The Rumors around the launch of a Leica Q3 are expanding quicker than Takata airbags.

The public spaces at Seaholm in downtown Austin have an area covered with nice shade trees. A nice place to sit outside on a hot day and have a cool drink with a friend. And until very recently they had beautiful little café tables in different pastel colors. They were small and spare and minimalist. Just the way we like small tables here at VSL. Sadly, one day, they were just gone, and replaced by these 1970s referenced ugly as F tables. All of them feature a ghastly green finish and all the chairs are cabled to the chairs for that added touch of urban paranoia. Public life on a downward slide...

Across the web I'm starting to see everyone referencing the imminent launch of the latest Leica "Q". Destined to be called, if we believe the web, the Q3. I guess it's time to update and upgrade but I was just settling in to the Q2 and no one has come close to cobbling together anything to rival it so I'm not sure why Leica is in a hurry to push out yet another camera... but let's take a look at the rumors.

The exterior of the camera is supposed to be a dead ringer for the current camera....at first sight. But in a gigantic and earth-shattering departure from Leica's usual design ethos of structural integrity over popular feature spread it looks like they might be going with a flippy screen for the rear LCD panel. Not a swivel-ly screen. Just a flippy screen. I don't need one. I didn't ask for one but I guess I could get used to it in a pinch. I imagine enough "street" photographers like to shoot surreptitiously, from the waist level, and so the addition of this capability will be seen as a plus by them. Personally, I like that there are fewer pieces  to break off on the first two iterations of the camera. LCD screens that move around are one of the mechanical parts that fails most often on other camera brands. I just happen to be a fan of structural rigidity and simplicity...

The next big change seemed destined to arrive at Leica from the moment Sigma launched their fpL camera. It's the inclusion of a 61 megapixel imaging sensor which also includes (for the first time on a Leica camera) PDAF. I suppose this means that we'll see two effects. One good for advertising and one a headache for the Wetzlar marketing team. The first effect (the bad one) we might confront is that very few of the current Leica lenses, or Panasonic lenses were designed to take advantage of PDAF and might not be able focus any faster or better than on the older cameras, which are contrast detect AF only. On the other hand, given that the AF system will be brand new and only needs to be integrated with a permanently attached, single focal length lens, I think we'll see much hyperbole about the "fastest AF camera in the world." At least until some enterprising website does an A/B comparison to disprove the marketing hype. 

But wait! There's more. 

If we can believe the "leaks" the camera will be the first of the Q series to feature either wireless charging (not thinking this is so great....) or charging through USB (which I think is a good idea). Either way, users will be able to charge the battery without removing it from the camera. And what a battery it is supposed to be. The new battery is compatible with the current battery across the line of SL cameras and the latest Q2. The big news is that (as Panasonic improved two years ago) the battery will now be more powerful. Something like 2100 milli-amp hours, up from 1800. It's not a dramatic increase but I'll take any increase in battery life they can give us. I just hope it doesn't come packaged with an excuse to raise the price of batteries to $325 from $285. The current price is already in the realm of sinister capitalist fantasy. I hope it doesn't spread.

I haven't read it yet but I can't believe Leica would launch a Q3 in 2023 without increasing the EVF resolution to what has become standard across the SL line. That would be just a hair shy of 6 million dots. And that would be a worthwhile improvement. It would move the EVF from pretty darn good to spectacular and I can only think the standardization of parts would benefit...everyone.

All of this Germanic magic and craftiness in one small box is supposed to hit the market, according to the shadowy sources on the internet, by the end of this month. But par for the course I'm sure Leica will have made a couple hundred copies at the outset in an attempt to fill thousands of orders. After all, the Q series has been their most successful seller in the digital space. Why would they want to satisfy all consumer demand in the first week, month or even year of the launch? Inconceivable. If they stretch it out they can milk the desire for years to come... ... ... 

So, will I get one? That's an unknowable question. If past trajectory gives us any sort of launch target I'm sure I'll eventually get one. Maybe five years from now when it's long in the tooth and prices have stabilized. Maybe in the next quarter if the markets don't crash. Maybe never if I can convince myself that the current Q has more than enough resolution, focuses quickly enough and with complete accuracy for my needs, and if I can convince myself that the addition of a flippy screen is an aberration and that making the decision to shamelessly appeal to the masses Leica will have ensconced the Q2 as the last super quality contender in the space. More robust and well sealed than its successor and blessed with a sensor that is the perfect compromise between noise performance and resolution. Then I'll just buy a second Q2 to have as a back up and go on with life. You can't have too many Q2s. And you can interpret that two different ways.

I'm happy though that Leica keeps making and marketing new cameras. It gives the Sony and Canon users among my group of photographer friends something more to tease me about. And the prices keep imparting a subtle frisson between my rationale brain and the bigger, more robust, impulsive shopper part of my brain which is...enervating. Oh hell. You see where this is going, right?

Are you now lining up to pre-order one at your favorite Leica dealer? Should I try to beat you to the punch? Or maybe we should just all go out for another walk. 

Banal melange of 1970s buildings. Now made chic through the passage of time and the 

diminishing of architectural taste in general.

As a home owner I have come to think of drainage as being holy. A must have.

Stereo dinner jackets.

I'm loving the strength training. It's fun to go to the gym. It's funny to watch jacked up/pumped up guys strut in front of the mirrored wall and check out their own biceps. It's funnier to watch the young women take selfies in the mirrors of their own butts. But it's mostly fun to lift the weights, do the machines and then, two days later, feel the results in the pool. Stronger means more stability in the strokes and that translates into either more speed or more endurance. Mostly your choice. 

My goal is to build swim strength, not abnormal muscle size. So far I have resisted any desire to photograph my own butt with my cell phone in between sets. We live in an insane world. Really. But, as Lao Tzu once said, "People are gonna people." 

Happy Mother's Day. From Rome. 1986.

 Photographed with a Hasselblad 500 C/M and a 100mm Zeiss Planar. Hand developed Tri-X film.  Printed on Seagull paper and then scanned. One of my favorite "mother and son" portraits. At the outdoor tables in a café. Hope you celebrated well today! 

Photos from around the house. Mother's Day. Seems the perfect time to use my favorite camera and lens.

B. seems to be filling the patio, the gardens and the walkways with various succulents. This little fella sits right in the middle of the dining table on the screened in patio. Today we had soft rain and cool temperatures and when I came home from (you guessed it...) swim practice she was sitting on the patio savoring a cup of coffee and reading a book called, "Lawn Gone." It's about converting water hungry lawn spaces to areas filled with native species and non water consuming ground cover, like river rocks and crushed granite. 

I made a cup of coffee and joined her on the patio. The smell of the rain was good. The smell of my freshly brewed coffee was delicious. I ate two blueberry waffles. They were a fun divertissement from my usual Spartan fare. The morning was quiet and we both read our books and just relaxed. 

I was reading Annie Leibovitz's book, "At Work" and enjoying it immensely. Especially the essay in which she describes coming to a realization that she'd like to do a project without people in the frames. She was drawn to places that resonated with her, like Emily Dickinson's house and Georgia O'Keefe's Southwestern haunts and refuges. In the moment that desire to photograph objects or places instead of people spoke to me. 

I put down the book and walked into the dining room to pick up a camera from the big table in there and bring it outside. I brought the camera in from the studio the night before. I always like to have a camera in the house in case I see something I want to photograph. Yesterday I was interested in revisiting the 65mm focal length so I had the Sigma 65mm f2.0 on the oldest of my Leica SLs. Together they are a beautiful combination for photographing single objects and small tableaux. 

I tried to use the lens at its widest aperture but sometimes felt the need to stop down a bit to cover the objects I wanted in focus. I photographed B. reading her book but she has issued a moratorium on current images of her appearing on social media so...  I'll have a nice collection of contemporary B. portraits to print and hang around my office.  More >

The images of the yellow tulips above and below were taken in low existing light which required ISOs of 4,000 and 5,000. The SL camera does a fine job handling noise without losing either saturation or sharpness of small details and textures.  More >

We're hosts to more succulents than you can imagine and more seem to keep arriving as gifts on most holidays and birthdays. Some of the bigger ones, planted in beds outside, didn't make it through the recent ice storm but are in the process of being replaced. More >

Baby Succulents. 

When I'm seated at my place at the dining room table this is my view. Well, it would be my view if I saw everything through a 65mm lens...

My Berlebach monopod resting next to a bookshelf in the living room. 

It's lovely to use on hot, sunny days outside.

This old cedar chest from Adana, Turkey seems to be the transitional repository

for photo books I'm in the middle of or returning to frequently. Here's the current 

crop. "Wonderland" is overwhelming in sheer volume so I have to take it in smaller 

doses. It's not a "one sitting" retrospective. Same with the Peter Lindbergh book. 

This book however is a good one sitting read. And every  time 

I read through it I find something or some part being more emphatic and 

interesting than the last time I read it. The book hasn't changed. I guess

it would be my point of view that's in flux.

The view from my chair at the table on the patio. 

Everything in this quadrant of the yard seems perennially green.

So. After a quiet time outside on the porch what could be 

more natural than coming into the office and looking at 

photographs? 

Happy Mother's Day. 

 

OT: The sky was lit up from midnight onward. And the rain keeps coming. But, we managed to eke out a swim practice anyway.

 I must have been startled awake three or four times last night. I'd awaken to multiple flashes of lightning and pounding thunder that shook the windows and sounded like cannon fire from the 1812 Overture. Of course I despaired of there not being a swim practice this morning given that it's in an outdoor pool and, well...lightning. 

But, ever optimistic I rolled out of bed, ate some toasted Super Bread with a slash of crunchy peanut butter on it, washed it all down with a cup of Columbian Supremo coffee, brushed my teeth and exited the house into the steady rain. But no lightning in the moment.

I pulled into the parking lot about ten till 8. The early group didn't show because there was thunder and lightning leading up to their usual start time of 7. The gate to the pool was locked and it was apparent that our usual coach woke up to thunder, presumed our aquatic adventure was cancelled, then turned over and went back to sleep. Not so for the more diligent swimmers. 

There were two people waiting in the parking lot when I got there but quickly more people arrived through the mist. Seeing that we were bereft of a coach one enterprising swimmer got on her mobile and texted one of the coaches who lives nearby -- and for whom the swimmer had a phone number. Miraculously our kind, substitute coach showed up in her pajamas seven minutes later, opened the gates and started conjuring up a workout for the twelve hardy swimmers now in attendance. She also hopped in and swam the workout with us. Her quick response on a dreary Saturday morning was very much above and beyond the call of duty!

Knowing we were racing against the clock, against nature, against the power of lightning and the cruel power of entropy we rushed in and, only five minutes past 8 we were all deep into the warm-up. Stragglers, perhaps sensing our determination from afar, started showing up and diving in. Our coach tossed a bunch of good, hard yardage at us and we ate it up like candy. 

At 8:53 we were stopped at one end of the pool to listen to the coach tell us about the final set when a blast of lightning triggered through the glowering sky. Judging by the delay between the flash and the peal of thunder it was about a mile and a half away. The thunder rolled on for many seconds. The coach called it a good stopping point and we all jumped out of the pool and made our way to the locker rooms in the still pounding rain. Rain that was about 20 degrees cooler than the pool water. That will wake you up if you aren't already paying attention. 

The entire time in the water I had only two thoughts. One was about that front catch on my freestyle stroke. I'm still perfecting that. The other thought was about whether or not I should just bite the bullet and order the real deal of M to L lens adapter from the Leica Store. I have two Hoage Macro adapters and they work well at all focusing distances but they do have focusing helicoids and I did have one quick episode where I accidentally turned the ring while changing lenses and caused a few frames to be out of focus. I thought I might benefit by having at least one "bullet proof" precision adapter to use when I'm trying to be a more serious photographer. 

When I got home I checked on line. Found a 9+ condition used one at CameraWest and bought it. Should be here next week. It's going on the Carl Zeiss 50mm f2.0 ZM lens that's coming from B&H. Might as well have a complete set of my favorite focal lengths in these tiny sizes for those times that I want to lighten my load but still shoot sharp. Or on the off chance that one of my readers here is so enchanted with everything I've written that they can't help themselves and they decide to send me an M11 Monochrom as a "Thank you." It could happen. 

I've been putting up new photos at my portrait display blog site. Wanna see em?

Sure you do!

https://kirktucksportraits.blogspot.com/ 

And here's a little something to inspire you to exercise: https://neurosciencenews.com/fitness-neuroscience-23228/

Swimmer portrait. Getting ready for Summer over here. New "Senior" swim pass obtained for all City of Austin Pools. In addition to the swim club. Gotta have options.

 Jennifer. Swimmer. Triathlete.

For the last couple of years I have been buying the Senior Pool Pass that's offered by the city of Austin. It gives me free access to every single municipal pool from the first of April through the end of October. It also includes a hang tag for my car which gives me free parking at the Barton Springs Pool. This is very handy since that parking is also convenient for long walks around the hike and bike trails and into downtown. 

Since I swim daily at a private club, with my masters team, I won't get my money's worth out of the swim pass --- if you just consider it a primary swim resource. I get the pass because it's occasionally fun to swim somewhere different and I have a number of swimmer friends who sometimes like to mix things up by swimming laps at Deep Eddy, a beautiful, WPA era, spring feed pool that sits adjacent to Lady Bird Lake. Just across the running trail.  It's 33.3 meters instead of 25 yards so that's fun to mix in as well. Fewer turns. More distance. 

I buy the swim pass for those rare times when our primary pool is closed. Might be for a kid's swim meet or to do some needed maintenance but as any addict will tell you the idea of having to go without for even a day is... uncomfortable. I also buy the pass each year because the money generated by the sale of the passes goes right back to Austin Aquatics (the city) and helps support maintenance and staffing. 

My swimming is getting expensive. I pay $110 a month to swim with the masters team and that's in addition to club dues and the original membership fees. I also spend about $50 a month for chlorine removing shampoo and body wash. Every six months or so I find myself splashing out for new goggles ($25) and every two years or so a new swim suit ($65). I add it all up and I'm maybe spending a couple thousand dollars a year to swim. At times I look at the numbers and consider that I should just cut out all of that and sit quietly at my desk, behind my computer, just waiting to die. And then I realized that I often spend more than all swim costs combined on one lens. Or 1/6th of a  new camera body and that puts everything back into perspective.

Then my accountant ( a long distance runner and a varsity track and field athlete during his time at UT ) calculates for me the average amount the average 67 year old spends on medical co-pays, drug co-pays, therapies of all kinds, lost opportunities from being in poor shape and the very real specter of shortened and burdened lifespans. The numbers are stark. The swim costs are ultra-cheap compared to all the alternatives. And swimming with a lot of like minded and very healthy friends is uplifting and so very social. Hard to be lonely and isolated when one is surrounded by 30-40 good, decades long friends for an hour or so every day. Even my CPA, Barry, couldn't put a price tag on that.

A fringe benefit is that my swim friends are of a large range of ages, all are in really good shape, and they are fun to photograph. So different from the majority of the people I see out in public. It's a nice additional feature for a swimming photographer. It keeps me feeling younger than I am. But that might be my recently diagnosed Maturity Deficit Disorder. Don't bother looking it up in the DSM, it's a new thing. My current perceived maturity is right in line with that of an 18 year old. At least behavior-wise. Sadly, (happily) there is no cure... (this is meant to be satiric, not actual or factual diagnosis...). 

Thinking of getting a GoPro to attach to the front of my kick board. Just for something fun and different. 

Senior pass in hand. Swam hard earlier today but now heading over to Deep Eddy Pool for some relaxed stroke work. And some pool side conversations with an alternate group of swim friends. Water good.

Oh gosh. I forgot to schedule any work or chores for the day. Oh well.

OT: After the big, life altering announcements here yesterday (sarcasm intended) I thought we'd slow down a bit, relax and just talk about swimming.

Home base. 

I am aware that endless talk about cameras and lenses is not the primary reason you come to VSL. I understand that secretly you want to know more about our swim workouts and you'd perhaps like to appropriate our workout parameters for your own use. That's okay. I understand. It's hard news. 

So, after dabbling in the Zeiss Lens universe yesterday here is a palette cleanser focused on a Thursday  morning workout with coach Jenn. 

Another gray morning that's finally giving way to some sunlight now that we're all out of the pool and trying to get on with our days...

Here's the warm-up: 

1x 400 consisting of freestyle mixed every fourth lap with an alternate stroke (back, breaststroke or butterfly). 

1x200 with training fins on. 50 yards kick, 50 backstroke x 2

1x100 = 50 backstroke, 50 easy freestyle. 

Main set: 

15 x25 yards of butterfly. The stroke people love to watch but hate to swim. Why? because it's hard!

The set is on a :30 sec interval. Meaning one 25 yard swim every 30 seconds. So, 375 total yards of butterfly... And it was supposed to be sprints. Yikes. If you are prone to chest pains I think this would trigger them...

3 x75 yards mixed = 25 freestyle + 25 butterfly + 25 freestyle. 

100 yards butterfly kick (dolphin kick) with no board, no fins, no nothing. 

100 yards freestyle as recovery. 

15x25 yards of backstroke, sprinting each length strongly suggested. Going slow? The coach will yell encouragement to you! I like backstroke so this was less daunting than the "fly". 

3x75 yards mixed = 25 freestyle + 25 backstroke + 25 freestyle

100 yards breaststroke kick. No gear.

100 yards freestyle as recovery. 

15x25 yards of breaststroke on a :35 second interval, sprinting each length strongly suggested. Going slow? The coach will yell encouragement to you here as well! I also like breaststroke so this was less daunting than the "fly". 

3x75 yards mixed = 25 freestyle + 25 breaststroke + 25 freestyle

100 yards breaststroke kick. No gear.

100 yards freestyle as recovery. 

200 yard freestyle warm down. 

===================================================

A nice set to swim in one hour. Just shy of two hard miles. 

Today's dissonance: I was the oldest person in the pool this morning. That just dawned on me. Young people --- they've got it made...

And here's a little something to inspire you to exercise: https://neurosciencenews.com/fitness-neuroscience-23228/

Taking a break to eat a big breakfast, oil a couple butcher block tables, not water a lawn, and write this pressing information for your enjoyment, and then it's off to Gold's Gym for an hour (more or less) of strength training. And that's pretty much the anatomy of the first half of the day. 

I did break up my morning long enough to return an email from a client. It was a lengthy bid. Not even sure I want to do the job. Mostly just going through the motions. 

Please feel free to steal the above workout for yourself. Might make your next swim more interesting. 

I'd talk about diet but I don't have much to say about it. Make sure you are getting enough K2-m7 and be sure to take it with vitamin D3. I find it beneficial for blood pressure regulation. But I'm not a doctor so take anything I write about food with a grain of salt (see what I did just there? fun). 

 Addendum: what was I thinking about while swimming today? I guess that would be visualizing how I should be using my Sigma 65mm f2.0 lens. And on which camera. Otherwise I was continuing to think about the front end of my freestyle catch.