Woke up in a weird mood and went eccentric on my camera and lens choices today. But it was....fun.

 

I took the day off from everything today. Slept in. Skipped swim practice (there will be hell to pay!). Ate a late breakfast. Rummaged through the gear and decided to spend my late morning and early afternoon moseying around downtown and S. Congress Ave. with what might seem like an odd combination; a Leica CL camera and the intriguing Sigma 65mm f2.0 Contemporary lens. The "equivalent" focal length in 35mm-speak would be about 97mm, so a delicious short telephoto length, which seemed just right for a gray and plodding day. 

I've enjoyed using the lens in the past on full frame and thought it would be a hoot to use it wide open for most of my downtown dalliance. I did get conservative a time or two and stop down to f2.8.

It was a long walk in new hiking boots. A bit dumb. My two outside toes on my left foot were screaming by the time I got back to the high performance studio limo (Subaru Forster). 

The CL is not optimized for the Sigma 65mm, or vice versa, so when you mount the lens and turn on the camera you get a message warning you that the battery meter/indicator/scale will not be accurate and this implies that the combo will burn through batteries quicker...than a bunny. (Couldn't help it...).

I banged away for about three hours with one battery but when the battery tossed in the towel I thought the timing was fortuitous and decided to toss mine in as well. 

Stepping out of character I brought along extra stuff. Not that I ever used it or needed it. But I wasn't sure I'd be happy shooting everything at the long end. I've been getting used to the 28mm lens on the Q2 and bouncing up to a 97mm I thought would be a bit jarring. So I took along a very small backpack packed with a lightweight rain jacket, a handkerchief, an extra hat, my phone (weird to carry that around !!!), a Sigma fp with a Voigtlander 40mm, a Sigma 35mm f2.0 and a Sigma 24mm f3.5. Some bail money...just in case. My Kershaw Leek, Black Wash pocketknife, and my copy of NWP 3.05.2 Naval Special Warfare SEAL Tactics guidebook. Just for some light reading --- if I had to wait on my coffee order. 

I didn't use anything in the backpack but it was nice to know everything I might need was close at hand.

This was basically a day for just getting out and walking with the idea of testing the CL+65mm thrown in as an afterthought.  Still, it was really nice to see how well the Sigma and the Leica played together. It's a great combination for portraits in the APS-C format. I'll need to remember that. 

Electric Scooter Tours. A motley crew today...

checking out the blue response. Not bad. Not bad.

I like most bandit posters that get put up around town.

This one got plastered on a wall at the building that my favorite ad agency, Hixo, used to 

occupy. And a runner up agency after that, The Sherry Matthews Agency. 

Now purchased by someone else and empty. 

No idea who Annie Bing is but not motivated to Google it...

A big thank you to the Yeti store on Congress at Riverside 

for the generous use of their well appointed and sparkling clean 

restroom facilities. And a clean mirror with which to facilitate 

selfie-izing myself. Nice hat.

There were two lines at this location today.

One was waiting to do photographs in front of the "I love you so much" 

grafitti on the wall of Jo's Coffee. 

The bigger line was actually for Jo's Coffee. 

Yes. Jo's Coffee. To go. 

One bystander who found both the coffee enthusiasm and the adoration of wall

grafitti a bit boring... Ready to go do something else....

Selling hats from the back of an old 1969 Chevy pick-up truck. 

Cyclist not looking at the camera.

Cyclist looking at the camera. 

The human fetish for offering strange dogs their hands...

Crossing the bridge over the lake/river that separates downtown from S. Austin.

Angle one. 

Angle two. 

Yes. Of course. Austin is known for the healthy habits of the inhabitants...

Practicing self surveillance. Hard to run an SDR on yourself...

An exceptionally stupid shot in which I try to make the idea of the closest work light being in focus and everything else out of focus seem somehow interesting and poignant. And failing miserably.

Last shot of the day. Why this? Because I think the 65mm was begging for a chance to show me

how much better it is than the other less stellar lenses I've used to photograph exactly the same scene and so that some critic can chime in and tell me he hates my abandoned building shots. 

Can't wait to pillory the perpetrator. 

And that's the afternoon in a nutshell. 

The cure for sore feet? slip into your Birkenstocks and become 

painfree in moments. Wear them with socks to torment 

the fashion fixated. 

Earlier today I showed a gallery of color images from yesterday's adventures in the neighborhood across from the UT campus....

 

...and I mentioned that when I was photographing I had the camera set to record both a DNG file (the  color version) and a large Jpeg file (the B&W version). Instead of using the color controls in Lightroom to make conversions from the color files it was my intention to use the direct-from-camera black and white Jpegs when making a gallery. And that's what I've done here. 

Some of the shots may look familiar because they are captured at the same instant to the camera but each version is representative of either the DNG file or the Jpeg. 

I have applied a basic preset to them because the one thing I think most out-of-camera black and white images need is a bit more contrast --- especially in the middle ranges of the tone scale. That, and a bit of opening for the shadows --- which is handily taken care of with the shadow recovery slider in LR.

I figured that since I was capturing in B&W and seeing the potential images in B&W in the EVF it would be a good idea to share them with you. There's a lot of detail in the files so if you can be sure to look at them on a monitor instead of your phone. It's a better way to see what my actual intention was......

Funny to be able to make three cogent posts out of an hour of photography; and to also come away with a group of images that I like...

How does that CL + 56mm f1.4 work for you? Skycapes, etc. No full frame. No IBIS. No PDAF. No Problem.

 

The last frame of the day...

Are these what they call "Bokeh Balls"?

Black and white camera response. A quick outing to test a theory...

 

The past couple of months have seen a lot of discussions about black and white photography. Michael Johnston is exploring a camera that's been converted to shoot exclusively in monochrome while YouTube is consistently buzzing with trials of the Leica Q2 and M10 Monochrom cameras that are engineered to photograph only in black, white and shades of gray.

On a theoretical level I think I would enjoy a monochrome camera but I'm not yet convinced that they are a must in order to make good, solid black and white images. 

I've been shooting black and white images with three different cameras lately and finding that the in-camera settings are very close to the way I like to see black and white photographs. While many cameras have B&W settings most seem only to strip out the saturation from color files and present that as the finished result. Some allow for filter settings which are emulations of the way some film emulsions reacted to yellow, green, orange and red filters. Fuji cameras are capable of being set up to emulate a number of classic black and white film looks and there is even a website that delivers a free app you can stick on your phone to dial in the settings for a pretty convincing look. Right down to the grain. That was one aspect of the Fuji X100V that I truly enjoyed!!! That camera does a very nice Tri-X imitation.

With the most recent Leicas the engineers seem to have paid close attention to the way in which most people like to see black and white files. When I use the "BW HC" setting on the Q2, the CL or the SL2 there is a boosted contrast but there is also some sort of filter emulation going on that makes the look of the file different from the look I get if I just shoot color and then kill the saturation. Leica seems to have modified the spectral response of various colors to derive a filtered look that I find very pleasing. 

The files above were shot with a Leica CL, equipped with a 56mm f1.4 Sigma Contemporary lens. I shot everything around f2.0 and I shot in DNG+Jpeg with the Jpeg files set to BW HC. 

These three photographs were taken in early evening down on the main street that runs North and South next to the UT campus. The clouds yesterday were beautiful and I wanted to capture that. I also like buildings and skies.

===========

My real reason for being over by the campus was to offer a counterpoint to a friend's unhappy text. He'd been trying his hand at street photography and decided that the younger generation had become so paranoid about photography, social media, pedophilia, etc. that it is almost impossible to photograph people in the street. He claimed that he got the "stink eye" from dozens and dozens of people just for walking down the street with a camera. He felt their suspicions of him were palpable. And his style is not a wide angle, close-up, in your face style either. 

Even in the diciest of neighborhoods around Austin I've never felt that this kind of reaction is really the case and after I read his text I grabbed a camera and headed over to the same area to walk around the same shops and fast food restaurants to see if culture had really morphed that much. Did everything change while I wasn't paying attention?  My contention being that people have not changed much and that they represent a feedback loop for your own attitude. A mirror.

I photographed for half an hour or so and got about ten photo scenarios in which people knew I was photographing and including them in the frames but either smiled or just went about their business unaffected. I sent the images along to my friend to make my point. 

Then, of course, it dawned on me how different our personalities are and how different our methodologies are. He's an introvert, I'm a far to the edge of the scale extrovert. He's not fond of interacting with people. I live for it. He tried to be a bit secretive when photographing on the street while I'm pretty much continuously broadcasting that I've got a camera in my hands and I like using it. Since this kind of work is really more or less a big mirror I see most people as open and gracious. He sees them as closed and protective. 

But whatever you believe that's what you project. And whatever you project is what you get back.

I think one benefit of having your hair turn white and wearing wool socks with your Birkenstocks is that young college students tend to identify you as a retired, grandfatherly figure whose retirement hobby is photography. Most of the people I encounter are quick to give a (mildly patronizing) smile and nod. It's all about what one projects. 

I'm happy to photograph just about anywhere. Below is a photo I took while taking a break for a cappuccino. I was photographing the two women sitting at the bar. We'd had a quick conversation when I was waiting for my coffee and I liked their energy. The out of focus guys in the foreground were discussing video production when I took the shot. When they saw the camera aimed in their direction they smiled and waved. I walked over and apologized for photo-bombing them into my shot. We all had a chuckle and then, a minute later we were deep into a discussion about which mirrorless system to buy into for general, day-to-day video production. Strangers are just friends you haven't (formally) met yet. 

coffee at Medici, on the Drag.

On the way home I wondered how the same location could yield such vastly different vibes. The answer, I think, lies in what you bring with you. 

A new version of formal wear.

 Last week I surprised myself by pulling the Sigma 70mm Macro, Art Series lens out of the drawer and tossing it onto a Leica SL for a tromp through the streets. I found this dinner jacket to be hilariously over-tooled....until I decided that I really like it. Maybe not for me but on someone...

That lens is a real sleeper. Might be the sharpest lens I have in the whole bucket of glassware.

Today's combo is a CL with the Sigma 56mm f1.4, set up for monochrome. Gee, it just dawned on me how much Sigma stuff I've accumulated and how good all of it is. Saved a fortune compared to some other L mount company's products....

SXSW coming soon to a city near me... Austin girds itself for the onslaught of SXSW 2023. Coming in March.

These date back to 2019. We're about to do the drill again...

 No better time to do "street photography" in Austin than during our (used to be...) annual SXSW Conference and musical showcase. Expecting a hundred thousand extra people in Austin for a long week in March. I'm practicing my black and white chops in preparation. Pent up demand indeed!

Enjoying a different type of subject matter. Making one (really lucky) processing "error." And a TLDR bit of health news below.

 

When I was teaching my one person workshop this week I made a point to bring along the same camera and lens that my student brought. We both dug into the Panasonic S5 equipped the 20-60mm Lumix lens. I had no intention at all to make photographs for myself but wanted to have a camera in my hands to match menus and shooting parameters so I could be quicker with fixes and explanations of the features and settings. 

I put my camera in the "vivid" color profile, set the color balance to the little "sun" icon and shot with manual exposure. Everything was a Jpeg. When we found something that provided a teachable scene we'd both stop and shoot it in the way each of us liked best. 

I've always thought of myself as a portrait photographer or a people photographer but lately I feel like I'm shifting into what I can only think of an urban landscape photographer instead. Sure, I still like to make images of people but I've expanded my circle of what interests me when I have a camera in my hand. 

We were out at the Wildflower center and on our walk around when we found this area which incorporated a series of greenhouses on the West side. For some unexplainable reason I found myself captivated by the lines, colors and atmosphere of these functional and simple structures. I guess I was lucky in that the high, thin clouds worked well to impart both contrast and a lack of contrast at the same time. 

When we describe photographs that we generally like we often talk about an image's three dimensional quality. I think we mistakenly imagine that the effect is the provenance of very expensive lenses coupled with very elite cameras but reality likes to smack us on the head and show, sometimes, that even modest cameras and lenses are more than capable of realizing the same effects. 

When I got back to the office I imported the files into Lightroom. Normally I do this without applying a preset so I'm starting with a neutral image that's been modified only by the in-camera settings. However, the last time I imported files I was importing raw test files from the Leica SL2 and I imported them with a profile/preset I got from David at Leica Store Miami. I made a few modifications to the preset to better align it to my tastes in images but all the starting points came from David. I forgot to turn off the preset. Forgot to uncheck the little box in the import panel. So all the already vivid files got a dose of SL2 preset added to the overall color, contrast and dynamic range settings already selected in camera. 

It was, by definition, an accident; but a happy one. I loved the way the balanced dynamic range of these shots is shown here. I also appreciate the saturation of the blue in the skies. In fact, thinking back, these are my favorite non-human images of the last three or four months. They seem to capture a time and look that really resonates with me. 

What a happy bit of happenstance. 

Health notes: I've lately become more focused on maintaining good health. My elevated interests in personal fitness were magnified by my reading of Michael Johnston's medical scare over at "TheOnlinePhotographer.com"...

I've never been a fan of pharmaceutical cures or crutches but I've been forced to pay attention when a routine calcium CT scan returned some less than perfect numbers. That was behind my recent interest in Vitamin K2, M7 (not all K2 is the same. do the research!). Under the supervision of both my primary doctor and my cardiologist (everyone should have a great cardiologist who returns email and stays current) I've started to take 150 mcg of K2, M7 along with 5,000 mcg of vitamin D3. I also added 100 mg of Niacin along with my usual 150 mg of CoEnzyme Q10, too. I feel like I've opened a pharmacy now. 

Scans done a decade or so ago showed that swimming and running have succeeded in adding much brachiation of capillaries around my heart and lungs. Essentially I've developed lots of pathways for good circulation and am not depending on "one road in and one road out" for blood flow. According to my medical team that's a really good thing. (An older Texan probably would be wise to have the following: cardiologist, general practitioner, dermatologist, and dentist and to see them once a year). 

Diet crazies would suggest that I need to radically increase all the dosages of the above supplements if I'm to see any real changes in function, flow and arterial calcification, and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn cautioned me in a phone conversation a year ago that reversing any arterial build up is tough to nearly impossible without the world's strictest diet. I'm conservative enough to want to go slow with new stuff. 

But all three of the people I trust with my cardio health are adamant about the same message: Exercise is the magic bullet. Exercise is the fountain of youth (not immortality). 

I've never smoked. I've never had more than a few glasses of wine during a week. I don't eat much sugar. I love peanut butter (which I predict will be the next insanely popular new "cure" for everything, and trendy health food). I eat a lot of fresh caught King Salmon. I eat fresh berries and apples pretty much daily. I've held my weight to a max of 158 pounds for the last 20 years. I sleep  seven to eight hours a night. I don't snore. I'm happily, happily married to the same person for nearly 4 decades. I have reduced stress to such small levels that my main worries revolve around whether the pipes at the house will freeze if we have a prolonged cold snap....

I swim, hard, five days a week. I walk at least three miles, seven days a week. 

To be clear, I'm not trying to live forever but I want to live well, pain free and with abundant energy while I'm here. So many people my age (67) seem to have an acceptance of the narrative that ALL of us will have horrible symptoms of decline by the time we hit our sixth decade. I believe that can be true but I think it applies only to those who are constantly willing to cut corners with their health when they know better. The people who give up. Who resign themselves. Who think staying in shape is too hard. But...

We weren't constructed to live with constant pain. We weren't destined to fall apart once we've retired from work and child rearing. Just as giving up smoking prolongs life so do all the things I mention just above. And just like giving up smoking they all revolve around personal choice.

Life's a gamble. There are some of us who, at no fault of their own, will contract some sort of disease or malady that truly is beyond their control. But that in no way constitutes the overwhelming majority of people over 60. Most of the decline the majority experiences is in one way or another self-inflicted. And a large part of the decline caused by casual disregard for good choices can, to an extent, be stopped and even reversed. Mostly by eating a much better diet and getting good, daily exercise. 

But a person has to WANT to do it. Yes, getting back in shape is much harder than staying in shape but the benefits are obvious and the costs of not staying in shape become more and more apparent as the years go by. We all get to choose. 

The biggest impediment to staying in shape is being surrounded by a negative community of family and friends, co-workers and neighbors. If no one around you exercises that factor alone pounds a message into your brain that says, "Don't bother." Many studies have shown that people with overweight friends quickly become overweight themselves when they become part of that group. Drinkers whose friends regularly drink alcohol drink more alcohol. BUT...

People who exercise with a group tend to stick to the program with much more tenacity. A spouse on a healthy diet helps to bring along everyone in the house on the adventure of improving their eating habits. 

An unsettling thought: Since it takes less energy to carry around smaller and smaller, lighter and lighter cameras are the ever shrinking burdens of carrying around ever smaller, lighter cameras actually reducing the exercise we get from good, long photo walks? Should I find a battery grip for my SL2 to add some weight? (somewhat kidding here...). 

Most of us get wake up calls from our bodies warning us that we've made some bad choices. The few who don't get the wake up calls are the ones who sometimes suffer cardiac arrest and go out in a flash. Maybe we should work on being supporters of each other's healthy habits. I'll stop thinking of donuts now.....

I feel sympathy for folks in rural communities. They often lack the easy availability of resources some need to stay in good physical shape. Weather, lack of access to facilities, lack of easy access to friends and exercise partners, all play a huge part in reducing compliance to good health habits. It either takes more discipline to stay fit and healthy or requires a re-location to someplace more conducive to living a healthy existence. 

All the cameras in the world won't help. So much off topic stuff for a Wednesday. I'm done. I'm going to grab a heavy camera and go for a loooonnng walk.