I am back from Chicago. It was a nice, long weekend. I made photographs while following my art director wife from museum to museum.

 

A fellow photographer we met out on Wabash Ave. 

Chicago is a great city; at least the parts of it that I saw... The people I met in the streets were mostly congenial and, well, normal. It's kind of amazing because I read a couple of guidebooks and watched a couple of popular, mainstream YouTube videos before we headed there and each one tossed in a warning of sorts about crime. Lot's and lots of crime. It was suggested that I avoid publicly visible camera wearing and that I keep whatever bag tightly cinched across my chest or risk being robbed in broad daylight; right there on the streets. But I have to tell you that inside the "Loop" I felt as safe or safer than here in Austin and I consider Austin as pretty darn safe. I've long since given up worrying about carrying a camera in the streets -- even a pricey one. 

It's an easy journey from Austin to Chicago and I have to sheepishly admit that I have been to the "City of Broad Shoulders" a half dozen times or so, but mostly on business during which we flew in, shot a job at a specific location, and then flew out again. No tourism and no sightseeing. It was so different for me this time...

B. and I left on Friday morning last week. I opted for premium economy seats on United Airlines and paid a small, additional fee for priority boarding as we were packing only carry on luggage and I didn't want to be in one of the boarding groups that requires battling for overhead compartment space. The flights are easy; it's about two hours and twenty minutes between the two cities plus whatever lucky time you get to spend on the tarmac waiting for a gate to clear. The price of the tickets was acceptably low and I was reminded that domestic airline pricing was, on average, higher back in the 1990s. At least the way I remember it. 

I packed two cameras and used one of them about 90% of the time. My choice? By far the little Leica D-Lux8. The other camera was the Q2 which, on paper, should produce superior files but in reality is limited by comparison to its smaller, lighter and cheaper sibling. I brought along four extra batteries for the D-Lux8 but really could have pared it down to one battery in the camera and one in the pocket. The camera sips battery juice and I found a fully charged battery lasted all day long. But in context, that's a full day of tourism, not full-on photography mode. As it was I shot about 1600 images over the four days I was out of town and by the fourth day my concern about running out of battery juice dissipated entirely. A big plus over the Q2 is that D-Lux8 batteries can be charged in camera which means I don't need to pack an external charger. 

I wore my camera with me everywhere. On every street. At every venue. Usually right over my left shoulder but sometimes just dangling in the middle of my chest, tourist style. No issues. No second glances from...anybody but a few young photographers sporting their own cameras with their straps wrapped around their wrists. A quick smile and nod of recognition in both directions and everyone moves on. 

We stayed at a nice hotel at the corner of Wabash and Wacker (which sounds funny when you say it out loud...) and it was nicely positioned for quick, pedestrian access to nearly everything we were interested in seeing. Our overriding goal was to spend a day at the huge, labyrinth-like Art Institute of Chicago. 

I've written this before but I'm writing it again because it was so amazing: Seeing original art, as opposed to seeing photos in books or online or on post cards is a whole different experience. When one stands in front of a favorite Renoir, Monet or Hopper painting and sees the rich detail, the elegant brush strokes and the magnificent handling of color --- at scale --- it's a whole different experience. Like the difference between watching a great movie in an IMAX theater instead of watching the same on a cellphone screen while bouncing down a potholed street on a shaky bus...

Hopper's "Nighthawks" is now burned into my retinas and my brain. So wonderful when the original painting is right in front of you... So different from a postcard...

Fifteen minutes after checking into our hotel we were out heading South on Wabash looking for a sandwich shop for a light lunch. That's when we ran into Teri B. photographer. She's a well established Chicago and San Francisco wedding photographer. Here's her website: https://www.teribphotography.com/

She was sporting a shiny and vintage Leica M6 and photographing a friend in the street. In one hand she was carrying a plastic bag filled with fresh film. We chatted for a few minutes and I asked her if she was exclusively a film shooter. "Nope." she replied, "I have an M11 and an M11-M (monochrome) up in my hotel room but I mostly use them for work..." No fears about a "public display of camera" here either.  Nice. Love her website. The visuals are great and the copy is letter perfect. 

Teri B's M. with 35mm Summicron. 

the plastic bag holds the film inventory. I think she had just stocked up at Central Camera which is across the street.  She has a nice and interesting YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@teribphotography/videos

And I especially like her story about doing a whole wedding in France with one Leica M240: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlT7Ml4iwM0

Sorry YouTube makes you watch commercials. But it's worth it to see good stuff.

After meeting Teri and photographing her friend, B. and I headed down the street to a bakery/sandwich shop/café called: The Goddess and the Baker. The sandwiches were huge. We split one. The guidebooks all caution tourists not to make eye contact with locals. Ha! We were in the middle of lunch when the folks behind us asked about my camera and we ended up yakking with a charming, young couple who both had cameras and were obviously interested in photography. Paranoia makes for many lost opportunities....

Dinner the first night was at a restaurant called, Perilla Steakhouse. It's a Korean steakhouse where meat entrées are prepared at one's table. Here's the website: https://www.perillachicago.com/ Our server was fun, very knowledgeable and has an advanced degree in political science. She made our meal one of the most memorable we've had in years. And her wine selections were so perfect. Prices? Reasonable. 

We walked around on Michigan Ave. for a while and then, beat from traveling and mild sightseeing, headed to our very, very quiet room to get some sleep. We were anticipating a six hour Art Marathon at the Art Institute the next day and wanted to be on our game. Favorites in the galleries all mapped out in advance. I'll have more as I dive into processing the images. Hope you come back and read it all. 

This place is filled with new and used treasures. Modern and some even predating me.

Gracious and happy counter help and so much to see. Almost bought an ancient Leica SL film camera complete with its original 50mm Summicron lens but in the end "settled" for a Central Camera bucket hat. Couldn't pass it up. A very nice bricks and mortar camera shop. Old school. 

This is Johann Buis. He is a musicologist connected to the Chicago Symphony. We met him in front of the camera store. Turns out he is a good friend of our mutual friend, Anton Nel, the world renowned concert pianist. You might remember him from my coverage of "33 Variations" Here is the blog post with lots of photographs of Anton: https://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2012/12/look-to-art-and-youll-look-at-fun-art.html

More info about Anton: https://music.utexas.edu/about/people/anton-nel

Johann Buis was wonderful to meet and converse with. He's been a leader in the  classical music world for decades. And a long time Chicagoan. So nice to meet interesting people in the streets....

The amazing fountains in Millennium Park. Ever-changing images of Chicago residents; 2000 of them, shown on fifty foot tall video monolith. Kids spend happy time running through the water. So relaxing to just sit and watch. Every once in awhile the people in the photos on the towers would purse their lips and water would shoot out. Kids laughed, parents smiled.

People photography at "The Bean." 

While we were out seeing the sites B. had an observation. Seems every so often a couple would walk up to me and ask me to take a photograph of them with their phone. Three, maybe four times in a day. She wondered if there was some sort of photographer vibe that attracted them. I kept having to move people closer to the camera. I got good reviews on the work. But it wasn't so much fun that I'm rethinking retirement. Still, it's fun to photograph people just on the spot. One couple looked at their images (I always shoot half a dozen) and suggested that I could have a career as a professional photographer... Sigh. 

This is Henry. He's making a photo of his wife in front of the "Bean." 

I loved the color of the camera and asked if I could photograph him photographing. 

He was quite happy to do so. I then used his Instax camera to make a couple of portraits of he and his wife in front of the "Bean." Fun to meet people!

Breakfast sandwiches? Really, no clue. But hey! Tuck. 

A rare photo of B. Standing in front of the "Bean" I was attempting to explore the sunstars that the Leica  DLUX-8 provides at f11 and f16. Works pretty well as far as I can see.....

And negligible flare...

From the Goddess and the Baker on Wacker Ave. 

I think this means you should find a different blog to read. But that's not very nice!

Exterior signages on the Contemporary Museum.

A very small satchel bag is all I brought along. Worked fine for holding all the crap we usually drag around. And, of course it's a Domke product for which I get not affiliate cash or recognition. 

Neon at the Chicago Cultural Center. 4th floor. 

A lesson I learned on this trip: Hire a good, reputable car service to get from the airport to your hotel, and vice versa. Make reservations in advance. The trip from O'Hare to inside the Loop can be as long as 90 minutes at rush hour. If you take a taxi you are at the mercy of the meter which is combination of time and mileage. A luxurious, private and punctual Lincoln Navigator or a Suburban with a driver is available at a fixed cost. And the price differential isn't much. But a private car service means: No waiting. No lines. No surprises. No dilapidated and smelly cars. A quiet ride. A door to door service. Worked well in both directions. 

I have more to talk about re: Chicago but I'm afraid we've already hit our limit for today. Hope you are  happy and well. It's nice to be home. Already planning the next adventure...

All images from the DLUX8.

Yes. I've spent some time with the Leica DLUX8. Good acquisition or big mistake? As usual, I actually used it before I decided.

 Added on Sunday after seeing many Jpeg files: Good Acquisition? Yes. Very much so.

I bought the Leica DLUX8 camera. It came in on Thursday. I had already read the manual and watched the smarter influencers on YouTube talk about what they liked and didn't like. I was pretty sure the camera would be capable and nicely designed. I wasn't prepared for how tiny it is "in person." It's small. Really small. Which makes me happy that mine came with a half case that has a built-in front grip. I also got a thumb grip that fits into the hot shoe. Together they make the camera a better fit for my medium sized hands. 

I guess the reason I thought the camera was bigger is that on YouTube the "influencer/reviewers" are constantly holding the camera in front of themselves out toward the filming camera; the filming cameras generally have short focal lengths and so the size relationships are all skewed. It's an odd thing, expectations. But really, if you are one of those tender users who can't bear to walk around with a camera heavier than a creme filled donut you'll like this one. Used on a strap I constantly had to check and see if the camera had floated away. It's pretty light...

After four years of lugging around the brick they call The Leica SL2  I suppose it will take me some time to get used to its opposite. 

I know some photo bloggers love to get those links reviews out to the public before they have ever seen or touched a particular camera or lens. Perhaps it's more fair to say that they have made new camera introductions just a jumping off point that triggers a long flood of writing about something else. But I guess the point I've made for years now is that the only way to really get to know how a camera works, how well a camera works, and how well a camera will work for you is to get one in your hands and give it a spin. Use it the way you use your other cameras. Shoot the same kinds of stuff so you end up with some sort of basis for comparison. Right? Passing along the consensus of other people's reviews is hardly the way to "review" a camera. 

In terms of understanding the DLUX8's operation I had a bit of a head start since so much of the menu in the new camera matches the menus in three of my other cameras. In fact, the set up, including mapping out three custom profiles, took about ten minutes. The rest of my downtime was just waiting for batteries to charge. 

I didn't think I would miss a dedicated charger but in fact I do. I'm not remarkably thrilled at having to charge the four batteries I bought, one at a time, in the camera. Mostly because it means I can't use the camera while I'm in the process of charging batteries. Drat. Ah well, I'm sure, if I really, really like using the camera a lot, I'll source a third party charger that works. In the meantime I'll make do.

I started using the camera in earnest yesterday. B&B and I all got in the studio limousine and headed toward San Antonio, Texas to meet my brother's family, and my late sister's family, and a small subsection of my brother-in-law's family at a favorite Mexican food restaurant in what would have been my younger sister's 65th birthday. A remembrance of sorts. 

I'm always mortified if I am ever late; either for a casual social event or a time limited client engagement. I presumed that there would be traffic galore on Friday afternoon and so we headed down with two and a half hours set aside to make the trip. In the old days, pre-everyone-moved-to-Austin, we could make the trip to San Antonio in about an hour. Yesterday, with multiple full stop delays, we drove up to the restaurant with two minutes to spare. White knuckle driving on a busted up highway layered with four lanes of crazy, young people in giant pick-up trucks interwoven with looming and zooming 18 wheelers.

We sat on the patio under a nice, diaphanous shade, and had a really great meal. The main attraction though was my nephew's brilliant, sharp, funny and precocious almost two year old son, Ira. He was just amazing. He got through a two hour, grown up event without a single issue and spent the whole time reminding all of us just how much fun childhood can be. He "ordered" the kid's quesadilla plate. And enjoyed tearing apart the cheese-packed tortilla before consuming it. We did not let him order from the bar. 

I was at the far end of a long string of tables from the kid but it was the perfect opportunity to break out the DLUX8 and snap away with the lens extended to its maximum focal length; a 75mm equivalent. The camera focused and metered without issue and handled a bit of backlighting with grace.

After dinner the three of us, B & B & me headed back to Austin and endured yet another atrocious trip. This time traffic on this main highway that runs north to south was funneled down from four lanes to one lane which brought all the cars and trucks to a complete stop for the better part of half an hour while people figured out how to compress into one lane without chaos breaking out. 

This morning was filled with errands and routines. Since I won't be here for most of next week I wanted to make sure bills were paid for the business and that all the jobs which had come in recently were done and dusted. Final images delivered and invoices tendered. Then I needed to go by the Apple store and pick up a new iMac for the house. My delightful spouse/CFO had been working on a hand-me-down iMac from 2013 and it finally hit the point where we couldn't upgrade the OS to anything recent enough to satisfy the security requirements of our banks and brokerages. We ordered a custom build earlier in the week... Now she's better equipped than is my studio. A new machine with an M4 processor, 24 Gigs of memory and a Terabyte of SSD storage. Nice. But, of course, I am further down in the "corporate" hierarchy so going to the Apple store and shlepping computers back to home base is part of my responsibilities. Of course I made it to swim practice, etc. 

But when all the boxes on my list had a bold check mark on them it was time to find a shade-full hat and take the new camera arrival out for a more varied spin. I set it up as a fully automatic camera for today. Program automation. i-AF engaged, Auto-ISO on tap and I headed to the ever crowded and kinetic S. Congress Ave. Home of Jo's Coffee, the Hermés shop and so much more. 

The camera is quick to operate. The automatic white balance works well --- as demonstrated by the interior shots of fluorescent lit Allen's Boot Store. The exposures were mostly right on the money --- or at least as accurate as most other cameras I've used. And the battery life was actually much, much better than I had been led to believe (running firmware 1.4).

There is only one thing I'm not really fond of with the new camera. When it's turned on the lens extends and it looks dorky that way. The package looks so nice with the lens retracted... But it's something I'm sure I'll get used to. 

I shot a couple hundred images in both .DNG and Jpeg and I did minimal processing to the ones I'm showing here. Most of which started life as raw files. The raw files in this camera are limited to 12 bits but they are actually healthy and rich. A great starting point for more involved post processing. Lots of leeway in shadow lifting and what not. I processed in Lightroom Classic.

I am happy enough with the results so I'll toss this camera and its little flash into the camera backpack and take it along with me to Santa Fe on Monday. Might press it into use for some social, candid photos at one of the receptions. Talk about stealthy....

As far as file size goes the Jpegs out of the camera will be just right. I'll shoot in raw and Jpeg just to be sure. That's about all I can tell you about this little camera right now except for one more thing... the EVF really is as good as most fans of the camera say it is. Nice, bright, sharp and detailed. Just what this photographer asked for. Does that make it "worth the purchase price?" As always, that's your call. 

Some captions interspersed below.

Allen's Boots. No need for the macro setting, the lens focuses nice and close in its normal mode. 

all of the boot details shots were done handheld, depending on the image stabilization to save me.

Mostly as combinations like 1/25th of a second shutter, f2.8 aperture, ISO 400. 

Detail in the Hermés show window. Standing in my own shadow to block glare on the glass.

I never remember the name of this little shop but they always do great decor. 

A wreath of colored eggs for Easter! Again, I was excited to work close in and get details (below) without having to resort to the macro mode on the camera. 

and, of course, it was vital to ensure that the new camera could do a decent job with our treasured tradition of mannequin photography. It passed. 

sure. I bet....

Family resemblance --- loving those reds!!!

Shadows, highlights, full sun. And a dog.

Open Road Stetson in straw weave. Still not approved by resident hat critic, John. 

We abide by his preferences on this having no objectivity of our own...

And we end this blog with a quiet contemplation of cappuccino. 

Heading to Santa Fe, NM. early tomorrow morning. Looking forward to the change of venue.