endlessly trouble-shoot the problem until I fried my own brain and frustration overwhelmed me. Or, I could just see if this was a widely reported problem, check the lens and camera firmware, and then see if Leica had delivered updated firmware for the camera and the lens. 

Being lazy and largely unmotivated to work on problems that are someone else's ultimate responsibility I chose to begin with door #3. Check on firmware updates. 

Bingo. The lens was at firmware 4.0. The Leica site showed new, updated firmware for all of the SL APO primes. From the 21mm all the way up to the 90mm. And all could be updated to the latest firmware, 4.1, at the same time from one .plf file. And the reason for the update? Leica discovered that the lenses were delivering final images that were one stop brighter than the original preview images. In other words, the lenses were at fault. The lenses were delivering inaccurate exposure information or aperture information to the cameras. Regardless if you were shooting in raw or Jpeg.

I downloaded the file and updated the new firmware (4.1) for the lenses. Now, if I use the 50 APO SL on any of my other cameras the new firmware will be resident in the lens and shared with the camera in use. Alternately, I could update the firmware in each camera body. I would probably find this a better solution if I had more than one APO SL lens. 

Did I test it to see if the update worked?  Naw. I took a nap, went for a walk, had coffee, watched TV, read a Sony camera user manual for six hours, and went to bed. Right.... As if.... 

Reality: I immediately tested the camera and the lens together and found the problem had vanished and everything is working just as it's supposed to. Phew. 

I did update the camera firmware from 6.0 to 6.1 but I don't think it changes much. The info provided suggests that the only thing that changed is some boilerplate legal language about compatibility with legal information. Not a big enough deal to worry about. But deep in the notes it does suggest that updating the camera firmware will also, automatically, update the APO lens family firmware so maybe I took one step I really didn't need to. 

But it sure is fun having the lens work with the camera perfectly instead of me having to come up with the arduous workaround of using my brain to calculate the difference in image brightnesses and then factor that into the final shot with exposure compensation controls...  Not really what I bought a pricy camera and lens for. 

Happy that Leica came through with a fix. Fix yours if you have em. 

Kirk out.

  All material ©2026 Kirk Tuck and presented exclusively at www.visualsciencelab.blogspot.com  If you are reading this on another site, without proper attribution, it is not an authorized use of the material. If you are reading this on unauthorized site DO NOT CLICK on any links in the body copy as it may infect your computer with serious viruses. Sorry to have to put this warning here but a recent search turned up dozens of similar infringements. Thanks for your authentic readership.