OT: Swimming, Supplements, Weather, Ephemerata. 50mm lens avalanche.

 

Corporations have white boards. Our coaches have white boards. 

Sometimes the board reflects a fun workout but other times its 

contents can strike fear into the hearts of those of waffling commitment.

It's been a glorious week for swimming. The temperature today will reach up into the mid-80s, the sky was clear this morning and the vibe on the pool deck was energetic and happy. The pool didn't suffer much at all from the recent ice storm and the water has been clear, clean and welcoming. We are blessed with 16 workout times for Masters Swimming in a given week. All are coached by USMS certified coaches. We try to get in between 3,000 and 3,500 yards in an hour long time slot. If we're working on specific stroke technique we might get fewer yards. If it's someone's "mile post" birthday we go longer and harder. 

This week it was diet expert and whole plant enthusiast, Rip Esselstyn's 60th birthday. To celebrate he and his teammates did a set of 60 x 100 yards (6,000 yards total) at a brisk pace to celebrate. A brisk pace being (depending on one's level) repeats on 1:30 or 1:40. 

Today's 8 a.m. workout was all about race pacing in hundred yard races. We had four sets of four x one hundred yard swims on an interval. We'd swim the first 75 yards (three lengths) alternating a fast 25 through each 75. That looked like swimming the first 25 of the 75 fast, then the second 25 of the next one fast and so on. After each 75 with a moving fast length we sprinted the last 25 yards of the 100 yards as an all out sprint. The idea is to teach swimmers how to alternate pace during a race for best performance. 

An interesting twist to our warm up today was the use of foot long PVC "sticks" which we used to do what's called a "catch up" drill. You swim freestyle and hand off your stick from one hand to the other at the front end of your stroke; at your full extension. This exercise evens out the stroke cadence and also reminds one not to cross hands over the fictive center line of one's body on the recovery and hand entry phase of the swim. 

Our coach this morning is one of the ones who is quite interactive. By that I mean she's constantly calling out "go" times and "encouraging" us not to be slothful. Some of us are more compliant than others... 

Two constants. The lane line at the bottom of the pool and the flow thru 

lane lines that separate the lanes. Lane one is the slowest lane. They have 

longer intervals. Lane eight is the fastest lane. They have insane intervals. 

The rest of us slot in somewhere in the middle. All swim the same basic workout.

Some finish sooner. But the yardage is the yardage. 

The cool thing about an interest in physical fitness is that we each have a ready subject on which to experiment. I'm interested in the concept of vasodilation. Keeping your arteries flexible and able to dilate in order to move blood and therefore oxygen more efficiently. And also to prevent vessel spasm. To that end, and under the supervision of my doctor, I'm supplementing with Niacin in the form of Nicotinic Acid. 

It's also supposed to be a good method of keeping LDL cholesterol low, triglycerides low, and HDL high. All of which are good things. It's hard to tell at only 60 days into the trial but I seem to be recovering quicker and swimming with less aerobic effort. The placebo effect is always suspected but if you think something is working then that's half the battle. 

I'm consistently a "lane five" swimmer in our 8:00 practices and my overriding goal is to maintain speed and endurance at my current level. 

The one additional thing that all coaches and faster swimmers have been recommending is lifting weights on a regular basis. Surprisingly, my health insurance policy covers gym memberships so I've been auditioning local gyms. We have three or four within a five minute drive. My plan is to work less but to add three days a week of moderate weight lifting this year. Sarcopenia is a shitty thing and can be slowed down. Let's see if I have enough discipline to follow through...

Lifeguard stand. How safe is Masters Swimming? Hmmmm. I've been active in 

this program at my club pool for over 20 years and we haven't lost anyone, during a workout, in 

the Masters Program in all that time. We've had a few (one or two) heart attacks (no cardiac arrest) but we've got well trained staff and two AEDs in the guard offices. 

Our coaches are also well trained for emergencies. 

Added to that several of our swimmers in practice today are medical doctors. We're also one minute away from the closest fire station.... About the worst most of us do is to miss our flip turn distances and slap a heel onto the hard edge of the pool. You learn quickly not to do that...

As far as other supplements go... there's multi-vitamin at night and the vitamin D3 and K2 M7. That's about it. At 67 I know a number of people on four or more prescription meds. I'm trying to steer clear of the hard stuff. Everything has a side effect. Sometimes it seems that those effects can be worse than the cure. 

Technique is like rust. Across most disciplines. The decline or entropy of stroke technique never sleeps. One must constantly revisit good technique to stay efficient and to have a good swim. Like most other eye/hand/body activities it requires conscious intention to do correctly. To build muscle memory. 

Someone who is not a swimmer announced the other day that swimming laps is "boring." I suggested that it was a meditative practice. She asked me what I thought about while swimming. I answered that I start each segment thinking about body position, technique and how I'm feeling on a given day. Once that all gets shuttled to "auto-pilot" my thoughts turn to visualizing photographs. I nearly always exit the pool thinking of new ways to make photographs. Lately, I've been taking a camera to the pool to photograph stuff as soon as I'm showered and dressed after the swim. Like today...

We keep one starting block on the deck even after the summer swim season.

People who have active competitions coming up like to practice their starts

using the same type of equipment they'll find at swim meets. 

Photo Ephemerata. 

We seem to be heading into a period of time in which a number of suppliers/camera makers have decided to bless photographers with more 50mm lenses. Let's do the dive....

Leica makes a 50mm Summicron APO lens for the SL system that is apochromatically corrected and built to the highest standards. Even though it's an f2.0 maximum aperture lens size-wise it's a beast. Big and heavy. Reading the experts on this kind of stuff (Sean Reid, etc.) informs us that putting together an optical formula aimed at the highest performance takes many lens elements and a lot of space. The Leica 50mm APO checks those boxes. It's also over $5,000. 

I'm presuming that Leica gets a lot of feedback from buyers of SL2 and SL2-S cameras that are along the lines of..."the 50mm APO is too big, too heavy and far too expensive!!! Help." Leica is finally answering their customers by introducing a 50mm Summicron that is NOT APO. The lens does use aspheric elements and high refraction elements but it's not corrected to the same extent that a true APO would be. This lens will be referred to as the Summicron 50mm f2.0 Aspheric and is being positioned price-wise at just under $2,000. Less than half the price of its larger sibling. 

Looking at the overall design I conjecture  that Leica are using the same lens design as Panasonic's 50mm f1.8 but with a few added tweaks such as a metal body, Aqua-Dura hydrophobic lens coatings and perhaps a higher level of QC. Whether that's worth the price difference between the Leica lens and the Panasonic lens is up to the individual consumer. But be advised that one can pick up a Lumix 50mm f1.8 for about $350 these days....new in a box. Just saying. 

Rumors are swirling that Sigma will be launching their own 50mm f2.0 in the Contemporary, i-Series family. I don't have a lot of info about it yet but if it's anything like the other Sigma i-Series primes it will feature a nice aperture ring, all metal construction and really good performance. It would be my leading candidate for the moment but we'll see if these are just rumors or well leaked "place holders." 

Sigma has also already announced their revision of the 50mm f1.4 Art lens. This one is supposed to be a "no holds barred" fast 50mm but one that is smaller and lighter than the one it replaces. Available for most of the popular mounts out there and already getting reviewed by the usual suspects. According to B&H it gets released on the 24th/feb. Given the incredible performance of the first model I'm certain hordes of photographers are standing by with red hot credit cards in hand for the Feb. 24th release. Very interested!!!

Sony has also announced a reworked 50mm f1.4 G master that is supposed to have much better chromatic aberration correction than the previous model and is also purported to be sharper wide open. It will compete with the Sigma 50mm DG DN f1.4 and its own Sony stablemate, the 50mm f1.2 G Master lens. Fun  times for Sony shooters. Lots to choose from. Should take a little sting out of those ponderous menus...

If all of these sell well I predict they'll be followed by an avalanche of new 50mm models from manufacturers in China. And beyond. Some will be quite good. Others will be quite cheap. And a smaller fraction will fit into that little wedge of the Venn diagram where cheap and good meet up. 

And of course, we're all waiting with bated breath for the announcement from Pentax of a new 50mm lens for their flagship camera. Smaller? Lighter? Faster? Better? We'll have to wait and see. And wait, and wait and wait. 

I'm looking into a number of Voigtlånder 50mm lenses. I've heard, read, etc. that the 50mm f2.0 APO Lanthar Ultron in the M mount is supposed to be a keen competitor for the Leica APOs but at a fraction of the price. While I feel a bit burned that my 40mm f1.4 Voigtlander was delivered entirely uncalibrated for distance I may be willing to take a chance with the 50 Ultron if it passes muster. 

And then there is the 58mm f1.4 Nokton which, I think, is only available in the Nikon F mount. It's supposed to be both good and imbued with "character" (which means it falls down on some metric of quality somewhere). I have a friend with a minty used one and I also have a Nikon F to L mount adapter so you can see where this might be going. 

At the end of the day none of this 50mm hysteria really matters to most photographers. Especially if they don't need needle-like sharpness at maximum aperture. All of the truly modern 50mm lenses with  more than 7 lens elements are uniformly better than are the skills of most of the photographers who carry them. The older ones with fewer elements (mostly designs from the film age) sharpen up nicely and do quite well by f5.6. We profess to need the speed but in reality I'd conjecture that most work happens a couple stops down from wide open. 

Swim goggles? Right now I'm using Speedo Vanquisher II goggles with gold mirrored front lenses. About $30 and no LOCA that I can see.....

I really like compact cameras with fixed lenses. Big formats, small formats, zooms or fixed primes. They're all so different from our "serious" cameras...

Last shot of the evening on Friday. Q2.

Correctly or incorrectly I judge how popular cameras are by how hard it is to buy one new. In a box. From a retailer. New mirrorless, interchangeable cameras from Leica, Panasonic, Sony, Nikon and Canon all seem to be widely available right now. Maybe they're tough to get just after launch but the supply seems to catch up with demand for all but the most popular, and the cameras perceived to be actually ground-breaking; at least at the time of launch. 

For a couple of months now I've been feeling like I made a mistake getting rid of both of my Fuji X100V cameras near the end of 2021. At the time I really wasn't getting much use from them and I had a friend who really wanted one of them. With its twin missing the other X100V became part of one of a series of trade deals. My rationale for selling them at the time was that they were plentiful; available, and if I wanted to I could replace them with ease. My cursory searches through the biggest dealers' websites over the last 60 days proved me wrong. Brand new X100V cameras seem to have vanished from the market. The are "back-ordered" or have become "special order" items. I called several retailers to check on this inventory mystery and each one had the same story: the new cameras are trickling in by ones and twos from Fuji and if I want one I need to put myself on the retailer's waiting list. I asked how long the list might be and all the people who were willing to own up to the truth said their lists were anywhere from the hundreds to, in one case, over a thousand people. Wow. Just wow. 

For a number of reasons the Fuji X100V is both a super high demand item and, at the same time, a proverbial unicorn. Oh...you can buy one if you want. Probably right now. Today. It's easy. Just go online to Ebay and you'll find sellers moving the cameras for insane prices. From $2,500 to $3,500 and along with the high prices you'll also have to navigate the dicey waters of private sellers, some with dubious ratings... Caveat Emptor, for sure. These cameras have been flogged relentlessly on review sites, hence their current popularity. Another reason to hate on social media... (and my own blog...).

The Fuji X100V is a really nice $1399 camera but it's kind of NOT a bargain or even a good deal, slightly used, at $2,500. For a bit more you could pick up a nice, but also used Leica Q. The original full frame, 24 megapixel model. And having played with both the Leica is decidedly nicer. But it's not just Fuji's compact, APS-C fixed lens X100V that's gone AWOL. Once I realized that the Fuji product wasn't destined to be in my immediate future I started looking around at other potentially fun compact cameras. Just something small and easy to carry around when I'm working on trying to be "casual" about my photography hobby. 

I decided I'd pick up a Panasonic LX100mk2 instead. Or, I might splash out and buy the same camera in Leica trim for a little bit more; a D-Lux 7 for the same price at the above mentioned Fuji. Either one would have worked for me but..... both are back-ordered. Adorama says until mid to late April. One by one I worked my way through the small field of ultra cool compact cameras like the Ricoh GR3x only to find that the "cool" models in nearly every line are out of stock, back-ordered or otherwise missing in action. 

While I have always liked bigger and more potent cameras for work, and almost always cameras with interchangeable lenses, I've also usually had an inexpensive, compact camera to carry along as well. Ten years ago it was the Canon G10 followed a few years later by the G15 and the G16. All really good variations on the compact theme. On a bet I actually illustrated one of my books, "Photographic Lighting Equipment" almost exclusively with the CCD sensor-ed G10. It did not disappoint --- but I mostly used it in a counter-intuitive way= anchored to a tripod.

From 2002 to 2013-15 there was a mad rush made by consumers in one of two directions. One group decided to buy into the new, digital camera DSLR hysteria and abandoned their usual point-and-shoot camera to embrace APS-C and then full frame cameras. These replaced legions of compact cameras on kid's soccer fields, at family gatherings and on big vacations. All of sudden the market for premium compacts dropped like a rock. The other group of consumers, beginning around 2008-9, decided that the performance of the ever-ready cameras in their mobile phones were completely able to take over the tasks once handled by compact cameras and, in a burst of freeing themselves from the tyranny of carrying multiple devices they dropped their demand for stand alone compacts and embraced photo-by-phone. 

Manufacturers, being logical and data grounded, looked at the plummeting sales numbers and bailed nearly wholesale from the entire market segment of the compact camera. But a new group of people, driven by a recent trend with an almost viral spread, have been snapping up the old compacts for, ta-da! Street Photography. Which we used to just call....photography. 

So, camera makers shut down production, new Street Photographers soak up the really cool used compact cameras and now we're kind of stuck. This happened when compact film camera sales first started to decline. The price of everyone's favorite, the Canon Canonet QL17mk3 took off like a rocket. It was a camera that never retailed for more than about $150 which started selling for three and four hundred dollars used. Looking at that camera now I judge that those buyers of used Canonets actually got bargains. An all metal, all mechanical body with an attached 40mm f1.7 rangefinder coupled lens, able to flash sync at all shutter speeds and featuring a quick load (the QL in QL) function that made loading film easy and foolproof. 

If Canon launched that camera today and updated the meter and battery they could probably become the newest back-ordered "photographic miracle" machine at around $1,000 a pop. It was that popular. An improved, updated version that preserved the original DNA and features would be an instant classic. Brand the old 40mm lens as an L lens and ..... well, I can only conjecture. 

But my point is that the market changed for a while and the huge base of compacts disappeared as quickly as Walmart and Costco could remainder them. 

But I want one. 

Why? With a camera like the G15 I can toss it in a jacket pocket, or in one of those huge pockets that used to decorate David Hobby's cargo shorts, and not really have to think about it. I could pull it out and make wonderful images without caring too much and without the pervasive ego addition of status symbol projection. Use it on the street and it would be hard for anyone to take me seriously. Accidentally drop it in a vat of hot coffee and I wouldn't cry about the loss...too much. 

I recently bought a Leica Q2. It's a formidable camera. But it's in no way really compact in the way the old point and shoots were. If you want to put that sucker in a pocket you'll need to pull your old London Fog trench coat out of the closet and clear the gum wrappers and Kleenex out of the pockets. The Q2 takes amazing photos but it more a fixed lens variation on the Leica Ms which are also not "pocketable" or even light to carry around. 

While I was pining for the Fuji X100V I started to remember that, winter jackets aside, (we only get to use them for about a month each year in Central Texas) we don't have pockets with enough cubic centimeters to accommodate one of them either. That's what led me down the path to cameras like the Lumix LX100ii. It's just small enough to bring along surreptitiously, streamlined-ly, under the radar. And, if the reviews are true it is a really good photograph making product with a nice zoom lens that covers a useful range of angles of view. 

Yes, I've looked at the Sony RX100xxxx variants but they are finnicky to use. Buttons too small. Menus to torturous. And while the one inch sensors are good the prices for the cameras are out of touch with my side of the market. 

I looked around the retail space again today and decided to entertain myself for the foreseeable future with the existing Leica Q2. I suspect that Leica will be launching a new model sometime soon. If so I have just a few suggestions for them. I think they would do well to make two models and to provide two different fixed focal lengths. The 28mm seems to work well for a lot of people but I'm sure there are some like me who would love to see a 50mm version of the camera. I would buy one in a heartbeat. With a digital zoom range up to 90 or 100mm (with a drop in resolution) I'd be in semi-compact camera heaven. Another suggested change would be to put a little front grip into the actual body design to make holding the camera more of a science and less of an aftermarket hardware art project. It's a test of one's optimism about the future to drop almost $6,000 on a camera but it's just a trial to complete the camera with aftermarket thumb grips and front hand grips. The German engineers have hands. They should try holding their product for a day to see just where it might be improved. 

If the Q3 launches with no change to the body them I'm weighing starting a company to make a "KirkTuck" branded selection of grips and gadgets to hang off the resulting camera. If Oberwerth can make a $495 half case for a Q2 I'm sure there are some out there that might pay $300 for an "exclusive" thumb grip. It will come in quite a nice box....

Now that we've moved from a final viewing target being a screen instead of paper prints (for the vast majority of people) most of the camera on offer are dramatic overkill. The compacts should see a revival as the offer a good middle ground between the lust and passion for full frame and the parsimonious and unimaginative dependence on a phone with which to make art. Price them well and we might be able to convince every Sony A9 user, Nikon Ultra ZXX user, and even died in the wool Leica SL users to pick up a pint size camera for those "in between" moments. Easier to handle at cocktail parties and on trail runs. Cheap enough to have one to leave in the car...

I took the Leica Q2 out with me late Friday afternoon. Yes, it was equipped with a non-Kirk branded thumb grip and a non-Kirk branded hand grip. It had a strap. It weighs more than nothing. I had the extra battery in my pocket. I liked almost everything about the shooting experience except that I couldn't just fit it into my jacket pocket. I'd like to have something smaller just for times like that. 

On the other hand I really liked the photos I was able to take. I'll caption a few of them.

Two work notes. First, my long time partner/spouse/wife/best friend won a silver ADDY award for her design work, done almost a year ago, for a brochure. Her creative director texted her from the awards show Friday night. He was delighted. It's funny because it was the last design project she did for a large final client before retiring. I guess it's the classic situation of leaving on a high note. 

I also did two work projects this week, making environmental portraits for both a law firm and a tech firm. One each. The newsy piece is that I was bored about the projects until I decided to mix things up by tossing the big, full frame cameras back in a drawer and taking along only the Leica CL, APS-C cameras. In both cases I used one of the cameras with the Sigma 65mm f2.0 lens. The combination results in an angle of view similar to a 100mm lens on a full frame camera. The lens is massively sharp even at f2.0 so I decided to use it there. I was very pleased with the final results --- as were the clients. Sometime we just shake it up to move forward. Next up: How's that swimming coming along? 

An artist who can't resist getting into the shot. 

Shameless.

Pink chairs in front of a hair salon. Cabled to the ground so the extravagantly 

coiffed don't make off with the furniture...

dynamic range, dogs and clouds. End of day socializing with dog owners. 

they tell you right up front what sells. In Austin at any rate.

Using the crop mode in the Q2 at the 75mm setting. 

Seems pretty good to me. 

I prefer just to upgrade....

the scene in front of a big bank building. I imagined that some 

failed corporate executive was whacked for not hitting his numbers

and they tossed him into the front flower bed as an example.

Just my film noir imagination....

Why do I think that "Maine Lobster" and Austin, Texas are a stupid mix of 

gustatory non sequiturs? What's the carbon foot print of sending lobsters

cross country when we could all be chowing down on tacos and guacamole instead?

75.

50.

28.

35.

75.

75.

50. 

You midwesterners know that you really want these boots. 

They would change your life. Just imagine wearing them into the office 

with your suit from The Men's Warehouse... And that funny necktie.

Streets wide open. Ready to park your car.

The alternate path back over the railroad tracks, through the fence and back to the waiting car.

Coffee cup "too-hot-to-hold" cardboard thing deconstructed as found art.