Family, Photography and other misc news
A few weeks ago we had a holiday and visited a number of places in North Wales. We often pay a visit to Caernarfon. There is the amazing castle but also a number of interesting other building to photograph.
The weather was not looking good, so I had a Nikon Z7 and the Nikkor Z 35mm S f/1.8 lens with me. Towards the end of the day the weather started to clear and I got this great shot of the ships anchor on the front.
We have had two winter storms over this weekend and the nights are now drawing in. Its going to be Halloween soon.
So i’ll see if I can arrange a Halloween style photoshoot.
There have been rumours about a possible M11-R but now it seems we might be going straight to the M12. If the rumours are true this will be a new sensor but still 60MP.
I will likely stay with my M10, I find its 24 MP a sweet spot for use, and I have my Nikon Z7 and Hasselblad for higher resolution work.
As I may have mentioned I love music, whether its playing it badly, or listening to it.
When out and about while I have my phone and Apple Airpods for listening to music I actually tend to use either an old Apple iPod or my Fiio Digital Music Player which holds my music on an SD card. That way I cannot get disturbed from my phone.
All my songs either Hi-Res downloads or ripped CD’s to flac are on there. One thing I have noticed is that sometimes the built in media players of modern DAPs can get confused and mix up media. I have a CD of Mary Spender Song Book ripped to flac which my iPod and DAP are fine with but Mary also sent out the high resolution wav files to her fans. My main home system Roon has no issues with these but the built in media player from Fiio splits the tracks into separate albums’s even if I re-tag them.
I downloaded the trial of PowerAmp which many music lovers claim is the best for Android based music players and it had no issue at all. The general user experience seems better to so as its under £10 direct from their website I may just buy it.
Most people think of the 50mm as a standard lens, I think that for general use a 50mmm is slight too long, so I own far to many 35mm lens. The Summicron 35mm f/2, the classic Nikkor F mount 35mm f/2, and the Nikkor Z mount 35mm f/1.8 S.
The rumour sites are now talking about a new Leica Summaron-M 35mm f/2.8. Most Leica users like fast glass so this will be an interesting one, is it going for a more vintage classic rendering?
Another one from my weekly trip into town for a coffee and to look round the local record stores. It was a bright sunny day but not a lot of light was getting between the hedge and the wall we were walking down.
Since the orginal Leica M10 was released we have had the D version and the P and R version and now we are into the M11 varients.
The early M10’s have always used firmware v3.x and the more modern M’s version v4.x. The lastest Q is now on v5.
One think I like about Leica is their menus, over the years they have gotten simpler and less complicated unlike most of their competitors. Hasselblad is the exception to this and also has some of the best menus and user interface in the business.
The last V3 firmware for my Leica M10 was released in January and just added for the amazing new 35mm f/1.2 Noct.
So bringing some of the older v3 cameras up to v4 and v5 for some; and slowly standardising the firmware releases.
The only new thing in the firmware is support for the new Summicron-M 66 f/2
It was released last month, but I thought with it being a big jump I thought I would wait till after my holiday.
I see at an auction recently an early Leica 0 went for over €250,000. My Leica collection consists of only one film Leica, a M4 that was made the year I was born. The above shot was taken with it.
Its fun to use old cameras and shooting black and white and developing myself is fun.
A quick grap shot from my Leica M and a 50mm Summilux, at f/2.8 it lacks some depth of field but as a once famous photographer once said, “focus is a bourgeois concept”.
As you read this we would likely have just returned from our holiday in North Wales. This was a family holiday and not a photography trip, but I had filters, the tripod and a couple of cameras with me just in case a scene like the one above on a previous Welsh tip should occure.