Almost every photo walk has a purpose or an agenda. Sometimes highly defined. Usually quite vague. Now...Saturday....

We've been talking about testing gear lately. At least I have. One of the lenses I recently purchased has been languishing in the equipment cabinet mostly because it's not a 50mm lens (my favorite) and  I've been more focused on getting all three of my rangefinder cameras perfectly calibrated before using this one because it's a 90mm and they require more rangefinder accuracy because they provide less depth of field. You can really tell if a camera and lens are front or rear focusing when a longer focal length is involved. By the time I grabbed for a camera on Saturday afternoon I felt confident that everything was just as it should be; camera-wise. 

The lens I'm writing about is the Voigtlander APO-Skopar 90mm f2.8 for the M mount. The lens is deceptively tiny and light. I bought the chrome version just for something different and I think the lighter finish also makes the lens seem less dense. I wanted to see how useful the 90mm focal length would be on a rangefinder camera and I thought it would be fun to take the lens out on a sunny, late afternoon and put it through its paces. 

I used the lens on a black M240 body and shot everything in Jpeg. I know that some reviewers have decided that they don't like the SOOC Jpegs from Leica rangefinder cameras but I've always found them to be really nice. Especially if you tweak the camera settings a bit. More contrast seems to be what they want to work really well. At least for me. If you measure stuff using test targets in your basement studio you may have completely different point of view as regards Leica Jpeg response. I'm interested in a "pleasing" look and not necessarily a completely accurate rendering. The urge for perfection seems to go hand in hand with unhappiness.... Even where cameras are concerned. Especially where cameras and lenses are concerned.

I think the images here (below) tell the tale. I've played around with post processing a bit but not so much as to obscure the basic look and feel of the files. I think most stuff looks better with a bit of contrast enhancement. It's just the way I see the world.

The 90mm VM APO is a very sweet lens. I already own the Sigma 90mm f2.8 for the L mount but the Voigtlander is more useful for me as it can be easily used, with an adapter, on the M, L and GFX mount cameras (and many other mirrorless models) whereas the Sigma i lens is limited by its lens mount to only the L cameras. That makes the VM very useful for me. I'll keep the Sigma for those times when I want the luxurious laziness of autofocus with eye detection. It's great for that. 

The 90mm VM results from the day convinced me that I'd gotten my RF calibrations done well. The lens focuses quickly and has a relatively short focus throw and that takes some getting used to. The lenses I collected to use on video projects were selected, in part, because they feature long throws which allow for really accurate fine focus and better results when doing manual follow focus moves in video. For example, the Carl Zeiss 50mm Milvus lens has a very long focus throw. Maybe 270 degrees; much of it in the close up area. But careful focus marking on the barrel for stop and start targets pays off with smoother throws and more accurate stops and starts. It just does. Conversely, it takes a long time to go from something that requires close focusing to a subject situated near infinity. Practice, practice, practice. The 90mm VM is quick to focus; snappy. But that also means you have to be quite careful to hit exact focus when you need to. With a rangefinder it's actually a bit quicker for me because the coincident rangefinder has a more binary display. It's easier for me to see where coincident images come together than to explore exact focus on a focusing screen. Focusing on a screen requires, for me, more iterative ins and outs for me to be finally sure of the exact spot. I'm betting the focus throw of the 90 VM to be something around 90°.

The M240 camera I used was easier to focus and compose with than I thought it would be. At one point, back in the film days, Leica made three different versions of the M6. The different magnifications worked to make the cameras match up better with various focal length categories. There was an M6 with a .58 magnification finder that was optimized for using wider angle lenses. It was perfect with the 28mm lenses and also quite good with the 35mms as well but as you got into standard and tele lenses the frame lines became progressively smaller and that always makes composition and focusing a bit tougher. 

The standard camera in the M6TTL line up was the one with the .72 magnification finder. It was a decent balance for use with all manner of rangefinder lenses but it was a bit too tight to accurately and easily show all of a 28mm frame. One really needed an external/shoe mounted bright line finder for use with the 28mm. (Now the standard M camera magnification is .68 but Leica have made the viewfinder bigger and that helps with the wide angles. 

The camera I loved back in the film days was the Leica M6TTL with the .85 magnification finder. It was perfect for use with the 50mm lenses and very good for the 75s and the 90s. But 35mm was as wide as you could go and the finder still felt very cramped at that focal length. I would love to have a new digital M camera with the choice of a .85 viewfinder. It would be wonderful with this 90mm lens but even more delightful with the 50mm lenses. That would be rangefinder heaven. 

But it all is what it is. What we give up in finder magnification flexibility (and the cost of owning three different bodies in order to optimize the use of different focal lengths) we gain in having live view which can effortlessly show us exact framing of any lens on the camera and also offer punch-in magnification for precision focusing. 

On Saturday I chose to use the rangefinder to focus the 90mm and not live view. I'm okay with the degree of accuracy I was able to get. 

*****

Yesterday was someone's birthday. We all went out for Korean food at Oseyo on East Caesar Chavez St. The food and company were wonderful. Then we all celebrated the birthday with big slices of chocolate cake and ice cold glasses of milk. I'm sitting here today writing this right now because I'm still full from yesterday's fun excess... and writing the blog gives me an excuse to sit, motionless, like a snake who devoured a whole herd of something or other and must now deal with digesting it.

I read a blog post this morning about the agonies, and the trials and tribulations, of selecting products one wants or needs to buy. The tortured description of the process was almost disturbing. I have an opposite methodology for buying photo gear. It goes like this: Realize that a 90mm for your rangefinder might be fun. Go to B&H's website (or your favorite website) and see what's available for your camera in the price range you can afford, select between black and chrome finish all the while understanding that there is no "right" choice and that either option would be fine with you. Put in shopping cart. Check out. Wait for arrival. Use in a state of general, uncomplicated happiness. Done. Time elapsed with the purchase of the 90mm? About two minutes. Presto: more life left over for living well. Happiness ensues.  More photography gets done.

Research is deadly. Can be boring. And indecision is a clear path to anxiety and depression. Pull off the bandage. Get what you want. Go with your gut reactions. Stop worrying about getting everything just right and you'll actually have time to go out and make photographs. Even silly test photos like the ones below....  (this does not apply to expensive hats....).

Last shot of the evening at twilight. ISO 3200. 

only one mannequin shot and only added because I loved the texture on the hat...

this frame originated in color. The one below was taken a few minutes before and 

was shot with the camera's black and white setting. With contrast boosted in camera.

I think it's important to test the gear you want to end up using. The Voigtlander 75mm tests showed me that the focus calibration of my newest rangefinder camera could be better. It's a demanding lens....

Just a few blocks from my house the Barton Springs Nursery is a wonderful place

to browse through landscaping and outdoor furniture or just to sit and soak up

the birdsongs, the fresh air and the peacefulness of the place. Or to test a camera.

We are incredibly fortunate to live in a wonderful neighborhood. We're just around the corner from my favorite daily coffee shop, Trianon, and my favorite gardening store, Barton Springs Nursery. The nursery is beautifully laid out, has only premium tools, furniture, plants and materials and, most important to me, it's a very welcoming place with lots of chairs, tables and benches. They have coffee in the main office (which is a beautifully restored house) and are happy to have people drop by, grab a cup and sit in the middle of a couple acres of shade trees, surrounded by all sorts of calming landscaping. 

I had occasion to go there yesterday to pick up a gift card for a very close friend who is a committed gardener. And, as usual, I took along a camera. The one I've been torturing myself with most of this week is the Leica M-E 240. I've been re-learning that fully mechanical rangefinder cameras are more work than conventional cameras. Not just in the shooting but also in the calibration. 

I was happy with the calibration as it came from the retailer and I didn't notice much of a back focus when using shorter lenses but half way into Wednesday I put a 75mm f1.9 lens on the camera and started taking test shots with the aperture set to wide open, around the office. I noticed the lens back focusing. Stuff I focused on was less sharp than stuff a couple inches back. A fast, medium telephoto lens is just at the edge of the envelope for mechanical rangefinders which makes good calibration essential. Especially if you anticipate using the camera and a fast portrait lens to make....portraits. Especially head and shoulders portrait in which you'd want the eyes of the subject to be critically sharp. 

The first step in any camera calibration is to make sure that it's actually the rangefinder and not a lens that's out of whack. I paid more attention and tried a 50mm at f2.0 and a 90mm at f2.8 and this time around I could see a difference. I pulled a second body out of the cabinet and repeated the tests on that camera. All the lenses were equally well behaved so....of course... the fault lay with the new camera. 

I re-calibrate rangefinders in small increments and then use a distant target to make sure I've nailed infinity focus. Theoretically the optical/mechanical machinery is linear so every other focus distance should fall into line. But I find that fast lenses used close, near minimum focus distance, and wide open, can show you more easily perceptible over and under focus. As long as you realize that depth of field falls one third in front and two thirds behind the actual plane of sharp focus. If you expect equal zones of sharp focus on both sides of the plane of focus you will have over-compensated by a bit. I try to make sure I don't let that focusing phenomenon color my calibration efforts. 

Once I'm pretty certain I've got it all wired up correctly I want to take the camera and most demanding lens out for a spin and photograph stuff in the real world, at distances from the close focus limit all the way out to infinity and then I want to look at the results at 100% on a large, high resolution monitor. It's so much more revealing on a 27 inch retina screen than on the antiquated rear screen of a twelve year old camera model. 

As I walked around the gardens I photographed different subjects and I was amazed at how much more I have to pay attention to exactly where I've set the rangefinder rectangles to get exact focus as compared to the ease of autofocus. Over the course of the day I discovered that there is variation depending on where in the coincident patches your point of focus lies. 

When you are out walking around testing your camera and lens there is a tendency to shoot raw and then to look at a file review on the back monitor. While I've already cautioned that older LCDs aren't really high enough resolution to tell you much you also have to consider that the embedded review files in raw captures (as opposed to raw+Jpeg) are also lower resolution than a captured Jpeg which delivers a full resolution preview on the camera's rear screen. If you only shoot raw and depend on the perception delivered by the rear screen of a camera you'll drive yourself a bit crazy because you'll always be seeing a lower res image and if you punch in to, say, 10X the resulting magnified image will seem a bit blurry.

You can test this yourself by shooting a test target with your camera set to raw and then shooting the same target with a full sized Jpeg and then comparing the results at full magnification on the rear screen. The differences are quite apparent. 

I guess that's why I don't make any final judgments on image sharpness until I can get in front of the office computer, open up PhotoShop and have a good look. 

With all this in mind I resisted shooting raw files yesterday and set the camera to large/fine Jpeg. The resulting files were great and the focus, when I aimed correctly, was good even with the 75mm lens used at f1.9 and working at close distances. The focus throw on that lens is so short it makes fine-tuning focus while shooting a bit tricky. But all in all I'm happy with the results and have more appreciation for how good a performer that 75mm is. 

As a final test I headed over to South Congress Ave. I had two or three goals. One was to have a lovely afternoon cortado at Jo's Coffee and to spend a bit of time watching the stream of tourists walking by. Another goal was to revisit the Maufrais hat shop and see if I felt ready to splash out for a Stetson Open Road hat (I'm still not at all ready to fork over nearly $300 for any hat!!!). And finally, I was looking for the perfect birthday card for my closest friend. Which I did find. 

While walking along S. Congress Ave. I took photos of signs because it an almost cheating method of judging sharpness. But I found other things to photograph as well. Now I'm 100% confident to use my new camera. The experience also spurred me to evaluate the two other 240s in the inventory. Oddly, both of them are perfect. Go figure. 

Focus on the second chair.

Magnolia Cafes have been in Austin for well over 30 years. A home grown 

restaurant that functions as Austin's version of a diner. But with an 

emphasis on breakfast. Omelettes, pancakes, egg dishes and lots and lots 

of coffee. But if you are hungry for other fare it's all on the menu. 

I knew I nailed my calibration when I got home and took at look at the 

bow on the hat. That's the exact spot I was focused on...

the edges of type are great focus targets. 

Seen at the old barber shop on S. Congress. Nice rules to live by.

Well, except for the "horsin' around", I'd probably mess up on that one. 

I see this every time I'm on S. Congress Ave. It's on the way to my favorite 

parking space. The wall texture was my actual target. 

Getting your camera set up and accurate before using it for critical work is just common sense.

Amazing how many people take camera function and operation on faith.

I prefer to know what I'm getting into. 

You should too. 

And, I am now of the belief that rangefinder cameras are not a good choice as 

first camera for a beginner photographer. They are also more of a specialty camera than a 

camera for various commercial shoots. Nice to have but a bit 

eccentric. With a limited range of applications.  

I'm over the hump of having to press every camera and 

lens into the "work paradigm." Some things I buy for nostalgia's sake or

for the Quixotic nature of their operation. If you can have only one

camera it's probably wise to find something with a wider use envelope than

an M series Leica. 

Just sayin"

So much of the stuff we write and discuss about photography just doesn't matter. At all. It's immaterial to making fun photographs.

Back in 2019 B and I took a little vacation trip to Montreal, Canada. Like most photographers who I know I hemmed and hawed about which camera or cameras and which lenses to take along with me. In the end I opted to grab the latest one to come through the office. It was a "retro-esque" choice but one that worked for me. I shot hundreds and hundreds of "holiday snaps" with a traditional DSLR camera and, mostly, with a 50mm f1.4 lens. The images look a little different to me than more recent photos I took in Montreal late last Fall. On the later trip I was using the Leica M240 and the Leica Q2. But really, the quality of the images is more or less interchangeable because the reason to create these photos was to capture a feeling of the time and the space, not to participate in a contest aimed at showing off the incremental improvements in camera technology.

The camera I chose to take with me in 2019 was the Pentax K1. It's a 36 megapixel, full frame camera. It's actually newer, in camera years, than the Leica M240 that I used three years later. But the 50mm f1.4 Pentax lens I mostly used was probably ten or so years older than the camera itself. All of them; everything I took on both trips, worked well. If the threshold for success was set at an arbitrary number like 75% then both gaggles of gear delivered results at 90%. And neither set was feature competitive with any number of current cameras. But that lack of inspirational newness was hardly an impediment to the enjoyment of real world picture taking. 

As photographers we have an odd relationship with our gear. There is a big percentage of photographers over 50 who've largely given up on actually taking photographs on a regular or routine basis and now occupy their time going through the "compost heap" of photo gear history bemoaning the passing of "the good old days." The idea being that so much of the legendary gear from the film days, and the now disappearing darkrooms, the fiber based, black and white prints, etc. represents some golden age of photography which is passing and must be memorialized or mourned. The pride of having mastered lots of processes and techniques that are now mostly irrelevant is palpable. And the mourners can be seen writing about magic black and white film developer recipes and reciprocity failure charts or the stability of 1950's Linhof tripods. 

This is offset by an opposite group who seem to worship at the altar of The Absolute Latest Technology in Cameras. While they would have salivated if they'd gotten their hands on a camera that could deliver what a Pentax K1 or a Leica M240 does back at the turn of the century, or even more recently, they dismiss anything which has been at all superseded by a newer model or a new trend in camera and lens design. Their metrics are: highest sharpness, lowest noise, highest ISO, fastest frame rate and most megapixels. And they'll gladly trade-in or mothball any camera that doesn't measure up. No matter how much they loved the camera being replaced --- at least when it first arrived. Dangle a Nikon Z9 in front of them and they'll look for a scalpel with which disgorge and sell their own kidney in order to purchase. Tell a Sony fan that an A9iii is overkill and get ready for an aggressive debate. And the Mark Two version of that 85mm lens? It's a MUST HAVE. Just gotta ditch the Mark One first...

I suggest that there is a middle ground. And that might be to have cameras that exceed your most stringent use case while being practical to own and shoot with. Cameras that match tech value with pleasurable handling and competent files. For some that might mean returning to and re-appreciating a whole geological strata of cameras that date back to the introduction of the first good, full frame CMOS sensors. Say, around 2010. Some might even develop an appreciation for the family of full frame cameras which featured (for a very short span) actual full frame CCD sensors. How retro!

I was asked recently why I was buying "old technology" like the Leica M240 cameras or the older generation Leica SL cameras. I stand by the premise that there is a parabola for all manufacturing. In the early days of digital engineers labored hard to make the cameras as good as they could be. At some point the quality of the camera build and the features, in combination, hit the top of the parabolic curve. The zenith. Then the game becomes figuring out how to keep the prices as high as possible while eliminating both features and build quality until the camera makers come up with a sellable product that might be less....robust....or personable....but still sellable, through the miracle of incremental performance increases (via faster chips) and enhanced marketing. 

For my taste the sensor performance, battery endurance and general robustness of the Leicas I've chosen are at what I perceive as the zenith of the combination of given the targets I want to hit. Spending more buys me less. Why spend $9000 on a camera when a used camera at $2500 gives me more joy? And having used the 47 megapixel SL2 and Q2 cameras for years now I have to ask: does anyone really need more than 24 megapixels? Really?

I love the cameras we were offered by makers ten years ago ( or more ). There are iconic camera models in each manufacturer's recent histories. The Nikon D700 (and by extension, the Nikon D750 and 780). The Canon 5Dmk3. The Fuji X-Pro2 and 3. The Sony a850 and a900. And the Panasonic S1. And, of course, the Pentax K-1. All are good cameras and most will provide files that are so close to the quality provided by the latest gear that the differences are invisible to most. 

I guess the best way to approach most advances in technology is to wait until you have an absolute need for some sort of performance enhancement before dropping the cash. Shaky hands? Yes, you need some sort of image stabilization. Gotta 24 megapixel sensor but now crave a 32 megapixel sensor? Hmmmm. No sure about that. Just as I can't imagine that Leica Q2 users, for example, will really benefit materially by upgrading to the new Q3. A bit more resolution, sure. But a big jump up in quality? Not very likely. Same with moving from a Sony A7R3 to an A7R4. Minimal benefits accrue. Post purchase disappointment awaits. 

Buy whatever camera you like. But let's use them occasionally instead of just writing or reading about them. I like it best when writers and vloggers show examples of what they are discussing... Real examples, not marketing collateral.

I don't want to read rumors of what might be coming down the pike. Really don't need ten stops of image stabilization. Don't need automatic hue bracketing. And from the nostalgia camp  I don't want to read yet another article about the radioactive glass elements used in some historically "great" lens. Don't need to know about what kind of flashbulbs Weegee used. No more sad stories about the loss of one's favorite black and white printing paper. Spare me emotional remembrances of natty print washers from the golden years. Or gushing paeans to the sensual glow of sodium vapor safelights. Save me having to hear about what features you'd change in the next generation of spiffy camera bodies. And why you think they are critical.

I'm fresh off a deep dive through the archives from the past 40 years. All the stuff works great. It's all in how you use it. That's the secret sauce. Some of my favorite shots are from a Canonet camera from 48 years ago. The technology is less important than we ever expected. 

Yes. I can still handhold a non-stabilized camera steady at 1/15th of a second. Can you?

 I just finished having a large coffee with my photographer friend, Paul. Afterwards I 

walked around photographing various things at various distances to see if I'd done

the focus calibration on my new camera correctly. In the process of testing I shot this image at ISO

800 with a shutter speed of 1/15th of a second. Since neither the lens nor the 

camera body feature stabilization I thought I did a decent job of holding it all still....

I was months behind on whatever... but I couldn't resist actually picking up a camera and going out to make photographs. I mean, that's the whole point of being here; to talk about making photographs. And how to use the tools we choose with which to make them. So I figured I should get to work...

I bought a new camera last Friday and it arrived this week on Tuesday. I should have rushed out yesterday to make photographs but I tested the camera in studio and realized that it back focused just a bit. So, instead of milling around downtown with my new toy I spent an hour or so reacquainting myself with the process of calibrating my Leica M rangefinder. It needed horizontal calibration and for that I am thankful because the vertical calibration is more difficult and time consuming. 

I knew I had things zero'd in when I got sharp images, with the lens wide open, at both the closest focusing distance (0.70 meters) and also at infinity. It's not hard to do the calibration if you have time and a 2mm allen wrench. At least that's what you'll need on a type 240 camera. 

Here are some more examples of images from the new Leica M240 M-E camera joined with the Voigtlander 50mm f2.0 APO lens. A very, very nice combination: 

 

One of the most beautiful cameras I've seen. The Leica M240 M-E.

Antracite finish. Edition limited to 700 cameras. 24 megapixels. 2GB buffer. 

Oh. And I hope you have a happy Valentine's Day.