Taking a vacation from writing. Turning off comments. Chilling out while the weather is iffy. Posting just images from time to time. See you in a little while.

 

Warning: Graphic swimming pool photographs. NSFW !!!

There is something uplifting and life affirming about jumping into a cool pool during the depths of Summer. Of course I would also say there is something joyous and life affirming about diving into a warmish pool in the dead of winter --- when there is ice on the deck and cloud of steam hanging over the water. Seasonally contextual, for sure. 

I was rooting around in the photo cupboards last evening just to see what had "fallen through the cracks" when I came upon a TTArtisan 21mm f1.5 lens complete with an L mount. I had almost forgotten this one and I think I know why. It's soft in the corners. Really soft. Even at f8.0 it's soft. That must have bothered me when I first got it but now it seems eccentric and whimsical instead of flawed and impaired. 

I stuck the lens on a Leica SL2 and headed out the door to swim practice today. The water was three or four degrees hotter than it was on Sunday morning. That just goes with the territory when the heat dome drops by to torture us. 

Jen was our coach. She's mean. Not bad mean, just "get to work" mean. She's out to make sure malingering is not actively practiced at her workouts. If you've come to stand around you've come to the wrong place....

Our main set was tough because of the water temp. We ended up doing 16 x 150 yards with each set of four descending. Which means you start out at a comfortable pace and then each 150 yard swim is supposed to be faster/harder. We managed. But just barely. 

Toss in a warm-up set and a cool down at the end and we still managed to get in a couple miles; even with the uncomfortable temperature.

After I got out, got dressed and drank more water I walked out to the car and grabbed the Leica off the front seat of the VSL staff car and shuffled back to the pool deck just to see if my memory of the TTA 21mm was accurate. Yep! The center can be nice and sharp but at medium distances, even at f8.0, the performance of the lens in the corners just flat out sucks. The trade off, at least for me, is that I can set the lens to f8.0, set the manual focus ring to about 8 feet and be in focus from something like 4 feet all the way out to infinity. It's "point and shoot" simplified. And who really pays attention to anything in the corners anyway ---- except for my friends who are architecture photographers?

So much potential for fun in a quiet pool. Just waiting for swimmers to show up...

that's usually my lane. It's lane #4. I share it with several other crazy people. 

Why do I write, "crazy"? How else to explain that we keep showing up and swimming

and I've forgotten at this point what exactly we're there to achieve but we show up and

do it anyway. Maybe we dream that we'll get faster as we get older. Or that 

some miracle will occur and our technique will improve so much that we 

can re-live the swims of our youth. It's a beguiling target; I'll say that. 

Ben more of less grew up at this pool. I spent ten years on the board of directors.

I've probably done 8200 practices over the 28 years I've been swimming there. 

At some point you'd think I'd get it all figured out but there is always something

to work on. Something new to learn. In that respect it's a lot like photography...

sometimes, after workout, I'll grab a cup of coffee from a shop that's close to 

the swim club and sit out here on the deck just breathing in the day and 

enjoying being outside. I guess it's like meditating. 

Save me a spot at the table....

No lenses were harmed in the creation of this blog post. 

Another hot day on tap. You can already feel it at 9:30 in the morning...

 

A quick pop of color for all those tormented by yesterday's display of black and white images...

 

boats at the boat dock on the north shore of Lady Bird Lake.

Just across from Austin High School. Right off the Hike n Bike trail.

Always eager to please my generous readers I did not forget to include some color photographs while walking across the surface of the sun.

This is a big boat dock from which people can rent paddle boats, kayaks, rowing sculls, etc. On the weekends the human propelled boat traffic on the lake in the middle of the city is enormous. No individual gas motor craft are allowed. Which is quite nice. And quieter. 

Not to worry, there are several nearby lakes on which power-boating delinquents and jet ski hooligans can scream around like banshees. 

These images were taken with the Q2 using the .DNG setting. The lens is pleasant. The body even more so. 

More color to come. Apparently by popular demand...

Gotta Get Acclimated at Some Point.... Might as well lighten the load with a compact camera. Johnston inspired monochrome. (AKA: Black and White).

 

Random Plywood. 

We had some nice days in Austin just before and then including the weekend. Highs in the mid-90s instead of the triple digitals. Even the oppressive humidity took a welcome break. The water temp in the pool dropped into the pleasure zone and I didn't break a sweat upon stepping outside the front door of the house. But that meteorological ceasefire is over and this week the heat dome is back in business; testing our patience, our endurance and the capacity of the electric grid. We have high hopes for all three.

When the first heat wave hit a couple of weeks ago I wasn't mentally prepared for the sudden onslaught of the change. I mostly swam early in the mornings, hit the (very) air conditioned gym and spent the rest of the time indoors. It dawned on me that I had more or less surrendered. 

In years past I'd start in the middle of the Spring and gradually build up a resistance to the heat. I'd walk four or five miles in the afternoons as the temperatures increased over days and weeks. Nothing all at once. When I was much younger B. reminds me that I thought nothing of going out for a run in this kind of boiling muck but now I am either much wiser or I have just become more chicken... That's okay. I think it's mostly about self-preservation. 

I got out and did a bunch of walking during the respite last week and today I decided to ramp up the acclimation process instead of spending another week or two hiding behind the curtains and looking nervously at the weather forecasts on my phone.

The "real" temperature right now is 102° Fahrenheit. The "feels like" or heat index reading is at 109°. It was a little bit cooler around noon when I headed out for today's adventure in the great outdoors. I took a bottle of water, a phone (a rarity for me but I guess I bought into the idea that if something bad happened I could at least call for help....), the mandatory wide-brimmed (non-Silly-Tilley) hat and the camera choice of the moment was the Leica Q2 masquerading as a Monochrom camera. 

I walked the three mile loop and added an additional mile and a half by parking far from the hike and bike trail at the lake. Barton Springs Pool was hoping and there were a surprisingly stout number of folks walking on the hike and bike trail. Water fountains every mile and lots of shade trees along the route. Not too bad. 

The Q2 seemed to ignore the heat and function perfectly. Loving the Monochrom HC profile setting (stands for high contrast) and today I set it at the default instead of adding that one step of contrast I normally do. It's really a wonderful little camera. 

Dead tree on the disk golf course. (and two more below). 

Crossing under Mopac Expressway to get back to my car. Which was like an oven.

Thank goodness it's white. And I even had the windshield shade up.

Over the course of a one hour walk I drank 32 ounces of water. 

Stopped at a fountain and soaked my pretty hat as well. 

Thank goodness I supplemented with some magnesium this morning. 

From the pedestrian bridge roundabout. Spiraling down is always more fun that taking the stairs...

Glancing through the fence at Barton Springs. 

Barton Springs Pool. Glorious. 

The Zilker Hillside Theater.

Yeah. The message is pretty clear. Don't park here...

What?!? Nobody wants to picnic in the direct sun and in the 103° temps?

But they do still want to play disk golf. Nice. 

Rock Dolphin. 

I made it back to the house with no ill effects. The camera worked well. The Keen hiking shoes were perfect. The hat sublime. Back out tomorrow to do a different location. New lens arrived. Will be testing. Or playing. Either is correct. 

Generic Placebo. The name of my new garage band. Or... a bold, new marketing initiative?

 It was the heat. I blame it on the heat. That's why I forgot to include some much needed information about this image when I posted it a few days ago on another blog post. This is an example of what some photographers take pictures of when they go through their days always keeping a camera over the shoulder, or in close reach. Nothing astounding or earth-shattering. Just an arrangement of roses. But revelatory for me because of what the exif told me later. 

The image was taken with a Leica SL2, a camera that was considered to have very high resolution when it was first introduced. And, as most of us believe, the trade-off of a camera with high resolution (and correspondingly smaller pixels) is that the images generated become noisier as the ISO goes up. Some pundits, having reviewed the SL2 for a day or so before rushing to make YouTube "review" suggested that the camera "tops out" at around 1600 ISO and that above that the noise is so repulsive as to render the files unusable. I question just how proficient some "reviewers" are at establishing a correct exposure...

This ho-hum image was taken handheld at ISO 6400. The aperture was f4.0 and the shutter speed was 1/50th of a second. I imported the .DNG file into Lightroom and tweaked a few settings before outputting it here as a Jpeg. I examined the image in Lightroom at 100% (and that's a big file!) and could just start to see some monochromatic (luminance) noise at that magnification. Five seconds with the luminance slider in the LR noise reduction panel rendered it mostly invisible. And that's at 100% magnification.

There are few current APS-C or full frame (35mm) cameras that I can fault for their high ISO performance; unless we start the conversation with the premise that 12,000 or 25,000 ISO are the thresholds for "high ISO." If we stick with normal, very usable ISOs of 1600, 3200 and 6400 I would say that any current, full frame camera does a better than decent job at holding its head above water in that range. 

I have read repeatedly that the Leica SL2-S, because of its lower resolution (24M) and its BSI sensor construction is a much superior low light performer. That may be but coming from earlier generations of digital cameras; and especially those APS-C cameras brought to market in the early 2000s (looking at you, Nikon D2X) I'm so happy not to have to deal with the noise we saw there at ISO 400 that I'm content to cruise along with this level of 6400 ISO noise for a while. Maybe a long while.

Drop down the resolution either in post or when shooting Jpegs and the noise also seems to vanish. 

I'll be offering workshops to YouTube reviewers on "The Power of Not Underexposing." I hope plenty of them sign up. Maybe the first topic will be "Why Underexposing by Two Stops Isn't Bright." (get it?).

As to the headline of this particular post--- it's just nonsense. A fellow swimmer who is also a psychiatrist, was telling a funny story in the locker room after practice about a five gallon jar filled with colored pills that one hospital pharmacy kept behind the counter. A woman came in demanding a refill. Her medicine bottle was clearly marked as "placebo." A young intern checked with the pharmacist who checked records and then "refilled" the prescription with pills from the big jar. (All placebos). 

The woman complained that these pills were a different color than the last batch. The pharmacist quickly replied that these matched the prescription but these were "generic placebos."

In the moment, and told by a witty psychiatrist, I thought the story and the phrase were hilarious. I'm considering launching a P.R. company with the same name. Giving the clients what they deserve...

Walking around S. Congress Avenue today reveling in the sub-90° weather. First time in weeks and weeks...

I'm doing this post as a stream of consciousness caption fest. Just responding to each frame as I saw it or worked it or whatever. Come along for the ride. I'll take the mystery out up front: All of these were done with the Leica SL2 sporting the Voigtlander 50mm f2.0 APO Lanthar lens --- in an adapted M mount. 

Up one side of the street and down the other with a stop for coffee at Jo's in the middle. 

I was walking on the east side of Congress Ave. heading south. I saw this guy with his incredible bucket hat and immediately stopped him and asked if it would be okay if I made a photograph. Since I was wearing my less pronounced bucket hat I knew he would be comfortable with the ask. Destined to be the height of fashion in a few more years. 

Cooling an outdoor market. I stepped back off the sidewalk to get more of the scene in and blazed away. I'm not very shy so there's no impulse to hit and run. I just shoot with that darned camera up to my eye until I get what I want and then I smile at anyone who has noticed and head off to find something else fun to shoot. Vintage clothes. Not a bad idea. Big fans and little fans; a better idea.

I came upon these two women as they were finishing up taking selfies. I didn't get the photo I wanted to I stepped right over to them and asked them nicely if they would be willing to shoot some more selfies so I could document them. They were certainly game and played along till I got what I wanted. Then they asked me to photograph them with one of their phones. And to get the store logo in the background. Turns out they work at one of the stores behind them and were shooting for social media. For the store. And now I have contributed to their campaign. Sweet people.

Window at Home Slice Pizza. 

When Home Slice first opened Ben and B. and I used to go there and get their great pizza. It was always busy but always moved fast. It was a lot of fun. Then there came the time when the restaurant got so popular you'd have to wait an hour for a table. And more time for a pizza. And anyone who is willing to wait with a small child for an hour, for a pizza, is either highly pizza deprived or insane. Still, it's darn good pie...If pizza is the "queen of pies" is the king of pies pecan?

When your utility box is down the street from the Hermes store it's got to look good. Sorry. Life is quick. Not time to correct for parallel sides.... Get over it.

Today was mother-daugher day on S. Congress. There are dozens and dozens and dozens of shops. And oh so much fashion. They were moving fast. Heading toward their next destiny with charge cards. 

no caption. But is "no caption" actually a caption?

At the Nike store. Question: If my legs exhale while I'm swimming will they create a trail of bubbles in the water? And if they do create a trail of bubbles in the water what would differentiate these bubbles from generic flatulence? Seems like a bleak trend to me...

There is one shop on the entire street that's chosen a different path from the tired, mannequin driven window displays. I don't know what they sell but they have the whole front of their shop decorated in sweeping trellises of fun flowers. I know the flowers are artificial but they are "good artificial" and that makes it all okay. I came by once at Christmas and the shop had done a great job of intertwining lights and ornaments and small figurines into the mix. It was visually delightful. I hope you click on this to make it larger and then look at the detail in the big flowers....

And now for the march of the Sugar Plum Fairly mannequins. Some good and some boring. But that's the current style in window decorating in Austin. 

this mannequin has a flower covered, fabric head that goes well with the flower decor all over the front of the store. It's the store I mentioned in a caption above. It's more interesting that "blank face." 

Steam Punk eyeglasses shop. Mannequin heads with cool glasses all over the front of the store. Interesting. The interior? Less so...

A comforting message and a well run motel adapted to modern hipster standards. And right in the middle of the most popular venue in Austin. Swimming pool included. 

this is a nod to the time when Austin was much, much smaller. Much, much hipper. Much, much cheaper and so far to the left that it would be unimaginable to modern inhabitants out in the far flung suburbs. I remember the Armadillo Headquarters (referenced on the micro bus). B. and I saw Devo open there for the Talking Heads. Tickets? Five bucks. Beer? Fifty cents a bottle. Parking? Everyone walked or rode their bikes because....there was no traffic. Saw Duke Ellington's band there too. And Joe Jackson. And the B-52s. Along with all the Austin regulars like Waylon Jennings and Willie. A different time never to return. 

The prices at Jo's have gone up. I can't blame them. But they still make a great cup of coffee and they've maintained their dressed down charm over the years. Hope some big restaurant group doesn't buy them out and start selling twenty dollar coffee and thirty dollar pastries. Un-progress is sad. 

An anthropologist once observed that only the richest and poorest communities have no litter in the streets. In the poor areas the people are forced to use, recycle, repurpose every scrap they can get their hands on while the rich communities can and will always hire people to clean up after them...

A chair back at Jo's as seen by a 50mm lens used wide open. Spicy. 

The bars and restaurants no doubt make the most money on S. Congress Ave. but I'm betting that hats of all kinds are a close second. I was going to buy a cool, Stetson Open Road, felt hat until I realized that they cost something like $285 for the legit version. And it's not even a bucket hat. Gosh, you can even get Tilley hats for less than that... $285, why that's the price of a Leica camera battery!!!

Important messaging for out of towners. Not every alternative shop sells the blood and organs of small children to rabid, cannibal politicians. Not matter what they tell you on Truth Social....

This sign existed without context in the middle of the sidewalk. That seems pricy for wine glasses. Maybe I just say that because I break them routinely (not purposely) and I'd hate to replace them often. Tip: Don't pull hot wine glasses from a dishwasher and fill them with frozen daiquiris. They most likely will explode...

Waiting for Godot. Or waiting for Fred to finish in the barber shop. 

Man fixing neon on a big boot. Signage is critical.

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