Still putting the digital Leica CL and the Sigma Contemporary 56mm f1.4 lens through their paces. Getting comfortable again with a "cropped" frame.

 

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...

OT: Formula One Car Racing Sucks So Bad. And Somehow We've Been The Victims of it for Years Now in Austin. Just Another Way to Suck Money out of City and Citizen Coffers to Engorge the Rich... Sad.

I was in attendance at Austin's first Formula One race back in 2012. I was hired as the photographer for a three day corporate event for a multi-national tech company. They had an "owner's box" at the race grandstand for their 20 best customers and their spouses. There were chefs, full bars, all point passes, etc. The press leading up to the first event was non-stop and why not? Austin and the state of Texas were subsidizing the race, the acquisition of land, and construction of the racetrack, and associated facilities and the services of the police, EMS and fire departments. They wanted the rubes, the regular potential ticket holders, to think this was a big, big deal. And to be fair, in Europe and the middle east it might be... But really, why? Are they that bored?

After the taxpayers came out of pocket for hundreds of millions of dollars the project has more or less failed. In the first year the downtown was filled with pre and post parties, dinners, events and showcases. Every year after that the event shrank down further and further until all the downtown events vanished and the crowd that did wander downtown were mostly people from other countries who mostly wanted to argue with baristas in the downtown area coffee shops about why they should be allowed to smoke cigarettes wherever they wanted to. Oh, and they taught Austinites how much more alcohol people really could hold before passing out or grabbing the keys to their rental cars to go out for a spin...

So, ever declining footprint, year over year, for all downtown events, merchants, income and, surprise!!! the additional uses for the facility which the citizens were promised totally fell flat. Seems that with the exception of an F1 race no one wants to drive out to the middle of nowhere, 30 minutes out of town, to do anything else. Nobody. 

When I went the racetrack area was packed, the executives who were guests of the company mostly sat in the owner's box and bragged to each other about who they knew, how successful they were and which, and how many, cool cars they owned. Filled up on great food and kept the bartenders non-stop busy. But the race? Very much secondary to these folks. Just another day of high end networking...and the semi-private enjoyment of privilege.

On the first year the parking was notoriously bad and ill-managed. Surrounding farmers, sensing an opportunity for some quick cash, opened up their fields and sold parking to thousands of people --- and that was pretty cool until we had a day of solid rain and all the cars got stuff in ten inches of slippery mud. Some cars from 2012 are still out stuck in the fields. 

For those (lucky enough) who have never been to an F1 race let me give you the quick breakdown: Drive for a long time on two lane roads to get to the venue. Pay enormous amounts of money for entry tickets. These tickets don't buy you a seat, they buy you the right to sit in the dirt near the track, in the blazing sun, or occasional rain, with no shade or rain protection, pay $20 for a soft drink and watch the same cars go around the same track for hours and hours until they announce that someone won. You won't know who until they announce it because unless you paid thousands of dollars to sit in the grand stands you won't see the final outcome unless you are looking at a big video screen. 

The race is quite loud. If you are close to the action you will lose some hearing and won't be able to hear your loved ones as well for the rest of the dinners you might have enjoyed over the rest of your life. You'll never be invited to drive the cars or test drive the track. Well, you can test drive the track with your own car but what you'll pay to do that for a half an hour would buy you another nice car instead...

At the very end of the race there will be a concert. Also outside. Also sitting in the dirt or mud. Shoulder to shoulder with the mosquitos. And still paying $20 for a Coke. Then you will make a very long march to your car --- because Texans don't do public transportation. Oh... I forgot to mention that you'll also pay an enormous amount for parking... and when you drive off the parking lot you will join an amazingly large number of fellow race "fans" in slow moving bumper-to-bumper traffic for, literally, hours in order to make it back to town. 

It will become clear to you that F1 racing is not a sport in the traditional sense until some smug fan tells you the propaganda about how the drivers lose twenty pounds of water weight for every hour they roar around the (same and unchanging) track. And what great shape they must be in. You'll nod but in your normal person brain you'll deduce that they have been brain-washed by a malign English man who has sold everyone a bill of goods. And snickered off into the sunset.

So now, thirteen years later, we are going through this year's Austin F1 race this weekend. The photos here show pop-up shops in town selling "merch" (offensive amputation of the word, "merchandise") for exhilaratingly high prices to the rubes who've waited in line for hours for a chance to demolish their credit limits on shirts that emphasize every extra ounce of fat on the buyer's non-exercising body. And to do so in the most pitiless way. 

I'd forgotten that the carbon footprint parade was in town when I grabbed a Leica CL and headed over to South Congress Avenue to grab a coffee and an apple tart at Jo's Coffee. But I sure was reminded quickly by the near endless flow of people wearing all manner of fan fashion. And to a person they looked like they were stressing hard to look happy. Like Germans trying to teach Italians how to line up correctly. Or to "queue." 

I enjoyed getting a workout with the CL. It's really a fine little camera system and, coupled with the Sigma 56mm it works quite well for working in full sun but at slim apertures ( or: "Appies" as the UK contingent might say...).  The colors out of the camera, either in Jpeg or raw, are neutral and look beautiful. The camera is slower to focus than newer cameras but generally, if you keep the camera awake, it can be quick enough. 

the man closest to the camera was managing the line and allowing a handful into the pop-up shop at a time. I asked him what the event was and he told me. I laughed and questioned whether people were really stupid enough to wait in line for hours to buy bad, poorly designed and ill-fitting merchandise and he said "yeah" "But we're making a shitload of money." I guess, at the very base of all this, that's the only plan. The fans will reflexively tell you it's all about developing the tech to make better everyday cars. I'll ask the Chinese about that. I don't see many EVSs on track...

At least they line up well enough not to block access to the sidewalks for the people who have better things to do...

What greases the wheels at F1? Mostly alcohol. Getting ready to violate Texas open container laws with pop up vodka samplings. Complete with cheap "gimme" hats. 

But at least people are buying cowboy boots and western style hats. 

I guess they can take them home and wear them around. Sure to be

a hit in London or Berlin. Maybe even Paris.

On my way back to my legally parked car I had to turn around and snap one more of the same line --- just an hour later. 

If you love F1 please don't feel the need to comment, rebut, or explain. 

I know the addiction to American Football is equally horrible and 

misplaced. That doesn't make F1 any better...

The cars go around and around in a big circle. 

The same basic outcome at every race.

The very definition of insanity. 

I hope the out of towners don't steal all of the towels from the hotels. 

They can't steal the ashtrays. We don't have them anymore.

 

An Odd Sign Seen on South Congress Avenue Today...

 

Sign for an optician. 

Camera: Leica CL

Lens: Sigma 56mm f1.4

Pushing the bounds of taste in advertising... 

Leica's digital nod to their original 35mm cameras. Yeah. It's the CL...

 

The first Leica I owned was an ancient, used model IIIf (red dial) which was made from 1950 to 1957, overlapping the introduction of the famous Leica M3. The red dial refers to the flash (bulb) synchronization setting dial which surrounded the shutter speed dial. It was a camera with separate windows for rangefinder focusing and composition but in my experience it was mostly used with auxiliary finders for specific lenses. 

I bring up the IIIf camera because when Leica decided to make an APS-C, interchangeable lens, digital camera they consciously modeled it after the pre-M, screw mount lens cameras. A nod to their long heritage of making "miniature" cameras. And when I compared the digital CL with the IIIf the bodies are almost identical in size and even in weight.

While I have other cameras that are more technically capable there is something about the CL that inspires me to keep it and to use it as often as I can. While it can use any of the Leica, Sigma or Panasonic L mount lenses it seems most practical to use it with a series of Sigma Contemporary lenses that were specifically designed for APS-C cameras. The lenses from that Contemporary collection that I have are the 16mm f1.4, the 30mm f1.4, and the 56mm f1.4. To round out AF lenses for that system I also toss in the Sigma full frame, 24mm f3.5 lens. It's small and light and seems to fit in perfectly. 

On the other hand the camera seems ready-made for use with M mount lenses from Leica, Zeiss, Thypoch and Voigtlaner. Leica made a range of lenses specifically for this format but I've never gotten around to picking any of them up. Some, like the 35mm f1.4 Summilux are highly coveted but something like the 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 seem to be out performed by something like the Sigma Contemporary 18-50mm constant aperture f2.8. A small and lightweight lens that delivers good optical performance across the frame. 

I enjoy using the CL for any number of reasons. The small size, the discreet look, and the good menu. But what I really like is the fact that the mechanical shutter goes to 1/8000th of a second and the electronic shutter goes up to a blistering 1/25,000th of a second. Which pretty much means you can shoot any of those f1.4 lenses wide open or close to wide open even in full sun. It's a nice effect!

The CL was launched two years after the original SL and in some ways (buttons and menus) it's a better, less complicated package. More like the SL2 that followed the CL by a couple of years. 

I bought my first digital CL nearly four years ago for around $1800 (sans lens). The current pricing for used, but good condition, CLs seems to be around $2000 on the open internet and between $2K and $2400 at Leica stores. The ones at the dealers generally include the boxes and all the original, supplied materials and a longer warranty. 

I'm not sure I can recommend the CL without a few caveats; at least not for people who might imagine it would work as their "one and only" camera. First of all, it lacks any sort of stabilization. Second, the EVF is a lower resolution one than in most current cameras, and finally, it's been long discontinued so getting parts, like a replacement eyepiece surround, will be problematic. But as a back to an existing L system it can be a lot of fun. The batteries are the same ones used in many Panasonic cameras as well as current Sigma FP cameras so you won't run into the situation Leica M240 users find themselves in --- unable to source new batteries. (I've had two M240 batteries on back order at B&H for about six months now. I know they'll come in eventually but nobody seems to know when...). 

They are cool cameras. Mine is happiest with the 56mm f1.4 Sigma on the front. Basically the equivalent of an 85mm lens on a full frame camera. The color from the camera; especially from the raw files, is wonderful and so far the cameras seem to be bullet proof. 

I just back from the dermatologist's office. Man, they love to find stuff to burn off the backs of swimmers who forgot to use sunscreen for decades at a time. Almost like my new part time job. 

Wear your sunscreen. It's no fun getting jabbed and scraped and hit with blast of liquid nitrogen. Just sayin. 

Today's subject was brought up when a friend let me know he was selling his mint copy of his CL. I pondered buying it but I think I'm up to my elbows in cameras ... and lenses for the moment. But it did start me thinking about the merits of the little system...

Unexpectedly unmotivated to photograph... anything.

 

Young swimmer.

I never imagined that the day would come when I would be here writing about this but, since coming back from Chicago a couple of weeks ago, I have been incredibly unmotivated to go out and take photographs of...anything. I take a camera or two with me whenever I leave the house, out of habit, but they mostly stay in the car, dumped under a bucket hat or a tattered towel, waiting to be useful but their time in the sun just never seems to arrive. And I can't really figure out why.

I haven't lost the discipline or the pleasure to show up for swim practice every morning. I guess it's because I can feel the results while swimming and right after swimming. There's an immediate effort and reward cycle. Not so much these days in photography. 

But this ennui isn't just about being unmotivated to grab a camera and go out exploring the visual landscape; nope, it also extends to nearly all things gear-oriented as well. No interesting camera comes to mind; at least none that I feel like buying or trying out. No lights that I feel I "need" for some project. Nada. I look into a drawer full of nice lenses and they hold no current fascination or allure. I charge camera batteries but come up with excuses not to use them. I have excuses that even sound lame to me. Like, it's too hot outside. The traffic is horrible during this time of the day. The light is not right. I've been there before and it all looks the same. Being the only person within a five mile area wearing a real camera over my shoulder is too odd. 

I'm not too alarmed as a bit of research on artists tells me that many have/had periods in their careers when they just aren't/weren't inspired to do the work. There are transitional periods during which they catch their breath and realign their vision or philosophy. And sometimes people just need a break.

I can only imagine this all stems from calling quits to doing work for the sake of a paycheck. I don't think I realized just how tied up in our work identities we can be and how work bolstered my sense of identity and even lent a bit of extra power to my self-esteem. Minus the work framework the whole reason for photographing seems unnecessary. Almost like I'm going through the motions just to have something routine to do. And that's kinda goofy. 

Everyone who offers advice offers the same two solutions. One is to volunteer to photograph for a non-profit or charity and the other is to actively mentor young photographers. I've worked for decades with non-profits; done my share of pro bono work, and spent way too many late nights post processing projects for charities. But the truth is that nearly every non-profit I've worked with would much rather have cash donations instead of more photos. Their need for photos is transient and limited while their need for donations is constant.  And given that most of their photo needs aren't in line with my vision I'd much rather write checks than spend time doing work that doesn't satisfy my way of seeing or my ideas. I've spoken to many charities about this. The check is the "gold standard." 

When it comes to mentoring one has to admit that what I learned in my career, as it applies directly to photography, is less and less apt today; in today's marketplace. My advice might be more harmful than productive; especially if I steer people into conformity and the standard's that my generation decided were "universal" and "timeless." Because nothing really is. I could teach them how to write an invoice or how to hire a tax accountant but I think most smart, young people realize that the market for traditional photography is shrinking at the speed of light, and the dumb ones shouldn't be in the business anyway because, again, it's a declining market. And it's hard to master and make profitable something in decline.

I'm sure I'll find my way shortly. I'm just mired in the process of wrapping business things up which is different than actively photographing. 

Almost everyone also demands that I find a project to work on but I feel (and 50 years of experience seems to validate the feeling) that projects find you when you are ready to be found. Something always crops up when you least expect it... Forcing a project is like trying to force someone to fall in love. Doesn't work.

Or, I could just try to do the same stuff over and over again but I don't think that works out for anyone. 

For now? We'll donate to our favorite charities and chill out until the muses smack me in the face with a bit of inspiration. 

Now goofing around with one of the Leica CL (digital) cameras and an assortment of APS-C lenses. It's different. And kinda fun. 

Off to the dermatologist so she can look at her handiwork and pat herself on the back. Ah, the one benefit of retirement = more time for doctor's visits.

This is Formula One weekend in Austin. People who like to look at cars going around and around endlessly on a track are in heaven. The rest of us are perplexed. And mildly inconvenienced. 

the happy place where we learn discipline and good life habits. 

a clean pool is a happy pool. I hope the guard is fishing out all of the pirañas that someone dumped in the pool as a joke yesterday.... They did motivate a spurt of sprinting...

The first half of workout. The second half on the board lurking in the background....

Swimming. Breakfast. Laundry. Empty dishwasher. Wash windows.

Get prodded on by dermatologist. Clean house in preparation for 

spouse's arrival from out of town. Water the plants by the front door. 

Repeat. 

Retirement from a long term job is an interesting exercise in re-direction and self-examination.

Just thinking that new Hasselblad X2D-ii might be a temporary fix for the ennui.

My best friend just bought one along with that cool 

40mm lens....  hmmmm. 

I took a black and white camera with me to Chicago...I just had to take the color out of the files before I realized it. Make that two black and white cameras...

The giant fountain at Millennium Park in the hellscape we used to call, "Chicago." 

(Sarcasm. Chicago is just fine...).

When I built my photography studio in downtown Austin back in the 1980s one of the things I required was a fully functional black and white darkroom. Clients were fine with big transparencies for ads because they would be drum scanned for use but black and white prints were still the gold standard for black and white (or duotone, quadratone, etc.) uses. I didn't just print for a few years and then move on to other interests. I have zero propensity for ADHD. I souped black and white film, made contact sheets and printed large black and white prints almost daily. For well over a decade. It was very rare for me to ever send out a black and white print job to an outside lab. There were always reasons but mostly it was because I was never satisfied with anyone else's interpretation of my negatives. My way of looking at finished prints. 

I'll estimate that in roughly 20 years I produced about 10,000 black and white prints. And not prints just aimed at pleasing me but also aimed at pleasing the art directors who were making ads for international companies like AMD, Dell, IBM, Motorola and many more household names (well, household if you were in tech). I was well paid for the prints and nearly all of them went out not as "easy to do" RC (resin coated) prints but as toned, archival prints on double weight fiber paper. That's a level of experience with black and white printing that is generally only achieved by people who spend their careers in custom print labs, working the trays. For us it was part of the profession.

The markets changed at the end of the 1990s. Color became cheaper and easier to produce and to reproduce. Clients moved into fully color mindsets pretty quickly and the darkroom became a refuge from work. A place where I could print my own stuff on my own schedule.

When I closed the 3,000 square foot studio and moved my office into a smaller building adjacent to my home I closed the door on the darkroom and around the same time made some big investments in digital cameras and related technology. While my peers were drawing lines in the sand and making statements about how they'd never give up film I sold off the film gear and spent a fortune on big Kodak digital cameras, grappling with $12,000 budgets per camera (you'll have to do the math for inflation). 

I never gave up personal shooting with black and white in mind and even when I shoot a Leica in color I'm doing it in a .DNG format and in the back of my mind is the constant thought of "how will this look if I convert to black and white?" 

When I went on vacation at the end of September this year I went with my spouse to Chicago. We had a great time. Friendly people, no stress, no conflicts. I took two cameras and shot mostly in raw. When I got back home I tossed the files into Lightroom and worked towards making the color in the images pop. I posted some here on the blog and also on Instagram. And then I left the files to ripen for the last couple of weeks. 

This afternoon I sat down and started exploring how selected street images might look if I reworked them into black and white. And that's what this post is all about.  

The two cameras were both Leicas. I wanted to see which of the two I'll want to use more in the future; the Q2 or the smaller DLUX-8. And part of that assessment is looking at finished files from each camera and seeing what works, what doesn't and what is similar across both cameras. But also, how they'll look when I convert their files to black and white. 

I find some photographers put in way too much time making things like black and white conversions way too complicated and unnecessarily painful. It doesn't need to be that way. In fact, I found a preset that comes with the current edition of Lightroom Classic that was a good starting point for nearly every file here. 

So, I set aside a few hours this afternoon and cherry-picked the files that I liked and toyed around with them. Since I don't write about theory much I am showing a lot of images which should serve as proof of procedure. If an image took more than five minutes of cajoling I abandoned it and searched for lower hanging fruit. 

While I like diving into files that have been freshly shot I've spent time this year going back to big, square negatives I shot 30 and 40 years ago, scanning them and making them into black and white files as well as some larger (24x24 inch) black and white prints. Kind of the same way in which I'm approaching these Chicago files. I let them sit for a while after the initial color foray and now I've come back to them to see how they look in "monochrome."

The raw files from the Q2 are marginally better but the DLUX8 is a much more solid camera than a lot of people give it credit for. Especially if you consider it to be a "raw-only" device. The Jpegs are solid but the raw files are better. 

Take a peek. Blow them up if you want to. None of these are for clients. I got rid of the clients last week. These were just for me. 

Washers of tall windows. 

temporary crosswalk companion.

Travel companion waiting for food and drink. 

Leica photographer met in the street. 

Johann Buis. Standing in front of Central Camera.

B. takes photos in her inimitable way.

The "Bean." 

the plastic women at Macy's department store.

Street photography, or one way of looking at it.

"Crossing the street" photography.

Early morning in black and white.

Chicago River Walk.

Hanging out under the "Bean". 

Testing the DLUX-8 flare at the "Bean". 

Stairs to the third floor at the Cultural Center.

A hallway into the contemporary galleries at the Art Institute. 

Gallery fuel. 

Taking a break in the late afternoon before heading out for dinner. 

The thoughtful pose and expression of an art director.  

The furrowed brow and scrunched eye of an Austin photographer in Chicago.

Engagement photos right in the middle of the main stairway at the Art Institute.

Amazed that they allowed this commercial adventure on a crowded Saturday...

Bean-ography.

Heading down Wabash to somewhere...

I love being out in the street shooting photographs. Do I think it has tremendous staying power as my sole art form? Naw! But not everything in life needs to be hard work. Fun is highly underrated. Grabbing a camera, a pocket full of cash and a bucket of time is a wonderful way to navigate through a vacation. Vacation, not work. Fun. 

I enjoyed sharing these images. Some were "one click" conversions via a Lightroom preset. Others were adjusted to taste. All were taken over the course of a couple of days. The rest of the time was spent going from museum to museum and front gallery to more galleries. Now home and having fun exploring the possibilities.