Family, Photography and other misc news
I see the special edition Leica 50mm Summicron is now for sale. I have the Summilux which as you can see above produces a lovely image. There are two versions of the Summicron, the standard none APO which is very affordable for a Leica lens and the APO version which if you have £6000 will leave you change for a few nice coffees.
This special edition wraps the lens in the old metal classic design with red trim and costs over £8000. A lot to pay for a 50mm lens no matter how good.
I used to always buy Nokia phones, and use a Psion and then a Palm Pilot as a PDA. I have used a few Windows phones, the latest being a Nokia Windows 8 phone, but my choice has always been Apple iPhones.
Leica have now continued there relationship with Huawei and the new P10. For many people the phone has become their compact camera.
While a Leica fan, at least with their M range, I will not be getting rid of my iPhone just yet.
The long awaited update to Lightroom arrived and its causing a lot of confusion. Lightroom CC has been renamed Lightroom Classic CC and we now have a new cloud based solutions which currently has a lot less functionality but is called Lightroom CC.
Confused?
For now I am sticking with Classic but will have a look at the new version soon.
We have had the Summaron and now Leica have released their second classic lens, the Leica Thambar. Similar to the Nikon 135mm DC this lens has a distinctive softness which useful for portraits. I am quite tempted by the Summaron a 28mm with a strong vignette, but I would find it hard to justify the cost of the Thumbar.
Last Sunday was the annual Belton House Greyhound Walk.
Always a good day out, and its when you get whole pack of greyhounds together you realise how well behaved they are compared to the majority of other dogs. As usual the Lincolnshire Greyhound Trust had their stand there to raise awareness and money.
If you want a well trained dog that is low maintenance and well behaved its hard to think of a better dog then a greyhound. Most areas have a local Greyhound Trust and its well worth making contact, even if you cannot adopt one of these beautiful animals please support the trusts anyway you can.
http://lincolnshiregreyhoundtrust.com
I have had the joy of using film Hasselblads with film backs and digital backs. The V series is a great classic camera, better suited for film rather then digital but does work well with my PhaseOne back.
We had the near joint announcement from both Hasselblad and from Fuji of there upcoming medium format mirrorless cameras. We now have three medium format cameras with cropped sensors designed round ease of use, the Leica S, the Hasselblad and the Fuji.
I have had the opportunity to handle the Leica S and the Fuji but I have not yet managed to try the Hasselblad, but Steve Huff now has one of his reviews published on this camera. Of the three the Hasselblad and Leica are my top two options but the Fuji is a winner on price.
If your after a fixed lens, 35mm full frame digital compact the Sony RX and the Leica Q are where its at.
The Sony has the more practical 35mm focal length but the 28mm focal length Leica has a fantastic EVF.
Its now appearing in more colours with rumours of more to come. Leica have some fantastic cameras and some rather overpriced and over hyped cameras, but its the over priced special editions that have for a long time kept Leica afloat.
Saturday Caroline had a few jobs to do in Lincoln, so I had Caroline drop me and Timmy the Greyhound off in the centre to have a good walk round.
With Timmy’s lead in one hand and a Leica M in the other critical photography is not easy and I would probably have been better of with a small autofocus camera like my Nikon V1, but I enjoy a challenge.
iOS11 has really made some great improvements to the iPad. With the dock available when you want it, better multiscreen support its getting close to replacing a laptop for light work.
Adobe recently made some great improvements to Lightroom Mobile. If your an iPad Pro user and have the Apple pencil you now have pressure support when editing, so that with iOS11 is really moving the mobile photo editing space forward.
I like my Nikon V1; I also hate somethings about it, but it was a great start to get Nikon into mirrorless. The problem was Nikon do not seem to know what they want to do with it.
Its likely now that the Series 1 system is dead, which is a shame as it did not need much to fix the issues. Now the rumours are that Nikon are going to release a new mirrorless system, likely based on the DX sensor but once again with a new lens mount.
I feel they should re-introduce the Series 1 range but with a more enthusiast body. The rumoured DX model should have the F mount and can replace the bottom SLR models and also could handle a pro mirrorless option.
From what we had with the V1 its likely that Nikon are going to aim low and please no one.