I wrote this a couple of years ago for Photo.net. There's a link to the full article with photos.

http://photo.net/equipment/leica/summarit-m-lenses/review

Several people in the last week have told me that they've found M8's (not the M8.2's) for really cheap prices and they want to know what I think about buying them.  I sent them to this article with the caveat that much had changed since I wrote this and I know find several cameras that have much better image quality and more resolution for less outlay.  Even though some of the M8's are at fire sale prices.  I don't intend for this to be an endorsement of Leicas.  Just bringing up what was on my mind two and a half years ago when I got a box of Leica stuff to play with for a month.  Bottom line, in retrospect?  The camera could be better but the lenses are just fine.  So, for fun...........

Leica M8 and Summarit-M Lenses Review

A working photographer's review by Kirk Tuck

You’ve probably heard all kinds of opinions about the Leica M8 digital camera but most of them were likely based on conjecture, and on the widely circulated stories about the tendency of the camera’s sensor to turn certain polyester products purple when photographed in bright light. I wanted to do a hands-on evaluation because I’ve used Leica products since 1980 and I’ve found their optics second to none. I love the feel and the ergonomics of the bodies and I’m very comfortable with rangefinder focusing. I find the rangefinder focusing to be the second biggest selling point of these cameras, right after my regard for their astonishingly good lenses. I also wanted to try out the Summarit-M series of lenses, as they are a more reasonably-priced series of quality lenses from Leica.

M8 with Summarit-M lenses: 35mm, 50mm, 75mm, 90mm

So, what’s the Leica M8 all about? In a bare bones summary it is a digital version of the Leica M7 rangefinder camera with a few added attractions. That makes it a hand built, high precision rangefinder camera that takes a range of very well designed and produced lenses. It’s not an SLR. There is no moving mirror in front of the sensor plane, and rather than focusing through the lenses all composition and focusing is done through a viewfinder frame that shows the boundaries of attached lenses with bright frame lines projected into the viewfinder. It is the extension of the Leica “M” franchise that has continued its relevance in the world of photography for over five decades.

Since digital routed film, I’ve been photographing with a constantly evolving assortment of Nikon and Kodak SLR cameras. The current Nikon D700 is a wonderful camera which produces remarkably good files. The Nikon lenses are also very good. During this transitional period in photography I found myself constantly pining for a Leica “version” of digital. About a month ago a box arrived at my house and I found myself with a loaner Leica M8 and four of their new Summarit-M lenses. It happened on the same week that I took possession of my first Nikon D700. The coincidental appearance of the two cameras together led me to test them against each other in “real world” shooting situations. The results have been interesting, frustrating, fascinating and amazing. The Nikon D700 does everything well. The M8 does a small handful of things really well.

(For background information about the Leica Rangefinder M series cameras, please see my 2001 article on the Leica M6.)

It is amazing to consider how far digital photography has come in such a short time and how nice the files look. The Leica M8 has maintained its (admittedly niche) relevance in spite of its less than cutting edge technology. It’s frustrating to note just how much better the Leica could be. We’ll cover these issues in the course of this review. We’ll also take a good, hard look at four new lenses that Leica recently introduced that nicely rebute the idea that all Leica glass is only affordable by investment bankers, surgeons and oil sheiks.

If you’re anxious to get your own Leica set for hands-on experiments while you read this review, Amazon.com has the Leica M8 and Summarit-M lenses available.

• Leica M8 (review)
• Leica 35mm f/2.5 Summarit-M, $1695
• Leica 50mm f/2.5 Summarit-M, $1395
• Leica 75mm f/2.5 Summarit-M, $1695
• Leica 90mm f/2.5 Summarit-M, $1695

Let’s start with a little background

Series 3: 35mm Summarit-M (Fair Bean Coffee House)

The Leica company was “the” camera company in the world right up until the 1960’s. In the days before SLRs with “instant return” mirrors, Leica made the finest rangefinders available. They also made incredible lenses to go with their camera bodies. Rangefinder cameras were the gold standard because they offered very bright viewfinders and very accurate focusing for wide angle to moderate telephoto lenses. The typical photographer in the 1950’s got along very well with lenses in the 28mm to 90mm range. In 1954, at Photokina, Leica introduced a new style of rangefinder camera based on a new lens mount that has lived on relatively unchanged for over 58 years. The first model was called the M3 and that camera is still much sought after today because of its high magnification viewfinder, its relatively silent shutter and its bullet proof mechanical construction.

While current competitors talk about shutters constructed to go up to 150,000 or 250,000 exposures before failure, stories are legions of Leica M shutters going strong at a million or more actuations! The M introduced a new lens mount that allowed photographers to change out lenses very quickly, with less than a quarter rotation of the lens. The new mount also gave lens designers more room to work their magic with new generations of optics that, to professional photographers in that era, were amazingly good. I still use a dual range 50mm Summicron from the late 1950’s on my Leica M6 film cameras to this day with results that rival the best current lenses from Japanese companies.

Leica sold millions of M3’s and later variants of the body style but they made a few missteps during the early years of the 1960’s that left them in a precarious situation from which they have never fully recovered. They totally missed the idea that consumers would throng to SLR’s to gain features like, a much wider range of available focal lengths, the ability to compose and focus through the taking lens and, of course, the lower price of the new generation of cameras. Nikon started the ball rolling in 1959 with the well received Nikon F. Pentax added a system that allowed metering through the lens for greater exposure accuracy. By the 1970’s, Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Olympus and Minolta had pushed the entire market for cameras away from the rangefinder paradigm and drove consumers steadfastly into the arena of the SLR. Leica tried to gain back market share with several SLR product introductions but by the time they hit the market their offerings were perceived to be very expensive and a few years behind their competitors when it came to features.

However, in one part of the market, the Leica continued to be popular with street photographers and artists who needed a highly capable imaging machine that was both stealthy and quiet. It was always easier to focus fast, wide angle lenses with the M cameras and few machines beat them when it comes to quiet and unobtrusive operation. They were the cameras of choice for top photographers like: Henri Cartier Bresson, Robert Frank, William Klein, Lee Freidlander, Sebastio Salgado and many others.

These artists looked to the Leica M series rangefinder for three attributes:

• the bright, easy to use, always in focus, viewfinder
• the high level of mechanical reliability
• the low aural and visual profile of the cameras, which helped the photographer work in a very candid manner

75mm Summarit-M. ISO 640 (Medici Coffee House, Austin)

The next biggest reason to own a Leica rangefinder has always been the glass. Leica is one of the acknowledged leaders in the world when it comes to designing and building lenses for cameras (and microscopes). Leica earned this reputation by taking a lead in all areas of lens creation back in the 1950’s and never relinquishing that lead over the decades. When I wrote an article about the Leica M6, $1350 (review), for this site back in 2001, many readers posted opinions about the relative value of the brand but few refuted the technical sophistication and superiority of their lenses. Granted, most photographers don’t work with the highest level of technique that would make the differences between brands of lenses immediately apparent (tripod mounting, exact exposures, critical focusing, etc.) but many people did write to say that the effects of the Leica glass were “special”, “had a three dimensional quality”, “added a special feel”, etc.

If I were to distill what it is about Leica lenses that make them superior I would have to start with the design philosophy they’ve espoused for decades. The lens should be sharp and usable at its widest aperture! If you build an f/1.4 lens it should be usable at f/1.4. Most of their competitors build lenses with high apertures that could only be used in the direst of photographic emergencies and then with mediocre results. Leica’s designers also design for the way people look at photographs. Their emphasis is on high apparent sharpness and great rendering of micro fine detail. If they have to sacrifice things like extreme corner resolution or ultimate resolution, they will do so. They are lenses that are meant to be used rather than tested on optical test benches (although the high level of implementation also enables them to perform well in those arenas as well).

For example: A fast aperture, wide angle lens like the Leica 28mm f/2 Summicron-M, $3995 (review), is highly usable at f/2 with the center two-thirds of the frame being critically sharp. Stopping down one or two stops only serves to sharpen up the extreme corners of the lens. The Leica 75mm f/2 Summicron-M, $3395, is highly corrected across the frame at f/2 giving up only in the area of close focusing.

While Leica’s lenses are traditionally three, four or five times as expensive as lenses from their competitors, generations of working photographers (and very discerning amateurs) have not hesitated to buy them, knowing that the unique characteristics of these optics can be powerful differentiators in what is otherwise a very homogeneous marketplace. Here’s what Leica has done for us lately.

The Leica M8

Kirk Tuck

They took the time-proven M series camera body and redesigned the guts to bring us a unique digital photographic tool. They worked with Kodak to include a very good sensor that yields some interesting trade-offs. The first thing you’ll notice about the Kodak 10.3MP sensor is how much dynamic range it has. It’s hard to blow out highlight detail with this piece of silicon. I captured samples of Noellia Hernandez drinking coffee and deliberately overexposed by one full stop. All of the highlight detail was easily captured when converting the industry standard .dng files in Adobe Camera Raw. This capturing technique, similar to the way we used to handle color negative film, also yields much cleaner shadow detail because it is captured much further up the curve where there are many more steps of shadow information.

The second attribute of the sensor is the very neutral, very film like rendering of color and tonal relationships. The more experienced photographer is not satisfied with high color saturation at the expense of fine gradations of tone and color. In fact, after spending several weeks with the M8 I couldn’t stand to look at files shot at “standard” settings on the Nikon D700. I wasn’t happy again with the D700 until I reduced the saturation settings and started using profiles that were custom produced for that camera.

Leica also took a good, hard look at the prevailing practice of putting “anti-aliasing” filters in front of camera sensors to reduce or illuminate moire patterns in the final files. Kodak has a history of producing cameras (like the Kodak SLR/n) that use no anti-aliasing filters in front of their sensors. While moire patterns do show up from time to time, these cameras have the appearance of producing image files with much greater amounts of fine and micro fine detail which, in turn, allows for greater enlarge-ability and a greater overall perception of quality. Leica chose to go only with an infra-red blocking filter in front of their M sensor and the results can be wonderful. The feeling of sharpness and detail is wonderful. The results from my Nikon D700 are also very good, but they are, to a certain extent, interpolated data. This means that the camera is making up information to give me the impression of sharpness. In some cases this works well. In other cases, not so well.

75mm Summarit-M. (Starbucks)

When Kodak designed this sensor chip for Leica they had to take into consideration just how close the back of a Leica wide angle lens could sit in relationship to the sensor. Since Leica lenses don’t have to be designed to compensate for the space required for a moving mirror they could optimize their designs and have the back of the lenses close to the film plane. When digital came along one of the obvious design issues was the difference between the way film and digital respond to the light coming through lenses.

Film doesn’t care about the angle that like strikes. It will engage at most any angle or direction. Digital sensors are a bit more finicky and require light to come into their pixel wells at a much less severe angle than can be handled by film. In order to keep the information of the sides and in the corners of the frames from falling off too quickly Leica and Kodak needed to come up with a way to compensate for the severe angles with which light strikes the edges of the frame. This is especially critical with wide angle lenses which already have a tendency to vignette as a result of their designs.

Their solution was to add micro lenses over the pixel wells to focus and deliver light energy in a more direct fashion. In a further enhancement the micro lenses over the outer areas of the sensor are increasingly offset to cope with the increasing angles of light. The result is a sensor that, in conjunction with software enhancements, yields files that are very even across the frame.

So, what are the inevitable trade offs in this sensor design?

Well, five years ago we would have pronounced this camera and it’s sensors performance as “state of the art”. But now we have cameras like the Nikon D3 and D700 and the Canon 5D to compare it to. The Leica/Kodak sensor is not a low noise champion. At ISO’s up to 1200 it is very well behaved and few would have issue with it’s noise performance. At ISO’s over 1200 it starts to become noisier and the old Kodak “blue channel”noise starts to intrude. The Kodak CCD’s pixels measure 6.8 microns and are not in the same league for low noise as the latest generation CMOS chips used in the Nikons and Canons. In my mind this is not a deal breaker for two important reasons:

1. The camera doesn’t vibrate like cameras with moving mirrors, which gives about two stops more hand holding ability.
2. The prime lenses have much better performance at wider apertures than most of the more commonly used high quality “pro” zoom lenses from Canon and Nikon, adding another two stops to the mix.

What did Leica get just right?

M8-three important features

If you haven’t shot with an M series camera you certainly should seek out a dealer and play with one of these bodies. This is a design that they got “just right” over fifty years ago. It feels perfect in the hand and once you get the hang of the rangefinder and the clear, clean viewfinder you’ll be spoiled for using SLRs. It is also much smaller and lighter than other professional camera and lens combinations. Big thumbs up for design and the integration of new digital components into a trusted body style.

The shutter release on Leicas has always been exemplary. The M8 is no exception. A soft touch turns on the meter while a bit more pressure triggers the shutter. But it is important to understand that the point at which the shutter releases has a distinct feel that gives the photographer perfect feedback. The shutter fires exactly when you are ready to fire and not a microsecond before or after. And since the camera is manually focused there is never a time lag while the camera tries to figure stuff out. In fact, since there is no mirror to release the triggering of the shutter is almost instantaneous. From tap to snap the time elapsed is no more than 25 milliseconds. Nearly twice as fast as the Nikon D700! Less time lag means more direct control, more pure reaction. This is the Leica’s true high performance characteristic.

I think they got the shutter itself just right. All previous generations of Leica M cameras used a very simple and very robustly built, cloth focal plane shutter. It lasted forever and was very quiet in operation. The trade off was a very slow 1/50th of a second electronic flash sync speed and a top shutter speed of 1/1000th of a second. Forget about using one of those shutters for fill flash in just about any situation! In the new M8 Leica switched to a metal and carbon fiber composite focal plane shutter offering the same high reliability but giving users a top shutter speed of 1/8000th of a second (the previous shutter topped out at 1/1000th of a second) and a flash synchronization speed of 1/250th of a second, which is very competitive. The trade off is a bit more mechanical noise from the shutter. But it is still quite low when compared to the obtrusively dynamic shutter noises that thunder out of myD700 body—and there is no mirror slap to add to the sound.

Leica got their new series of Summarit-M lenses just right.

Here’s the deal. Leica has always made the finest high speed lenses in the 35mm market but the trade-off has always been the ruinously high cost of those lenses. This limits the number of people who can afford to use the Leica as a system. For years, Leica enthusiasts have hammered away at Leica trying to convince them to make a line of more modestly specified lenses at a much lower cost.

While high speed glass with sharp maximum apertures provides a look and feel to images that can rarely be equaled by competitors, there are many situations in which high performance at large apertures is not necessary. Typically, the depth of field at full aperture is razor thin, limiting the usefulness when more than one subject needs to be sharply focused. The interesting aspect of lens design is that it is much easier and much less expensive to design and produce lenses with less ambitious apertures. In fact, the complexity of a lens design generally is thought to increase by a factor of four for a one stop speed increase.

finger grip on the Summarit-M 35mm

Part of the increase in complexity and cost in lens design is the need for extremely high manufacturing tolerances as the diameter of lens elements increases. The short version is that it’s possible to make very high performance lenses with more modest apertures, at a fraction of the cost of more esoteric lenses! That is just what Leica has done. Over the last year they have introduced four new lenses for the M cameras. The lenses are all called Summarits. That’s the name Leica uses for lenses that have maximum apertures of f/2.5. The new lenses include: 35mm, 50mm, 75mm and 90mm. The barrel designs of the 75 and the 90 are very similar to the Leica R lenses and include rubber focusing rings. The 35 and the 50 are both very reminiscent of Leica lenses in the same range, designed in the 1970’s and 1980’s. They each have a protrusion, or a “finger grip” that provides a good purchase on the focusing ring to facilitate easy focusing in-spite of a fairly narrow, metal focusing ring. Compared to SLR lenses all four of the Summarits are tiny; the 35mm and 50mm especially so.

The construction is flawless and each lens has a heft that belies its size. Even so, the entire quartet of lenses and an M8 body together will tip the scales at only around 2.5 kilograms!

How the Summarit-M Lenses Stack Up

All four of the Summarit lenses share the same neutral color and contrast characteristics. Except for the angle of coverage you would be hard pressed to believe that you were seeing images from four different lenses! Here are the family characteristics:

High Sharpness

50mm Summarit-M. (Downtown in Austin)

High sharpness across the full frame at full aperture, even higher sharpness when stopped down! The 35mm needs f/5.6 to achieve highest sharpness, the 50mm is eyeball slicing sharp at f/4 and the two longer lenses are just right by f/3.5. When I say they are sharp I mean that even my best and latest Nikkors can’t compare.

I shot one test of a model using the Leica 50mm at f/5.6 and the new, Nikon 60mm AFS Micro at f/5.6 and they were very close. The Leica had a certain impression of sharpness that, to quote many Leicaphiles over the years, actually looked, “three dimensional”. There was nothing wrong with the rendition of the Nikon lens but its interpretation seemed clinical and lackluster in direct comparison with the Leica 5o.

Of course, we weren’t comparing apples to apples as the Leica had the advantage of drawing on a sensor that didn’t have an anti-aliasing filter dumbing down the detail. It would have been interesting, but outside the scope of my capabilities, to adapt the lenses so that they worked on each company’s camera bodies for the sake of comparison. However, when reviewing digital cameras and lenses it is important to change one’s mindset and evaluate the body and lenses together as a unified system. That is the way they will be used.

No Flare

Flare Test. 50mm Summarit-M

I shot with the lenses for a month in the bright Texas sun and never saw even the slightest hint of flare. That stood out to me. In my Nikon system there is an inertia toward using zoom lenses. They offer so much flexibility. If we never compare the zoom lenses to anything else we generally find the performance convincing (or like so many aspects of digital images, we find it to be “good enough”). The reality is that the large number of elements in a modern zoom makes them flare “magnets”. If there is flare a complex zoom lens will find it. One of the advantages of prime lenses is their much simpler construction. With fewer elements and fewer glass surfaces these lenses are much more flare resistant. This is not just seen in the absence of classic diaphragm reflections in the images it also makes a lens much clearer and more “contrasty” by eliminating the “veiling” effects of less dramatic flare. Any amount of flare degrades sharpness, contrast and color saturation. I can see these effects when I compare a lens like the Nikon 50mm f/1.8D AF Nikkor, $125 with the Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S, $1740. In many instances you can see a noticeable increase in lens performance with just the addition of an efficient lens hood.

The best compliment I can give to this family of lenses is that in most cases, they are as good as their much more expensive Summicron and Summilux brothers and sisters. In my opinion, the 35mm Summarit is slightly superior to the 35mm Summicron, but it does give up nearly 2/3rds of a stop. I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to use any one of these lenses instead of the high-priced spread.

http://photo.net/equipment/leica/summarit-m-lenses/review

Do you shoot a lot? Do you stay in practice? Is it still fun?

I was up early this morning.  I was on location setting up at 7:45 am and we were shooting images by 8:30 am.  When I got back to the studio I put two batteries on the charger, downloaded the day's images, backed them up on a second drive and then got ready to go out for a little recreation.  From 4:30 pm til 9:15 pm I took some personal time to do what I love to do second most......take photographs.  That's Ben above.  The first image is from a backstroke race.  I like the frozen water and the deep blue.  That's not processed.  Not even sharpened.  The second image is of Ben wearing caution tape and waiting to swim the anchor slot of the freestyle relay.  They won.  By several body lengths.

The only time I put the cameras down was to swim second on the parents versus coaches freestyle relay. With a motley assemblage of former college swimmers and a former NCAA All American we did out touch our younger team of coaches.

But I digress.  The important thing is how much I anticipated going out and making more images.  I shot 400 images this morning for work.  I shot another 633 this evening for fun.  And the post processing will be even more fun.  This is the kind of passion you need to feel for your craft and your profession if you want to do this as a profession.

And every now and then it all clicks.  If you practice.  And you carry that camera with you everywhere....

image processed in LR3 using "Old Polar" preset.  Love the effect of the contrast and saturation. Love the swimmer kids.  They're the best.  


Wrapping up the day at 10:46 and ready for some fun projects tomorrow.  Keep your batteries charged and your cards formatted.  You never know what you'll see if you take a new path.

Out shooting some high tech gear but I wanted to remind the Austinites....

Taking advantage of the D7's fast frame rate.

That I'll be signing my books over at Precision Camera (3810 N. Lamar Blvd) from noon til 2pm on Saturday.  I'd love to see people.  I'd love to see you if you have time to drop by.  I won't care if you buy a book or not.

On another note, it looks like the economy is showing signs of life.  The phone is ringing again and people are talking about the nuts and bolts of new projects instead of immediately defaulting to the lowest possible budget.  I'm booked on a technical shoot tomorrow.  When I wrap up for the day I get to head over to my pool to shoot the mighty Rollingwood Waves on their last home meet of the season.  My new hobby is to get "dive sequences" of the kids.  The Canon 7D's fast shutter advance (8 fps?) makes it pretty easy.  All I have to worry about is exposure and focus timing and framing.

Next week I'll be in Ft. Worth and Dallas shooting projects and when I return I start on ads for two medical practices.  With the assorted headshot thrown in and a few projects for Zach Scott wedged in around the edges it's starting to feel more like 2000 than 2009.

I've been writing bids and contracts most of the week, and sitting in planning meetings.  I was reminded of Ronald Reagan's saying, "Trust but verify".  He was thinking of the Russian military's atomic stockpile but I was thinking about the army of lawyers brought to bear by most big corporations.  I kinda feel that they're hoping we're the kind of photographers who do work on a handshake or a quick e-mail.

I don't think so.  Even the long term clients really need to get a contract that outlines everyone's expectations and remedies.  That way everyone involved is using the same measuring stick.  The only push back I got this week was a request to pay in 15 days instead of on delivery.  I checked their credit.

We don't talk too much about the nuts and bolts of business on this blog and perhaps we should.  Most artists just want to be artists but I want to be an artist who gets paid.  On time.  So I write binding agreements and contracts and I make sure my clients understand my proposals and bids.  But the one magic bullet I want to share with you is the need to accept credit cards.  If a fee of 2% of your total invoice is too big a chunk I think your margins are too low.  I think all commercial photographers should not only accept credit cards but they should be the preferred way of accepting payment.  The transfer of money can happen in just a few days.  You get an instant approval.  The client gets to delay payment so they are more likely to be optimistic about their future profits and are more likely to either approve or even escalate the project with the rationale that, when the bill comes due the cash will be there to cover it.  It's the easiest tool with which to get a quick deposit. In short, credit cards are wonderful for merchants.  And in the selling situation we need to change from our art hat to our merchant hat.  Art brain might make the content but merchant brain provides a framework to make money from the artful content.  Not to be underestimated.

It's late, it's hot, we had a long dinner with many friends and many bottles of wine downtown and it's an early call time.  Hope you had a great weekend and you have great (photographic?) plans for the weekend.

Don't forget the booksigning.  I won't.......

         

Street shooting outside in the Summer? Do yourself a couple favors....

I know I'm probably being bitchy but the first thing to do if you want to have fun street shooting and you want to spend less time thinking and strategizing and logisticizing, just choose one camera and one lens and leave all the other crap at home.  This is me.  This is all I take.  One camera and one lens.  Why?  Because my brain works in mysterious ways and I'm going to guess yours does too.  If I bring two lenses my brain is constantly evaluating possible shooting scenarios and trying to wedge them into one lens profile or the other.  Wide? Long? In between?  How long?  How wide?  How in between?

If you have one lens on one body you certainly get to know that lens.  Especially if you are a "prolific" shooter.   Do it enough and the scenes appear like magic, ready made for the focal length you just happened to bring.  You know the old saw that goes, "When you have a hammer everything looks like a nail?"  Well when you have a 50mm lens on your camera everything looks like a normal lens shot.  Your mind likes formalist restrictions as much as kids love boundaries.  Wanna hedge your bets because you're a bit scared?  Bring a zoom as your one lens and then you'll have it covered.

But don't do what countless legions of rank hobbyists do.  They load up a Tamrac or Tenba bag originally designed to hold microwave ovens and assorted furniture, with every piece of camera gear they can find.  In goes the wide angle zoom.....because you never know.  In goes the mandatory 70-200mm f2.8 zoom (just the right aperture and weight combo for mid day street shooting).  And, just because people have an irrational need to "cover" all the in between focal lengths, in goes the 24-70mm f2.8 zoom.  But of course none of these is a  real macro lens so that's the next thing to go into the bag.  And having read someone's gear site recently, all the filters go in the bag.  Polarizers, "protection" filters, gradient filters,  and wild filters that I don't understand.  We're talking bags that tip the scales at a good 15 to 20 pounds.  Good news for chiropractors but bad news for photographers.  Adding weight to your shoulder is like adding bags of concrete to the trunk of a Prius.  All of a sudden the gas mileage goes down dramatically.  By the same token your imaging productivity also drops through the floor.  You'll want to rest more and leave sooner.  None of which is conducive to being there and making images.

I know all about the "Strobist" thing.  Love the little flashes.  Love the SB-900's and the 580ex2's and the fl50r's, but let's just go ahead and agree to leave them at home.  If you're fly fishing you don't generally dynamite the stream.  Let's use the same logic when shooting real life.  Just bring your rod and reel and some waders and go looking for images that fit.  Flashes work best when you have a photo in mind and you have the time to set it up and recreate your alternate reality.  Using flash for documentary or street photography is like "bringing a handgun to the opera."  (Credit to Henri Cartier Bresson for that one....).   

Tripods are only acceptable for street shooting at night or with view cameras.  That's all I'll say about that.  If you are hauling a 4x5 or 8x10 out and around your city you already know what you need and you probably don't want any advice from me.  

Next up.  Let's dress for success.  You won't be interfacing with clients so you can leave the pressed chinos, button down,  and dress shoes at home.  But you do need the willing complicity of various people you meet so you'll have to look a bit respectable.  If it's 95 degrees and the humidity is in the 90% range you need to dress right or you'll drop quick.  Let's start at the top.  If you don't mind looking like the kind of guy who still wears a calculator on his belt and makes his own trail mix at home you should go ahead and opt for the bucket hat.  It'll protect your head and the tops of your ears.  And you'll feel fine, fashion wise, about wearing it to Sea World or one of the fabulous water parks.  If this isn't you then let's go with a light weight and light colored baseball cap.  Black ball caps look cooler but they get a lot hotter and that pretty much defeats why you're wearing it in the first place.  The visor will keep the sun off your face while the rest of the cap covers the rest of your head.  Toss some sunscreen on those ears or your dermatologist will yell at you down the road.

Next up, let's talk about sunglasses.  My best advice here is to not wear polarized or colored lenses.  A pity too since I have a beautiful pair of Revos I bought in the airport on the way home from the 2000 Democratic Convention (I covered it for a newspaper) in LA.  But the glasses strike out on both counts.  Too much color tint and very polarized (are there degrees of polarization?).  Too bad because when I wear them everything in the world looks better.  But that's the point, your eyes should be calibrated to your camera.  Who cares if the screen looks sexy if it bears no relationship to the images you're capturing?  Same thing with the sunglasses.  It's like having a really great preview with no way to get there in the end.

I've got an old pair of RayBan Wayfarers that fit the bill.  They're neutral, non-polarized and they save me from squinting and getting those little lines in the corners of my eyes.

Next we're into controversial fashion statements.  I like shirts with collars.  They protect more of your neck and they look better.  So, if you are overcome with heat and exhaustion and you just happen to be down the block from the Four Seasons Hotel you'll feel better about flopping down in the Lobby Bar and sucking down a Margarita while you wait for your energy to return.  And the staff will feel more comfortable too.  Living in Texas and working outside a lot for the last twenty years I've discovered that time and research have largely made the cotton T-shirt obsolete.  Cotton sticks to your skin, is heavier and wick moisture much more slowly than some of the new, super lightweight nylon blends being used in what are being called, "technical shirts".  

I've gone both ways on successive 105 degree days and I'm here to testify that the synth stuff is miles ahead when it comes to breathability,  moisture wicking (and its attendant evaporative cooling powers) and general comfort.  I'm wearing a Columbia shirt in the photo but I don't like the styling all that much.  The sleeves are too long and I don't need two big pockets.  The medium sized shirts are also cut too fat.  Do the manufacturers really believe that everyone now is five foot eight with a 40 inch waist?

I've narrowed it down to one brand and one shirt.  My current shirt of preference is the Ex Officio Trip'r.  It's a short sleeve, blocks UV radiation, has a vent in the back and one sleek pocket on the front.  I just bought out their current stock on Amazon in white mediums.  It's wonderfully comfortable and I could put it under a navy blazer and go into a restaurant without a moment's hesitation.  It is also the coolest (termperature-wise) shirt I own.  I get white.  It reflects the most heat.  If I were heading to the desert I'd get the long sleeve version for more protection.  The pocket's not too big but will hold an extra CF card and your driver's license and Amex card.  Now you're all prepared.  Except for the bottom half......

Golfers know a bit about comfortable.  I wear thin, nicely tailored Alan Flusser golf shorts made out of cotton.  Somehow they're  just right.  The shorts variant I abhor are the ubiquitous "Cargo Shorts" which would even make a buff, 23 year old model look like crap.  Cargo shorts are sometimes given out as punishment in more enlightened societies.  Try not to be caught dead in them.  They scream, "I bought these at Costco/Sams/Sears/Old Navy because they are loose and hide my bulk, and I can bring a big fat wallet and all my batteries and my iPhone and my iPad and a box of matches and a flint and a flask and a screwdriver set and........"  They do serve one important purpose.  They keep stylish young woman from breeding with geeks.  Sometimes.  Just because we are photographers doesn't mean we need to look bad.  

Amazing thing is that decent short pants cost about the same as monstrous short pants with hundred of pockets.  The Swiss Army knife comparison does not apply to all things.  Your pockets really only need a credit card, a small bit of paper cash and,  if you live in a police state, your ID card.  With current cameras you're good with one battery in the camera and a nice 8 or 16 gig card nestled in the right slot. Don't make walking a chore by loading up your britches.

I won't even mention go into the folly of wearing "photographic" vests, especially in the Summer and especially over a nice, Ex Officio shirt.....just don't do it.  Not for street photography.  Save it for the Outward Bound adventure or the software engineering team building exercises.

What should your assistant wear when you are out shooting in the street?  I don't know.  I guess it depends on how she'll be spending her day because she shouldn't be traipsing around with you if you are out shooting your art.  As Elliott Erwitt, Lee Friedlander, and Garry Winogrand would all tell you, shooting art is a solo gig.  (Guess Gregory Crewdson didn't get the memo...).  Maybe the assistant has gone to a career fair.  And you sure don't want to bring along your spouse or your kids......

Now we've come to the shoes.  This part is tricky for me.  I'm a sandal wearing southerner who loves to feel the hot breezes on my feet.  Also kinda goes with the rest of  the outfit but feet are infinitely varied and somewhat fragile so I'm willing to compromise and sanction the wearing of running shoes or cross training shoes with short, appropriate socks.  Nothing over reaching.  Whatever you wear on your feet should be comfy and discreet.

I know that artists as a rule hate to hear this, and photographers wedded to their dark, cool caves, even more but;  shooting great images in the streets means moving around alot,  paying attention and being ready physically.  Not only ready to carry gear and pounce but ready to be socially conversant.  And all of this means you should be in good shape so you're not panting and sweating buckets while asking polite permission to invade someone's space and steal their soul with your magic box.  If you are wavering from the heat there's no way to nail a great shot.

Even though I'm a swimmer and stay in pretty good aerobic shape, when the thermometer heads skyward and the grass starts to turn brown I add two or three days a week of three to five mile walks to my exercise schedule.  I do it during the hot times.  I always carry a camera.  I want to be in good enough shape to spend time in the heat looking for people and stuff I want to photograph.  That way the physical stuff goes to autopilot and the looking and shooting are unfettered by discomfort.

Now, admittedly, this is my personal take on shooting in the Austin Summer.  Everyone will have their own fashion point of view and, as long as I don't have to stand next to you, I really don't care what you wear.  The stuff I've picked works for me on a wide ranging social level as well as a survival level so I'll stick with it.  Funny that this particular blog got started when a famous photographer e-mailed to let me know he'd passed through Austin on a plane change.  He was amazed that it was 95 degrees with very high humidity.  He mentioned that murders rise the closer you get to the equator.  I think we could cut down on the hot weather murder rate just by changing people's shirts.  But as you no doubt know by now I'm pretty opinionated and you have to take everything I say with a grain of salt.

The Fed Ex man was here earlier today delivering two more white shirts.  Just in the nick of time.  I'm photographing a swim meet that starts on Friday afternoon and goes till sunset.  Should be in the mid 90's with enough water in the air to fill a pool.  Might have to break out the soaked bucket hat for this one.  That way I'm sure my kid won't want to come up and ask me for money for junk food.

Marketing Note:  If I survive the swim meet I'll be meeting people and signing books over at Precision Camera in Austin on Saturday, from noon til 2pm.  Bring a cold drink and drop by for a chat.  I'll be the guy with the nice tan.........

Be sure to drink some water and save the beer for the end.