Category: Photography

Its been rumored about for a while but this week Leica announced a real blast from the past, a remade 28mm Summaron from the 1950’s, at only 2 cm’s long this is a great little pancake lens, and as its main use is going to be for street shooting then the f/5.6 aperature will not concern most people.

Saturday was a foggy Autumn day; it was an early start as I had to take Timmy the Greyhound for his morning walk.  Predawn it was very foggy going across the fields but the weather forecast was more promising then Sunday.

I had arranged to meet Chris at Hartsholme for 08:00, but was running late.  It was misty and not a lot was going on, Chris was already setup and was trying out his new Fuji X-T2 and long zoom.

With the low light and high ISO the pictures were nothing special but it was good practice.  I decided to go with a more creative interpretation as in the top picture.

I see we now have lots of Leica special editions appearing.  Thats usually the sign Leica are trying to make as much money as possible out of the old platform before releasing the new M.

I am still waiting for the new M to be announced before I decide which M to get, either the new M or the old M at a budget price, likely the updated M type 262.  The downside of the M type 262 is no live view and for the odd occasion I use a Leica for intimate boudoir photography, live view has its uses.

To make the budgeting worse I am still looking for a small everyday, autofocus mirrorless solution.  I would love a Leica SL but its a little large, so currently Olympus are the top of my list followed by Panasonic, but I an still interested in what the Leica T replacement will be like as a DX crop factor will work better with my existing Leica glass.

 

With Adobe Creative cloud we now have the ability to save certain work into the cloud together with our photoshop settings but for a photographer using Lightroom its still a bit of a pain working on multiple machines.

Often i’ll grab a few shots at lunchtime, upload onto my iPad and into Lightroom mobile.  These then get sync’ed into my main catalogue.  If I work on my main catalogue on my desktop machine in my office this all gets sync’ed between the desktop and iPad, but sometimes i’ll want to work a little bit more on a photograph but when I am away from the office.  I could use the iPad but that is limited, I could use the web version but again its a bit clunky, the best option is to export out the shot(s) into a separate Lightroom catalogue and save that into my cloud storage service (Dropbox, iCloud, OneDrive etc).  Then I can grab my laptop and work on them, but then I loose the sync with my main catalogue and with the iPad until I import this single standalone catalogue back into my main catalogue.

Adobe need to implement a cloud based catalogue solution so I can grab any of my devices and decide to use the full app, mobile or web based editing and access my photographs.

Even when its raining, when I head into town to my favourite coffee shop I still have my trusty Leica M4 or M8 over my shoulder.  Generally its my M8 as I find the conveniences of being able to grab by iPad and upload my shots into Lightroom Mobile very convenient compared to using film.

As more information keeps coming through, it seems that the Hasselblad may in fact have some degree of weather sealing, making the choice between it and the Fuji’s new entrant a much harder choice.

With me being a Leica and a Hasselblad user, if I was going to invest into a new all digital medium format system then it would likely be one of those two.  I have several Hasselblad V series lens and I expect an adapter to come along shortly for them once the new X1D hits the streets.

The big advantage of the Fuji is SLR type handling and that lovely adjustable screen.

I have to admit I am terribly tempted and feel GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) coming on.

This Thursday was Poetry Day, so I took some time to not only listen but also to take a few snaps of some of the readers.

Why You Should Buy Books, Not Gear

Reading a few of my favourite blogs this week and Eric Kim’s blog made a great recommendation again, and this is to buy books (or training) and not new gear.

Great advice.

 

The first digital M the M8 was released onto the world on the 14th September.  This month Leica are celebrating ten years of digital M’s.

Up to then ranger finder users either had to use film and scan or use the Epson R-D1 which had a cropped DX format sensor.  Leica up to that point had declared a rangefinder impossible.

Using a cropped sensor helped mitigate the issue of range finder lens having their rear element so close to the sensor.  To also help the M8 Leica’s first digital rangefinder they made the cover glass and infrared filter a lot thiner then was usual.  With a cropped 1.3x sensor it was a great little camera, if a little slow and with a rear view screen only useful for menus.  I still use mine regularly and get stunning results.  It also has an advantage and disadvantage.  It is prone to infrared contamination thus you need to use IR cut filters on your lens.  This while an issue for colour photography makes it a great camera for black and white use.

The M8.2 introduced a better shutter and my M8 was upgraded to this shutter by the previous owner.

The first real digital M people generally consider is the M9.  With sophisticated micro-lens over the sensor it could be made full frame.

The next M the M Type 240 introduced better electronics and the option to use live view and an EVF.  All M’s since then have been variations of this, with either a bigger buffer or with a better shutter and live view removed.

I am still using my M8 and will continue to do so until the next M is announced.  I am hoping that the learning Leica has done making the Leica Q and the SL will mean it will have class leading electronics as the only thing letting down the M8 and to a point the M9 and M Type 240 range is the electronics.

When its announced i’ll make a decision on whether to buy that or pick up a cheap M Type 240 derivative.

Happy birthday digital M.