Family, Photography and other misc news
Just a quick snap from and old roll I scanned recently.
Leica M4 and a 35mm Summicron lens while wandering around the Bailgate area of uphill Lincoln.
Its always fun using the M4, no built in lightmeter so a handheld meter and a bit of luck and judgement. As I wonder around, as I spot the light changing I do a quick re-meter and change the settings on the camera.
Some months are harder to pick a picture of the month then others. I had a couple of really good portraits but I did not have model releases and as they were for a client I did not feel I should publish them.
I got a few good shots this month in Lincoln Cathedral but as about one picture of the month in three seems to a similar shot I thought you might have gotten bored.
So in the end it was a quick grab shot I took of some trees while taking the Timmy the Greyhound for a walk in Whisby Nature Reserve.
A nice shot, and one in which I did the initial jpg editing in Lightroom mobile on the iPad.
This was my first attempt and was produced completely on the iPad from a jpg original.
I was also tempted to choose the top photograph. If we were in Asia then I probably would have as they tend to read photographs from the right to the left and this shot would feel balanced to them.
Here in the west we read left to the right and thus this shot feels unbalanced with the group on the right. If you shoot internationally that is something you sometimes have to consider. While you could just reverse the image that does not work when you have writing in the picture.
It was announced today that Leica has won best Premium Camera with the Leica SL.
Leica are on a bit of a roll recently as last year the Leica Q also won best compact.
Lets hope in September during Photokina exhibition in Cologne, Germany; that Leica announce the Leica M and also knock one out of the ballpark.
This bank holiday weekend we had a trip to the beach with Timmy the Greyhound, as Timmy had such a long day out on Saturday, we let the Chickens have the free run of garden on Sunday.
It was an amusing sight to see four chickens spot me from the bottom of the garden and take off, flying at about 30cm above the floor racing to greet me.
Whether they were that pleased to see me or it was because I often have a handful of corn when I visit them i’ll let the reader decided.
The photo of Timmy is just a quick snap with my iPhone. Out of interest i decided to make an A4 print and was very surprised and pleased with the quality, there is a good reason why compact sales are falling. With good print quality and with the data connection most phones have allowing a quick upload to Twitter or Facebook, its now the preferred camera.
Nikon Series 1 V1
Nikkor VR 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6
30mm (81mm field of view for 35mm), 1/125 Sec at f/5.6, ISO110
Post Processed in Adobe Lightroom CC2015.5
On a Mac Pro, OS-X 10.11.4
Today Leica took the brave (or some would say foolish) step of releasing a Leica Digital M with no rear screen. This is a mainstream model and not a special edition.
Like I said when the rumours started to appear, I like the concept. For my personal work that involves wandering around the streets of Lincoln, shooting street, it would be a fun and simple camera, just concentrating on the important things. With this type of photography you generally only get one chance of capturing the moment anyway so not being able to chimp at the screen is not an issue.
The problem is it could not be my main Leica rangefinder. As I use the rangefinder for portrait work and need to get the image right, checking the histogram is important to me. With Leica M’s being the price they are I can only really afford one digital M, so its hard to justify this one.
We used to have serial, parallel, and of course keyboard and then mouse ports. Lets not forget Video and of course SCSI for high bandwidth.
Since then computers have gradually improved with display port, HDMI, USB 1, 2, oh and firewire 1, and 2.
It seems a never-ending race. Different parties pushing different standards and every few years you have to buy new devices etc.
Apple for a long time have been at the forefront of this race. Firewire which they created with Sony never got widespread adoption but has been much better then USB 1 or 2, and lets not get started with the abomination that is the USB 3, its a horrid connector with decent bandwidth.
Thunderbolt which Apple developed and handed over to Intel to push is now leading the standard to unify all these different connectors. It can carry power, video, do USB 3 and backwards. It has the same connector as USB-C and so finally we may get one connector and cable that can do everything. The only problem is now waiting for the chipsets and computers to support all of this.
When they arrive its likely we will see more computers like the new Apple MacBook with the USB-C connect that we can use for anything we want. Roll on the future.
The weekend had grown cold but on the whole was still sunny. Timmy the Greyhound sunbathed while Caroline tidied the boarders and I planted some peas and potatoes.
As you can see its very tiring work this gardening.
It looks like the Leica M-D rumours are true with pictures now starting to appear (the picture above is the limited edition M60).
In case you need a reminder the M-D is a more affordable M60, a Leica with no rear LCD screen.
Its sounds weird but I quite like the sound of it. The problem is while it would be fine for personal snapshots I would not be able to use it for important shots. Being able to review images is nice but more importantly checking the histogram and checking for blown highlights is more important.
I find it very interesting how portrait styles have changed over the years.
The last few years has seen the high-key and white background type of shot as the must portrait, though I prefer the more natural environmental style.
With it being the queen’s birthday this week there has been a lot of images being shown and its been great to see how formal portraits have changed of the last ninety years.