A "progress report" from the frozen Southwest. All Okay at VSL HQ.

 

Entertainers on Sixth St. the week of SXSW 2023.

Wow! It's been freaky cold here for days. But by all appearances the citizens of Austin were well prepared this year. It helped that we didn't get blasted with snow and ice. What we're working against is just sheer freezing cold. But I guess the entire country is engaged in the same sort of survival tactics. 

The two things that frustrate me when I have to admit that the weather wins are: No swimming at the Rollingwood Pool. We pride ourselves on swimming in tough conditions but after Sunday's early morning swim I think most of us were willing to throw in the towel for the next few days. Sunday morning was low 20s cold but it came with 40 to 50 mile an hour wind gusts. Now I truly understand the concept of wind chill. 

The other thing I've missed for the first half of the week is being able to walk around for hours with that new (to me) Carl Zeiss 50mm f1.4 Milvus lens. Sure, it went right onto a Novoflex Nikon - to - L mount adapter, and then onto a Leica SL2 but as I walked out to the car it became evident, even to someone as stubborn as I, that walking around in (yesterday morning) 15° cloudy weather, complete with perilous wind gusts and random icing was not brave or heroic but more like....stupid. I turned around and made a hasty retreat back into the warm house, tossed the camera and lens into a comfortable chair and haven't messed with them since. 

I don't know how you folks who live (and report to me) in places where the actual temperatures for days and days are sub-zero and the wind chill temperatures can get well down by double digits. They just don't make gloves thick enough and warm enough to deal with that kind of weather. That's surface of Neptune cold. But I often see lovely images of snow covered landscapes and old barns that stoically soldier on, season after season. You must have far thicker blood than I. 

Today is shaping up to be tolerable. It was 15° when I got up for coffee. The sun is shining and the predictions are that it will keep shining (but with little warming effect) all day long. The high today should be around 3pm when the "mercury" rises to a comfortable(?) 34° before plunging back into the teens tonight. I'm determined to cover myself with expensive down filled clothing and head outside in the bright afternoon and take some photos --- just to feel my thickly gloved hands on a camera for a while. 

We learned many lessons from the last two damaging and dangerous freezes. We replaced all the windows in the house with amazingly multi-paned ones that don't let even a squeak of cold air in. We had all the doors re-weather stripped. We had the chimney cleaned and inspected last week. And, I bought one of those small, Russian, military surplus nuclear reactors and had it install out back. Seems they experimented a lot with those in conjunction with the design and manufacturing of small, two man attack submarines back in the 1960s and have been trying to figure out how to "decommission" them for quite a while. We were able to get one in pretty good shape for a song. One of the metal seams seems loose and glows at night but the reactor does a good job providing ample power when the grid falters. I do worry a bit because every time I turn on the reactor and rev it up we all get hacking coughs and spit up a little blood. I'm pretty sure it's just a virus going around and nothing to do with having an unshielded and unregulated nuclear power plant in the back yard, just next to the sweet olive bushes...

But we live in Texas and we don't take zoning very seriously so, what's the harm? Now I just have to figure out where to get the plutonium pellets when the current ones run down. Oh, and I have to have a garden hose dumping water over the reactor's cooling fins when it's on. From what I can grasp from the Google Translation of the Russian owner's manual, the water cooling is vdyry critical. Otherwise? Possible meltdown. Not good for the landscaping or the lawn. 

(No Virginia. We don't have a nuclear reactor. Just a pipe dream after reading Thurber's short story about Walter Mitty). 

I am back at work. At least for this week. I'm working on compositing portraits and urban backgrounds for a start-up company's website. It's going well. Once you learn to use Photoshop it's like falling off a bicycle. Or something. Glory to the new selection tools. All praise Lightroom's AI DeNoise and Raw Detail enhancer. Thank goodness for making a library of urban scenes months and years in advance of need. 

Tomorrow, after shaking off the cold of the night time low temperatures (16°?) with intravenous coffee, I'll load up the car with some gear and go over to my favorite Austin ad agency to photograph five more key partners and do basically the same kind of compositing when they get around to choosing their favorite images. Just to jumble things up (since it is a new year...) I'm going to make the portraits using the new lens (50mm) along with one of the Leica CL cameras languishing in the gear cabinet. The combo yields a 75mm equivalent which should be just right for some nice portraits in a small studio space, on site. Joining the tiny camera and huge lens will be my favorite Godox AD200 Pro flashes and several umbrellas. A 40 inch and a 60 inch. A scrape of white seamless paper and we'll be ready to rumble.

I like visiting this ad agency. The people are nice, the coffee is first rate, and they pay their bills at a speed that's stunning. There might even be pastries....

We swim again starting on Thursday. There is so much pent up demand that all three practice times on the schedule will be filled with anxious swimmers ready to make up for lost time. I'll be more reserved and just settle on one practice. No sense rushing into things. 

Twelve more composites and a lunch stand between me and my manifest destiny to search out odd scenes in modern life and immortalize them in photographs. And then supper at a good friend's house. 

Just a progress report because several people checked in yesterday evening to see why there had been no recent posts. Can't say. Other than I was probably just mesmerized by the fire in the fireplace and it was too cold in the studio to go out and type.....

cheers.

Cold. Well, just Texas cold. But still cold. Oh, and I traded someone a zoom lens for a prime lens.

 

fun with front elements.

This is a 50mm Milvus lens from Carl Zeiss.

It's often referred to as a "mini-Otus" but

from my point of view there's little that's "mini" 

about it. A favorite among cinematographers, for sure.

Monster sized lens for a 50mm. 

We started getting news of incoming "the Arctic Blast; 2024" three or four days ago. Most homeowners here in the Austin area are still a bit in shock from "Ice Stormageddon 2023" and the deadly "Arctic Winter Blast of 2021." More than 200 people in Texas died when the power went out and 4,000,000 people were without electricity, heat, etc. For some the 2021 winter storm effects lasted over a week. And the clean up from the last two events took months. Water pipes burst all of the place and falling, frozen branches did a number on the infrastructure last year. Little wonder everyone is a bit on edge today. 

Last time a little forest of sweet olive bushes that sits outside our bedroom windows was nearly wiped out when the lows dropped under 9°. And stayed there for a long while. This time around I spent the afternoon yesterday wrapping them with "plankets" (permeable blanket coverings for plants and shrubs) and inside the wrapping I included strands of incandescent Christmas lights to keep the bushes at least tolerably comfortable. Many beds of succulents are covered with double layers of tarps as are the two flower beds just outside my studio door.  

I have covered everything with mulch. Covered the four outdoor faucet nibs with insulated covers and even added air pressure to the cars' tires. I also had a service come by last week to clean and inspect the rarely used chimney and fireplace. Then I stocked in three boxes of DuraFlame logs. If the power goes out we'll barricade ourselves in the living room and light log after log. If it looks to be worse than we expect we'll decamp to a downtown hotel. And, yes, I know where the turn off valve is for the water and have the requisite tool for turning it all off. 

If we make it to Wednesday afternoon unscathed then we'll consider ourselves lucky once again. Wait, I have to grab a fresh orange and cranberry scone and some coffee before I continue....   .... ..... .....

Okay. 

When I awoke this morning the temperature outside was 24° and when the wind chill was factored in it was a balmy 14°. Fahrenheit. Perfect weather for morning swim practice, outside. When we got to the pool the Sunday morning 8 a.m. masters group was just about to exit the lanes so we 9 a.m. masters swimmers could get in and get going. The walk from the locker rooms to the poolside in nothing but a Speedo swim suit and a swim cap was... innervating. The chill on my skin was one of those sensations I hope I never have to get used to. I did stop long enough on deck, in the wind, to admire the icicles hanging down from the edges of the starting blocks. And then we were in the water, moving and trying to keep as much of ourselves under the temperate water as possible. Just a few square inches of head and face to allow for breathing. Which, in itself, was exciting. Glad I opted for the second workout and didn't have to help peel the insulated covers off the surface of the pool. It gets tricky when the wind picks up. 

Our coach was Dale, a former UT swimmer and a great guy to have on deck on a day of rough weather. He was bundled up in a parka, hat, gloves, etc and he'd had to write the details of the day's workout on the whiteboard back in the heated locker room because the Dry Erase markers more of less give up in freezing temperatures. 

The hard part of our hour long workout wasn't the swimming. Sure, we knocked out 3,000+ yards, got our heart rates up, got our muscles singing, but the real hard part was getting out of the pool, soaking wet and making the 30 second journey from the pool edge to the door of the locker room (mis-named as we don't have lockers, we have vertical, open faced cubbies). The hot showers seemed almost luxurious.

Then we grudgingly left the locker room, headed for our cars and sped off to find the life giving elixir of the 21st century: coffee.

A couple of days ago I had coffee with a photographer friend of about my same vintage. We meet for coffee every other week, or so, to catch up, talk about the business and trade gear stories. We also have a penchant for having camera and lens stuff the other guy covets and vice versa. When we met, in shirt sleeves, sitting outdoors in the nice weather, we realized through the conversation that we each had some gear that could be traded. I had my eye on his "extra" 50mm f1.4 Zeiss Milvus ZF lens and he was looking around for a standard L mount zoom lens to use with a recently acquired Leica SL2. I just happened to have a Panasonic 24-105mm S zoom that is wholly duplicated by my (preferred) Leica 24-90mm Vario Elmarit zoom. Shazam. A deal was done over coffee. I now have his Nikon mount 50mm f1.4 Zeiss lens and he has my Panasonic zoom. 

Why another 50mm? Well, they are all different in some way or another so...why not? The lens is beautiful, big and heavy. But it has a fantastic reputation for high optical performance. And I have a drawer full of Nikon Lens to L Mount body adapters. Let the playing begin. 

We did the swap yesterday afternoon. After my bout of domestic storm prep. Today has been a whirlwind of swimming, coffee afterwards (a once a month event with some of my fellow swimmers), lunch with B., napping, and worrying about the upcoming 36 hours of freezing temperatures. I hope to get out with the lens on Tuesday or Wednesday to give it an intense audition. Til then everything is just conjecture. 

So, the list of 50mm and 55mm and 58mm lenses I collect keeps growing. I'd divest of some but so many people have told me for so long = "You date the camera bodies, You marry the lenses." Or, that their regrets, over time, are the lenses that they sold. No one I know really regrets having too much of a good thing and I think that is germane to the collecting of fun 50mm lenses. Besides, this one is supposed to be one of the best ever. We'll see about that. 

Nice thing about heavy lenses? They'll help you build bigger biceps. And, as you know, when you crest 50 years of age holding on to muscle mass is mission critical. That's my story and I'm sticking with it. 

Sorry JC, we'll get that 110mm Fuji next time around...maybe. 

God Bless the Texas Electrical Grid and Keep if from Failing. Again.

An unexpected pair. A big, medium format camera attached to a small, skinny 75mm rangefinder lens. Let's see how it all worked out.

Optical shop on S. Congress.

In the first week of January a commenter asked me if I had ever tried using the Voigtlander 75mm f1.9 VM (meaning Voigtlander for M) lens that was launched last year. It had never dawned on me to try. But after nosing around on the web and looking at various combinations of MF cameras and 35mm format lenses I decided I'd go a super nerd and give it a try. The lens is very small and light and it works well on the intended format (24 by 36 mm) but I had misgivings about its ability to shine across a bigger slab of sensor. 

A while back I'd bought a TTArtisan M to GFX adapter so .... what the hell? In actual practice the camera dwarfs the lens. But that's fine since it also cuts down on both the weight and the overall size of the package. The adapter was a good fit on both ends and so off we go.

The weather during the day I decided to do this grand experiment was gray and overcast. Chilly but not uncomfortable if you dress for it. I did my usual walk through downtown, came home for lunch and then went out again for a walk on South Congress Ave. later.

Since the lens has no electronic connects to the camera and is completely manual in all respects I had to work with it a bit differently than I would with a dedicated GFX lens. I wanted to use the black and white formula for Tri-X so I imput that. The one "clerical" error which some overly diligent reader will no doubt discover is that I didn't change focal length setting in the manual lens set-up menu in the camera. In the exif it will read as a VM 58 which is the reference I've set up for a profile to use with the 58mm f1.4 lens from the same company. Please note that if you are one of the people who enjoy getting a lot of use out of your red pen. 

Once I had the camera mostly set up I aimed it at an evenly lit nine foot stretch of white seamless paper to see how bad the vignetting might be. The far corners were very, very dark. I decided to use a crop frame and chose 6:5 instead of 3:2. That trims the corners a bit but I decided to leave off making vignetting corrections in post so you can see exactly how the camera acts with this lens. 

It's fun to shoot with this set up. The lens is quite sharp in the center of the frame, even when used at or near the maximum aperture. Since my fastest native GFX lens hits its limits at f3.5 it was nice to be able to mess with even shallower depth of field with the 75mm used at f1.9, f2.0 and f2.8. You'll see samples below. 

The Fuji is a fun camera to use in that it's reasonably sized for a camera with a larger sensor and it also has really good in body image stabilization; even with non-auto lenses. The finder is big and bright and, if you want to be all Super Sneaky the rear LCD can be used as a waist level finder. 

When you use a non-communicative lens you'll find good focus peaking which gets even better if your whole photo is in black and white but the focus peaking indicators are a bright color. Me? I like red. To get the best focus out of the lens I suggest pressing in on the rear dial (which is also a button) and using the image magnification feature. It works very well. 

I didn't have a particular agenda in my outings but I did feel more comfortable with the camera than ever before. The one change I'll make before I use the Tri-X profile again is to turn down the grain effect in the formula. I think it's a bit over the top. Just a thought. 

So, if you can deal with the vignetting you might find the 75mm lens a good, fun addition to the GFX toy box. I do. And it makes me want to try out the Voigtlander 90mm f2.8 Ultron as well. That gets me a bit further into the portrait range but it duplicates what I already have with the (dreadfully heavy) TTArtisan 90mm f1.2. Might want to get rid of the big one and get the smaller VM. Who knows?

Take a peek at the pix and a gander at the captions. Fun with photography.

Austin photographer outfitted for mild winter weather. 

See how tiny that lens is? Weird, yeah?

Latté at Jo's Coffee on S. Congress. At the edge of the lens's close focusing range.

I think this is an ashtray. It's been so many years since I've been around people who smoke while drinking coffee. 20 years from now I doubt young people will be able to identify it. 

It does have a very utilitarian design. 

Austin restaurants are nearly overrun by these metal chairs. 

Doesn't mean I don't like em. Just, well....they're everywhere. 

Some day, when I win the Texas State Lottery I'm going to buy one of 

the Stetson "Open Road" hats. Just to have one. Just to better remember 

Lyndon Baines Johnson. Just to have a two season hat for a one and a half season 

state. But I sure like the way they look in photos. 

Used boots. Who thought there would be a whole industry around them. 

Found in a casual men's shop. Multiple copies for sale. 

Such an odd thing to pair with slacker jeans and flannel shirts. 

So strange to have flannel shirts in central Texas. 

Sexual politics in a window display...

Ah. The female gaze. 

rules to follow or just more fantasy?

Nice bokeh. 

Claimed and then claimed again. Does someone have a contract?

Cars. Weird. Not one I'd pick out. Even with my lottery winnings...

And the Subaru Forester has a lot more cargo space...

That's my current take on the Voigtlander 75mm when paired with

the Fuji GFX 50Sii. 

Hope you liked it.

 

Things are calming down here. Just getting ready for a big freeze. Still freaked out about last year's big ice storm.

With the help of friends and a good therapist I think I'm getting over my initial shock of the violent attack I witnessed yesterday. And the aftermath. An interesting thing came up in my post event session with the trauma expert. After the ambulance left the scene and the police took my statement about the attack I continued on making images of downtown buildings for the project that brought me there that morning. 

I worked for about half an hour until I was sure I got what I needed for the upcoming composites. I was strangely calm and focused on my work. No shaking hands. No paranoid surveillance. No deep emotion. Of course I fell apart the minute I got home but leading up to that, while working on the project, I was....stoic. 

Since I'm usually an emotionally reactive person I brought this temporary stoicism up with the psychologist I worked with. "Ah." He said, "You were experiencing disassociation. It's probably why you were able to help out in the moment as well." Interesting that one's mind can repress emotional reactions for a time. He was happy to hear that I broke down, emotionally, later, when I got home. Being disassociated for long periods is a mental health issue, for sure.

I will say that photographing buildings while walking back to my car gave me time to just keep my hands busy and my mind distracted from what I had seen while my subconscious tried to understand it. The human brain has some neat tricks up its sleeve. 

I spent last night eating Fettuccini Alfredo, having a glass of red wine, and watching a movie that Ben gave me a while back. It was Ben Stiller's "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty." One of my favorites.  I slept fine last night with no bad dreams. Still amazed by that. 

This morning I was intentional about doing my usual routine. I made coffee, toasted super bread, ate it with peanut butter and apricot jam and then gathered up my stuff and headed to swim practice. It was cold this morning and clouds of steam rose off the pool. I swam in lane five with one of my usual, daily swim partners and felt good in the water. The workout was a brisk hour and it felt so right to be back in one of my happiest places. 

I took down yesterday's post because I didn't relish seeing it every time I did blog maintenance or posted a new blog post on the site. I'd like to put yesterday in the rear view mirror. Seems thinking about photography is a good way to do it. Also, planning for a multi-day, deep freeze next week keeps me occupied as well. 

I want to thank everyone who responded to yesterday's post with comments, personal emails and phone calls. All of your kind thoughts were very helpful. I'm pretty sure I'll be fine. And if some anxiety crops up here or there I have a good support network of professionals and friends to get me back on the right path.

My photo project is moving right along. The NYC art director I'm working with wrote this morning to tell me she thought the portraits were great and that she'd just defer to my vision for the backgrounds to composite. All good news. 

I now know for sure that I am not a photojournalist by anyone's imagination. All through yesterday's event I never touched the camera that was hanging around my neck. Too immersed in the moment. 

Now out prepping the garden for an hour or two for the coming harsh weather . Would love to save at least a few of the succulents and cacti that B. has been working so hard to nurture. 

Thanks everyone. Now let's move on. Photography is a lot more fun to write about.

 

Group of Italian Visitors to the Vatican. Circa 1995

 

original print scanned for the blog with an iPhone.

I made a trip to Rome to photograph with the Mamiya 6 camera in 1995. It was a delightful camera. The rangefinder made focusing quick and easy. The big, 6x6cm film format made for luscious prints. The 50mm, 75mm and 150mm lenses were nothing short of fantastic.

I wasn't a small camera. It wasn't unobtrusive or discreet. But really, all that blather about having to have the tiniest, fastest, quietest cameras in order to operate in the street is really just a reflection of the self intimidating self-talk of timid photographers. Working with honest intention is the best form of invisibility.

I spent a bit over a week walking through the streets of Rome that year taking photographs of whatever caught my eye. I never got push back from anyone; anywhere in the city. I don't hide my cameras. I don't put my cameras under a jacket or coat only to be whipped out for a tiny moment to steal a scene. I work in the open for everyone to see. A genuine smile is the best lubrication for making photographs with strangers more comfortable --- for everyone. It's also better than resorting to long lenses. 

When I walked around with my medium format rangefinder camera I kept it focused to about ten feet. I learned to read the light and to keep the shutter speed and aperture settings close to what I thought the prevailing light might call for. The settings got tweaked when I pulled the camera up to my eye but... the settings were already in the ballpark.  

I hardly ever settled for one quick frame but would shoot at least two, and usually four or five, frames of a scene, trying with each new frame to fine tune my composition further. To narrow down to what caught my eye in the first place. 

I felt the same pattern emerge when I went to Montreal last year with a Leica M. It's fun to look for images. Even more fun to continue shooting until you've distilled the moment down to its essentials. Walk for ten or twelve hours a day when you are out on an adventure/vacation. You'll beat the odds for getting photographs by playing the numbers, constantly practicing, and getting yourself to the places where the situations for photos are most interesting...

OT

I often talk about exercise here. Most of the people I know who are around my age and who are active photographers are also in great shape. And few of them can "blame" being in shape on genetics. Good physical fitness, heart health, lung capacity, walking endurance and so much more is accomplished by spending the time and having the discipline to exercise every day. Not just an amble around the block if the weather is nice but long runs or long swims, or anything that gets the heart rate up and sustained for an hour or so every damn day. A good standby? Toss a camera bag over a shoulder or a backpack over both shoulders, toss a battery and a memory card into a favorite camera and head out the door for a two hour photographic fun walk. 

So many Americans are sedentary throughout their work lives and then, when the results of not having the discipline to exercise come home to roost they just pass it off as a normal part of "getting older." And they throw up their hands in surrender to America's enormously profitable medical industry, leaving "the system" to tidy up the mess. If I had one tip for younger photographers; hell any younger people, it would be to get up off your butt for at least an hour a day and put in the time doing something fun, enjoyable and physically demanding. Go play soccer. Ride a bike; fast. You'll thank me decades later when you are prescription free, not getting bigger and bigger, and not having to give up the very things that bring joy. Like walking for hours through fascinating streets with your camera as your companion, discovering and rediscovering the big, beautiful world. 

My other tips: wear good shoes. eat well. smile more. worry less. You live well by living well.

Monday's shoot goes well. Coffee and preparation are the secrets.

This photo has nothing to do with today's commercial portraits project.

It's here because, well, I can't really show you client work before they get to use it...

The studio looked so nice this morning. Bright, blank, white walls. Astringently clean. Almost every doo-dad and toy whisked off to its rightful storage area. I spent time yesterday cleaning up and then setting up the backdrop and lighting for four portraits this morning. Oh, an also sorting through and setting stuff in the menu of a Leica SL.

I'll be using the resulting selections of each person as a series of composites, with an urban landscapes in the background. PhotoShop now makes this so easy that I wonder if it's profitable to ever shoot a portrait in an outdoor environment in the future. So much easier to blend controlled content together. Maybe I'll hire models to pose in different outfits and looks in the studio and then composite them for my street photography. At least you'd get total control over the look of the scenes! (Not really serious because....you'd miss the whole reason to go out and shoot = the walk!!!). 

Our house is the perfect place to entertain a group of executives who decided to save on gas and time and all come together at once. Our living room is huge and the dining room is comfy so while I was photographing one person the other three could hold an impromptu meeting while sprawled out on the couches or they could sit around the dining room table with laptops blazing. 

No matter where they ended up the glue that holds the day together is good coffee. Well, that and a gingerbread loaf together for a subtle sugar and profound caffeine high. I made a big pot of coffee with freshly ground coffee beans about ten minutes before the client arrivals. I used the nice china. True to form everyone took time to minister to their coffee and cut a slice of the gingerbread loaf and then stand around and catch up. 

I got quizzed by the CEO who asked if I knew what their company did. Silly man! Of course! I read every line on their website and Googled anything I was hazy about. And I did that a week ago so the information could percolate in my brain and stick well. 

I pulled each person out, solo, into the studio to do the photos. I like to work one-on-one so it's nice to have an adjacent space to put those still waiting for their turn. And even nicer not to have anyone else there to distract the sitter of the moment.

I spent about 20-25 minutes with each person. The lighting didn't need to change; I was lighting to emulate the look of a bright but overcast day on which the clouds would be thin enough to show the direction of the light but not so strongly as to cast hard shadows. I was using a 72 inch, soft white umbrella as the main light. 

During the time I spent with each person I asked them specifically what their roles were. It's a technical company that uses LLM and A.I. as part of their offerings to clients. Fortunately for me Ben and I had a long technical discussion about information apps and LLMs the evening before, when he came over for out routine and cherished (by me and B.) Sunday dinner. I was at least able to nod and gesture pseudo-intelligently as the CTO discussed the requisite coding strategies for their project. 

I think the secret to a good exec portrait is to get your subject talking about what they know but also being direct about how they might change a pose, expression or article of clothing to make everything work better. When in doubt ask them to discuss the recent triumphs of their children. That nearly always works.

Since I was using three fairly powerful LED lights as my illumination sources I was also able to use one of my Leica SL cameras in its face detection AF mode. In this set up it's actually closest eye detection. And the camera and 24-90mm Leica Vario Elmarit zoom lens worked perfectly. No missed shots from faulty AF. No hunting either. 

There was lots of handshaking and upbeat banter as the clients headed back out to do whatever it is that entrepreneurs do. I was happy with the results and sat down straight away to edit. To separate the good expressions from the less good one. A little bit after lunch time I had personal galleries up online for each participant. Now just waiting for the selections to embark on the second half of the project. Urban landscape selection and compositing. 

One project like this one once a month would be just right. Absolutely just right. 

 Ah, the influencers...from a morning at the museum - last week.

The woman with her back to me is standing in the Ellsworth Kelly "Chapel" at the Blanton Museum on the UT campus. When I walked into the art space I see that she has set her seflie stick tripod with phone on the floor at the center of the space and walked about ten feet in front of it to do a series of poses and then to narrate, in Japanese, a short presentation about her experience. All to the "audience" of a mounted smart phone. 

I thought it odd that, a. The museum staff would allow a tripod in the gallery since it's against the museum rules. b. That this influencer was able to commandeer the public space. And, c. That this kind of content would have a big enough audience to make her work there profitable. But then I don't really understand the economics of being an "influencer." 

I wonder if I could get away with the same strategy. Crusty old guy walks in with a huge Gitzo tripod, plumps down a big medium format camera on top,  and maybe a few lights around the edges, and then paces backwards until the distance is just right, and then dances a little jig while humming some 1950's show tunes. I'm pretty sure it would trend on TikTok. Can't wait to see what kind of sponsors I can get. 

But I'm pretty sure the museum would toss me out pretty quickly... "Ageism" I'll scream...

Why the big soft spot for Leica's M240? Isn't that camera just obsolete? Depends....

I'm not particularly new to Leica cameras but I was surprised by just how much I liked the first Leica M digital camera I've owned. So much so that I picked up a second one from Leica Store Miami (don't worry, no links....) when they got in another one which had recently been CLA'd by Leica. So, let me explain why. 

My first Leica rangefinder cameras was a IIIf which was one of the older, screwmount bodies. It came with a lovely, tiny 50mm f3.5 Elmar lens that collapsed into the body when not in use. That model was discontinued in 1955. So, about as old as I am.  It was tricky to shoot with quickly because the focusing patch/ rangefinder window and the viewing/composing window were two completely separate, small, dim windows. The composing window didn't have frame lines, the presumption was that if you were using this camera you were probably using it with the 50mm lens and any other lens you decided to use on the camera you would most probably decide to use a separate finder for. The optical finders for various focal lengths would fit in the cold shoe on the top of the camera.  The routine for taking a photograph, after setting the exposure controls, would be to look through the rangefinder window to focus and then to switch your eye either to the camera's viewfinder window (50mm) or to switch your eye over to the shoe mounted optical viewfinder for the angle of view matching the lens. 

Not quite the whip it up to your eye, let the camera set every setting and focus for you faster than you can blink methodology we now "enjoy."  But truthfully, the old process was slow enough to cause many lost photographic opportunities. In between a bunch of SLRs I replaced the IIIf with a classic, Leica M3. That body is legendary. The finder would either make you swoon these days or make you dismissive. Why? You'd love it if you shoot standard lenses because for the 50 and 90mm users its finder images are big, and brilliant and the bright lines for each frame are easy to see and gorgeous. The viewfinder had a high magnification. But you'd hate it if you were a confirmed 28 or 35mm shooter because this camera didn't have frame lines for those focal lengths and even looking to the edges of the finder you were unable to fully assess a 35mm lens' coverage, much less that of a 28mm. This camera may have been the one that formed me into a 50mm lens advocate...

I owned many newer cameras Leica such as the M4 and a trio of different M6 cameras (.85. .72, and .55) but none of them felt as good in day to day use as the M3. 

When Leica introduced its first M digital camera, the M8, I was reviewing camera gear for Studio Photography Magazine and Leica got me a test camera and some lenses as soon as the camera became available. That camera was loud,  had a cropped frame, the finder lines didn't match the focal lengths of M lenses very well, and, did I mention that the shutter was quite loud? The camera also had a sensor that was too sensitive to infrared light. Leica had to start handing out IR filters to compensate for the IR overkill. I gave that camera a hard pass and started diving into DSLRs from Nikon and Canon.

Leica then came out with an M9. It was a full frame camera and many of the faults of the M8 were corrected with the new model. It was very pricey at the time (at least for me) and after I reviewed it I sent it back but... with a bit of regret. By using it over the course of several weeks for a review I got reacquainted with the unique pleasure of using a direct optical viewfinder camera, and also the advantages of focusing normal and slightly wide angle lenses with a rangefinder. Still, I was glad to have taken a pass on that model as well after a fault emerged in the sensor construction. The edges of the CCD sensor started to deteriorate and corrode and the cameras had to be sent back to Leica for a complete sensor replacement. Unfortunate pain in the ass for users who depended on that model.

From the point of the Leica M9 review until just a couple of years ago my mind was focused on doing all the domestic things that usually keep people from buying expensive and unnecessary luxury items. Things like saving up for the kid's college expenses, paying the mortgage and saving up for retirement. Sure, I still bought cameras and lenses but nothing as flagrant and indulgent as new, M series digital cameras and their attendant lenses. I fell out of touch with the brand. Until after the "adulting" dust settled. 

Just this past Fall I took a deep breath and started looking longingly at the M series Leicas. 

Sure, most people liked the newest models. The M11s or the just recently discontinued M10s. But there were great photographers here and there that sang the praises of an older model; the M240. In some quarters the M240 was regarded as something of a milestone when it came to design and build. Leica is helping people chase super high resolution with newer models but I was certain that for street photography and general art photography the 24 megapixels of the M240 were fine. Maybe even optimal. The one knock against the M240 is that the sensor tech and performance originating from a 2012 era CMOS sensor is not great when it comes to high ISO performer. It gets noisy at settings above 1600. 

Leica purists in some circles spurned the M240 because it came with video capabilities and they saw this as demonic and at odds with the "purity" of the M system. I guess I now fall into the camp of: If you don't want to use it just don't push the video button....

What I found when I got a very clean, nearly mint, recently Leica CLA'd M240 of my own was a very, very solid camera that's a bit chunkier than the old film Ms. The only dimension that's bigger than on the traditional film Ms is the depth of the body, and it doesn't impact me in the least. The M240 was one of the last standard models available in a glossy black paint finish over brass top and bottom plates. Newer M cameras (excluding special editions and silver models) have a black anodized finish over an alloy. The traditional brass construction shows a beautiful, warm brass/gold finish wherever paint wears off (edges, around strap lugs) while later units just show cold, gray metal. 

Most of the things about the M240 are part and parcel of the Leica tradition. The finder window is brilliantly clear and the optics are superb. The rangefinders do a wonderful job with lenses of 50mm or wider focal lengths. The solidity of the body and the lack of a mirror or a bouncy shutter make the camera very easy to handhold at slower shutter speeds than one might be used to. And the M takes a wide range of really good and really small lenses. Not just from Leica but also from Voigtlander and Carl Zeiss. And any number of Chinese lens makers...

If you need to adapt non-rangefinder lenses the camera makes it easy by providing live view. A first in the Leica M line of cameras. You can even mount an EVF to the accessory shoe if you want to work with the camera disguised as a familiar mirrorless camera. One advantage of NOT using live view or the movie mode is that this is the first mirrorless digital camera I have used that has nearly infinite battery life (hyperbole alert....). I've used the camera for days at a time without sucking all the power out of the battery. I have a back up battery I've never had to use while out photographing. 

The camera feels wonderful to use. It's a nice blend of thoroughly modern mixed with the DNA of the original, nearly seven decades old M3 film camera. The first M mount body.  And if you've shot with a film M Leica in the past picking up and using an M240 is like getting back on a bicycle. If you learned to ride a bicycle...

Contrary to popular (photo populist?) opinion owning a very useful Leica M digital camera doesn't need to be frightfully expensive. I just picked up a second body for $2400 that's in like new condition. The place I generally buy M series stuff from often has cameras that have, within the past year, returned from Leica Wetzlar service where they are exhaustively cleaned, lubricated, adjusted and brought up to "like new" condition. They even come back from Leica with a one year warranty. I like the assurance of all that so I'm willing to pay one or two hundred dollars more. Peace of mind. 

The other thing that can keep the price of ownership down is the wide availability of used lenses and also lenses from non-Leica lens makers like Voigtlander and Carl Zeiss. My current favorite lens for the M system is the Voigtlander 50mm f2.0 APO Lanthar lens which I purchased originally to use with my SL2 mirrorless Leica camera via an adapter. It's the finest 50mm lens I've ever owned. Brand new they are about $1,000. So, my price of entry to the system I really always wanted to be shooting with was about $3400. Far cheaper than the top of the line Sony, Canon or Nikon cameras. Especially when paired with the top of the line standard lenses from them.

The real benefits I see in using M series Leicas are: The direct, optical viewfinder window is a wonderful way of looking at the world. You are basically looking through a clear window and you have to have a mental construct of how things like depth of field, color temperatures, etc. will affect your final image without being able to see it while looking through the optical finder. Without the trappings. It's a very thoughtful way of seeing and reacting and making a photograph. Everything else is like watching TV. Second, most of the lenses designed for the M system are very high quality optics and because they are designed without autofocus mechanisms or image stabilization electronics they are much, much smaller. They present a really streamlined profile on the cameras. And the biggest benefit of these fully mechanical (and mechanically uncomplicated!) lenses is the reliability and ruggedness they bring to the mix. Also a peace of mind attribute. 

So, is the M240 camera obsolete and passé? Must we rush to buy the latest and greatest new high resolution miracle cameras? It's always a personal choice. A rangefinder camera is wonderful but it's not without its limitations. If you really need long lenses, super fast autofocusing, complete electronic nanny  features and tons of fine-tuning potential then you'd be much better off with one of the latest C.N. or S. cameras and lens lines. If you are a methodical and slow worker for whom the actual process of taking a photograph is a large part of the pleasure then the Leican M might be just what you are looking for. 

I won't be dishonest and say that I can use a Leica M240 for everything. It would make a bad film scanning platform. It's not my first choice for a flash-heavy event shoot. Can't really make it work the way I'd like for long lens theater photography. But for walking around in the capitol cities of the world making photographs of architecture, decor, life, art etc. I find it most satisfying. And the images I get from the raw files (compressed or non-compressed DNGs) are every bit as good as anything I see from other cameras with the exception that I won't be pressing these cameras into high (nose bleed area) ISO shooting. Even there though technology is your friend. The new DeNoise feature in Lightroom makes 3200 and even 6400 readily accessible to M240 users and the only downside is the extra processing time needed to implement it. 

Obsolete? No. Vintage? Almost. But at a time when people are seeking out decades old film cameras in order to use 35mm film the M240 is vastly better when it comes to image quality, speed of use and the ability to retain value. I see the M240 as a wonderful gateway into the Leica M system. If you buy one and try it out but then decide it's not for you it's probable that even a year later you'll be able to sell it for just about what you paid for it. Once these older Leicas find a "value floor" their pricing seems to stabilize and remain constant for years. 

As I wrote above, they are not for everyone. But I feel fortunate that I can now translate all the handling pleasures and haptic intimacy I once developed for the older film M camera with a new, digital manifestation. And I'm very happy when I use them. YMMV.

All files below were done with the M240 and the Voigtlander 50mm APO. Love the colors and the sharpness. 

 Added:  Since writing this I have added a +2.0 diopter to one of my 240s. It's perfect. Also bought one more, new battery just in case they become rare/hard to get. All set for a year of fun-tography.