The New Lens is a Keeper. Pairs nicely with the existing cameras...

The Leica 35-70mm f4.0 R series ROM lens is very neutral and has good sharpness across the frame from f4.0 onward. I liked working with it this afternoon and was happy to have a high performing zoom lens that didn't weigh as much as a bag of groceries. Some will point out the limited focal length range as a "fault" or a "fail" but for me it's a nice imposition of guard rails. I love that middle ground a lot more than I love the wides and long telephoto lenses....

Nice weather in Austin and very happy that the crowds for Formula One and Austin City Limits Music Festival have now decamped and moved on. More chocolate cake for the rest of us...

Samples from today's quick lens test. Far away, close up and everything in between. Should be especially good for Mannequin Photography. Much Punctum...

See the 100% crop just below..... really. The lens has no problem rendering detail. 

And it looks cute...

New series: Aqua Silhouettes. Bucket hat represented.

Fall means that a few days between now and the end of the year will

be below the 90s...

I am coming to the Halloween party as myself. 

That should be scary enough.

Food photos. New lens arrives. Perfect weather: finally. And...great morning swim.

 

It was 62° here in Austin when I tossed off the covers and started my day. For some that will sound routine but here in central Texas it's become rare enough to celebrate. I opened all the windows in the house to let the breezes flow through. I put on long pants and a long sleeve shirt to stay warm while drinking that first magical cup of coffee. I listened to the birds' songs, clearly, with no window glass in the way to mute their arias. It. Felt. Wonderful. 

Our coach this morning was Dennis. The core of the workout was four sets of three descending 125 yard swims interspersed with five 25 yard sprints. At the end of each 125 yard swim there was a five second gap until the next 125 yard swim. If you stood up in the shallow end so that your chest and shoulders were out of the water you could feel this rare coolness wrap around you from the breeze. Delicious. 

It's fun to be closing in on 70 and still being able to make the intervals and feel good all over. It's probably the best part of every day. The realization that, so far, I have dodged the sore knees, achy hips, painful lower back and all the rest of the maladies that seem prevalent in the general, geriatric population. I credit swimming, diet and general happiness as contributing factors to staving off the ravages of time. That, and my "Maturity Deficit Disorder..." (humor implied..).

I took possession of a "new-to-me" lens yesterday. It's an older lens, but not older tech by much. It's the Leica 35mm to 70mm f4.0 ROM lens that was made for the Leica R system of manual focus cameras. It was the third and last version of the 35-70mm compact zooms for that system and by far the best overall compromise. I say that it's the best compromise because there was also a 35-70mm f2.8 lens (not compact!) that is supposed to be breathtakingly superb in all regards. That lens currently fetches between $8,000 - $10,000 on the used market and is getting rarer by the day. Nope, the f4.0 version is, at least for me, the one to own. It's smaller, lighter and optically almost just as good but the compromise is the slower aperture. The f4.0 lens was designed by Leica and made by Kyocera; the same company that makes the  Carl Zeiss ZM lenses and all the fun and high performing lenses bearing the Voigtlander name.

One of my photographer friends who is far more egregious about impulse buying cool stuff picked up this lens a while back and never really got around to using it. He knew that short range, high performance Leica zooms were something I've always been interested in and offered it to me at a tremendous discount. The perfect self-birthday present!!!

The lens is the final ROM version so one could use it with a Leica branded R to L adapter and be able to transmit aperture data and focus rotation data (good for auto magnification focusing) from the lens to a current SL body but that would be the extent of the data transfer. And the adapter is about $1,000 when purchased new. More than I paid for the lens itself!!! I rummaged through the drawers in the studio and found a Novoflex (dumb) adapter that works just fine to join the lens and body. 

Why this particular zoom? Well, I have the current 24-90mm f2.8-4.0 Elmart SL and I've used it on hundreds of photo assignments. I don't mind carrying that behemoth around if people are willing to pay me for it but it's not a very convenient "street" photography tool. Or travel tool. And it's sure not very discreet. It's big, heavy and big. And heavy. 

While the older 35-70mm f4.0 R lens isn't auto focus, doesn't communicate with my Novoflex adapter, and doesn't automatically stop down it's very high performing, optically, and much less than half the weight and size of the 24-90mm Leica SL zoom. For someone who is perfectly happy adapting M series lenses to L cameras it's just fine.

I'm looking forward to this afternoon's walk to "break in" the lens and see how well it works on an SL2.

On another unrelated, related note, I'm planning a series of images of farmer's markets both locally and in some of my other favorite cities. San Antonio used to have a big farmer's market just to the west of their downtown but sadly that location devolved into a mini-mall for tourist memorabilia and souvenirs. The remaining food service there is mostly cheap pizza, cheaper nachos and beverages. I'm not sure where all the produce markets went but I do aim to find them. I am constantly reminded of how beautiful fresh produce can look, and what it's emotional resonance is on us as humans, when I look through photographs of my three visits to the Marché Jean-Talon produce market in Montreal. I wish we had a resource like that here... 

It's a beautiful day to be out with a camera so I'm signing off and will try to post some images from the new lens tomorrow. Have a great day. 

We're past the middle of October. Things are proceeding as planned.

Things are mellow around here. I'm catching up on lunches with friends and dinners with family. Cameras and lenses come and go. In a short while my son will be 30 years old and a few days later I'll be 70 years old. Still can't believe it. I know I should complain about something physical but with the exception of a dermatologist who never met a small growth on my skin that she didn't want to biopsy I still feel like a kid. No aches or pains. No limping around. Haven't lost my car keys yet. Still know how to set up a custom website. Not yet lonely and isolated. If anything the recession/abandonment of commercial work has caused a surge in socializing. Swimmers, electrical engineers, curators, fellow photographers, writers and family all seem to want to get together for coffees, lunches and dinners. If anything I'm having to be strict with them about carving out time for myself. 

My friend Paul keeps presenting me with photo gear deals that are too good to pass up. Currently considering a Leica 35-70mm f4.0 R lens that was a stellar performer back in the film days. Still is. Last month he let go of a Voigtlander 35mm f2.0 APO for the M mount that I just had to add to the collection... Who knows what will crop up next month?

Last week I deposited the last outstanding check from a client. It was for the last official job. It was odd to experience; like the passing of an era. Next month I'll get my first Social Security payment. Free money. Can't wait. 

I wrote earlier about hitting the wall when it came to the motivation to photograph. I pushed myself out the door every day since then and am happy to report that finding good photos is still exciting, fun and fulfilling. Sometimes thrilling.  But the desire for more cameras seems to be receding day by day. It's either because there's nothing new and exciting out there or it's because I have too many wonderful cameras to play with already. Currently cycling between the CLs and the SLs. 

My latest foray was with two Leica SL2 cameras. One fitted with the VM 50mm APO and the other fitted with the VM 35mm APO. Both lenses are made for the M series cameras but I sourced Leica's M to L adapters for both. I grew tired of trying out third party adapters only to have them fall short in one way or another. And I wanted to carry two cameras so I wouldn't have to stop and change lenses or deal with dust on sensors as a result of changing lenses in a dry and windy environment. The two cameras brought back memories of film day shoots where we might use three cameras with three different prime lenses on them. Back then it was both the reticence to change lenses all the time but also it improved the odds that the cameras would still have un-shot film in them if things came up quickly. 

The SL2 is one of the best cameras I've bought (back in 2019). The sensor has very high resolution, the body is solid and highly weather resistant and the thinner filters on the camera's sensor make using wide angle M series lenses more practical. Providing better results. While it's not the best high ISO performer I find well exposed files are very good to 3200 ISO and very useable up to 6400 ISO. Add in IBIS for the M lenses and it adds up to a really nice package for someone who might vacillates between mirrorless Leicas and M series rangefinder Leicas. And right now you can pick up used bodies for roughly a third (or less) of the original retail purchase print. About $2200 for a body in pretty good cosmetic condition...

Short term plans are to celebrate the two birthdays (Ben's and mine). See if any one of my family or colleagues took my gift "wish list" seriously (M11P - $10K  --- hope they are not that crazy!!) and to eat really, really good chocolate cake. On Saturday the 25th, right between birthdays, I'll head down to Austin's ever interesting downtown to make photographs at the Day of the Dead festivities as I have done for the past four years. Thinking that this time I'll limit myself to an SL2 and that 75mm TTArtisan AF lens I picked up last month. That lens has been a very good performer. A good match up.

In the middle of November I'll go forward with my zany plan to spend another week in Montreal. Not a family vacation but a chance to walk around for five or six days and make photographs at random. Once I have the dates nailed down I'll send along a note to my friends and acquaintances in Montreal and see if anyone is interested in meeting for coffee. I promise, not at Tim Horton's. 

Before the Montreal trip B. and I will have our usual fun evening passing Halloween candy out to the kids in the neighborhood. If the weather works out we'll do what we've done for the last couple of years and that's to set up a table at the top of our driveway and hang out there so the little kids don't have to make it all the way down the driveway to score candy. It also gives us a chance to catch up with the parents who bring them along. We'll keep something fun to drink at the table so the adults can get a treat as well.... We've had a fun time with neighbors on Halloween in past years and, amazingly, 99% of them are great people. 

Still waiting patiently for the big announcements from Leica. The one about the new 11 EV (an M 11 with an EVF instead of a rangefinder window) and the long awaited Q3 Monochrom. I'm also wondering if there are going to be any new lens announcements. Maybe some more stuff for the SL system? A 28mm f2.8 Elmarit would be a nice addition... Something that doesn't dwarf the camera bodies. 

Texas continues to be a weird and interesting place to live. Austin buffers the worst parts. Hope everyone is happy and well. 

 

Got to six swim workouts in a row last week. Thank goodness for a great pool and a great program. Trying to six again this week. Can't see any big obstacles. Those miles don't swim themselves....

Urban Landscapes on a Sunday Afternoon. Austin. Q2. Shot as black and whites in the camera. Jpeg all the way!!

 

Swam.

Read a novel. 

Walked through downtown.

Did the paperwork for state sales tax.

Put images in a blog.

Family dinner just ahead.

Having fun looking through images taken with different cameras and different sensor formats. All are fun.

Sony one inch sensor.

Samsung APS-C sensor.

Film. The original "full frame sensor".

Sony. Digital full frame sensor.

And then all the images from Iceland, below, were done with a camera

that has a micro four thirds sensor.

Pretty much the difference on the web is in the content not the 

technical parameters of the tools...

Geothermal steam cloud.

The presidential residence, behind the church in the foreground. 

Outlying ice near a glacier.

Lighthouse.

Most cameras are good enough for most things. Knowing how to gauge exposure is helpful. Knowing how you like to compose is critical to your own appreciation of your images. The practice of photography done for personal enjoyment is supposed to be fun, fulfilling and reward curiosity.

That's the only message for today.