Category: Photography

Tuesday saw the Canadian Lancaster leave the United Kingdom and head back home to its base in Canada.

After takeoff accompanied by a full escort from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight she did one last flyover some of the local airbases and the City of Lincoln.

They came low out of the sun and misty sky from Waddington and came over the city, I popped out from my Lincoln office to quickly to grab a quick shot as I had just happened to bring along a Nikon D200 and 70-200mm f/2.8 lens 😉

 

There is often something going on in Lincolnshire, whether its the Lincolnshire Sausage Festival, the Steam Punk Festival, or any of the Village or County Shows, its always worth a visit with your camera and for the food!

These last few weeks its been quite hectic with events in Lincoln such as Morris Dancers, the largest Steam Punk Festival in Europe and two local village shows.

There is always lots of colour and interest.

 

At the Collingham show last weekend I gave myself the challenge of shooting just with the Leica M8 and with the Leica Elmar 24mm f/3.8 lens.  This is not sexy lens but gives excellent results, but is a little wide for general use.

I also shot a little action, I chose the longest lens I own for the Leica M, a 50mm Summilux.  Shooting moving subjects without a fast SLR some would say is impossible but with careful thought, planning and preparation one can get a good image with any camera.

Every two years Photokina hold their photography show, many years ago it was huge, with companies like Kodak, Fuji and Agfa booking entire halls.  Nikon and Canon with revolutionary new SLR’s, the Large format and Medium format manufacturers who had a virtual monopoly over the fashion and studio photography world.  My dream was to one day own a Hasselblad V system camera (and now I do)!

Today the show is a shadow of its former self, Kodak only has a very small presence and only Leica booked a whole hall to themselves.

So what did people think and what did I think, well you can check out a few other thoughts below:  Chris’s blog first and of course Luminous Landscape.

Back in 2010 was the last time I was really excited by a Photokina, and that was the prototype Fuji X100, unlike Kodak, Fuji have really risen to the challenges of the digital age, and importantly they have continued to listen to their customers and continued to develop and improve old models whilst releasing new models.

The Fuji X100 range and the Fuji X Pro both with there hybrid optical viewfinders I find the most exciting small camera’s available at the moment.  Both have improved over the years and with this years Photokina we now see the Fuji X100T, for users wanting a Leica type rangefinder, whilst these camera’s are not rangefinders they bring that kind of experience to the photographer at a relatively cheap price point.

A lot of people ask what is the point of the rangefinder and why do many like it so much; well its less the ranger finder part but more the optical viewfinder and its positioning on the camera.  The viewfinder being in the top corner means the camera obscures less of ones face meaning that people relate to you differently and you often get a better and more relaxed pose from your subject.  The other factor is the viewfinder of most SLR’s is about 97% unless its a pro model which gives 100%.  A rangefinder gives you anywhere between 110% and 180% coverage compared to your lens, thus you see things about to enter your picture and can frame and anticipate better.  Now the only other cameras that I am aware of that can also do this are the Fuji X100 range and the X Pro1, thus the interest.

I am tempted but the X-trans sensor with its potential issues to large areas of green that can sometimes show up puts me off.  I would love them to come out with a X100 without the X-trans sensor, the original X100 had the standard sensor but missed focus too much.

Now lets talk about Leica; they had a huge show, several hundred square feet were dedicated to gallery space where they showed the work of many of today’s great photographers.

The major announcements that I found interesting were the Leica M 60 a rather strange and very brave special edition, the new X camera and the two new Dlux and Vlux cameras.

I am not sure if the Leica M 60 is brave or foolish.  There is something about it that makes me want one but as its a special edition of only 600 units costing £12000 that is not going to happen, its basically a M 240 with no rear screen so viewing your images is not possible until you download them to a computer, its just like working with film, you have to know what you are doing and get it right in camera.  I love it!

Another new M we had was the film M-A this is a replacement I think to the M-P but has no meter so very back to your roots.  Before you think its a camera impossible to use then just remember I use my 1960’s Leica M4 well and have rarely had a badly exposed picture and that also has no meter in it.

We have two joint development cameras from the Leica Panasonic agreement the Panasonic LX100 / Leica DLux and the Panasonic FZ1000 / Leica VLux.  Expect to see another five years of co-operation as both companies signed another agreement to share electronic and lens technology which has given us some well thought out little cameras since 2001.

Lastly we had a new S medium format camera, this time with a CMOS sensor and 4K video.  Up to now video has not been that good on Leica camera’s but the big sensor and some of the best lens in the business has got a number of videographers very excited.

 

 

 

 

Today we had the Leica announcements and it was a pretty impressive list.

A new medium format S camera, new film M, a limited addition digital M that was incredibly brave, a digital camera with no LCD.  You don’t know what you have until you download the images to your computer.

A new Leica X camera to replace the X2 and two rebadged Panasonic’s 😉

The new D-Lux is based on the Panasonic I blogged about yesterday and it looks to be a stunning compact camera.  Normally it is a difficult choice to decide if the Leica is worth the extra.  The glass tends to be different and the firmware but apart from that they are the same camera with slightly different body shells.

Normally if you are in the USA, the Leica model makes more sense as it comes with two year warrantee and a copy of Adobe Lightroom.  Here in Europe we get two year warrantees by EU law so it makes the Leica model harder to justify, but I was shocked to see the UK prices.  The Leica is £825 while the Panasonic is £799 and Leica have increased the warrantee to three years.

There was some tricks as well that we have seen before, the old S and been re-released as S-E, the old X2 as the X-E, there were also a lot of new lens released for both the M and the T.

Altogether a very powerful set of updates.  At the next Photokina I expect the big thing to be a new M, but until then this will keep a lot Leica users very happy.

Leica M-A rangefinder camera (body only, black)
Leica M-A rangefinder camera (body only, silver)
Leica S medium format camera (typ 007)
Leica S-E medium format camera (typ 006)
Leica D-Lux (typ 109) digital camera
Leica handgrip for Leica D-Lux (typ 109)
Leica Noctilux-M 50mm f/0.95 ASPH lens (silver)
Leica Summilux-M 35mm f/1.4 ASPH lens (silver)
Leica Summarit-M 35mm f/2.4 ASPH lens (black)
Leica Summarit-M 35mm f/2.4 ASPH lens (silver)
Leica Summarit-M 50mm f/2.4 lens (black)
Leica Summarit-M 50mm f/2.4 lens (silver)
Leica Summarit-M 75mm f/2.4 lens (black)
Leica Summarit-M 75mm f/2.4 lens (silver)
Leica Summarit-M 90mm f/2.4 lens (black)
Leica Summarit-M 90mm f/2.4 lens (silver)
Leica Super-Vario-Elmar-T 11-23mm f/3.5-4.5 ASPH lens
Leica APO-Vario-Elmar-T 55-135mm f/3.5-4.5 ASPH lens
Leica V-LUX (typ 114) digital camera
Leica X Digital Compact Camera With Summilux 23mm f/1.7 ASPH Lens (Black)
Leica X digital compact camera with Summilux 23mm f/1.7 ASPH lens (silver)
Read more on LeicaRumors.com: http://leicarumors.com

The Photokina announcements are now coming think and fast, the Canon 7D Mark II looks interesting for Canon users, certainly there is nothing like that for Nikon users.  Come on Nikon where is the D300s replacement?

The most interesting announcements was the new Panasonic LX100, this is a direct descendent from the joint Panasonic venture that brought us the Panasonic LC1 (see above and the Leica badged Digilux 2 (see below).

Leica are planning there press conference tomorrow morning but I bet there is a Leica version of this LX100.

Instead of a small compact sensor its got a MicroFourThirds sensor, slightly cropped depending which picture ratio you choose.

There are a surprising number of pros that still have the Panasonic or Leica version of this older version of this camera at the bottom of their bags, its still well liked and how many good handling compacts with a viewfinder have there been until recently?

It reminds me of a fixed lens GX-7, I look forward to trying it out, I think this, the Fuji X100T, Panasonic GX-7 and the Leica T have just gone to the top of my compact camera wish list.

Well Photokina starts next week, and as has become a tradition most manufactures have announced their new products.

So far the things that have attracted my interest is the new Fuji X100T, looks good but still not sure about the X-Trans sensor and the Nikon D750.

For my SLR needs I do not upgrade often, generally every ten years in the film days, today in this digital age I am still using 2007 10 MP DSLR’s they do a great job at base ISO but I feel I need something better for church weddings as the light is often poor.

I have hopes that the D750 will be the replacement body I need.  In an ideal world I would just buy a D4 or D800/D810 but that would stretch my budget a little too far.

One issue that I may have is that the D750 looks like a consumer chassis and I am not sure if it will take the long lens I need to use for wildlife, the D600 had issues with the body warping when using heavy lens.

Over the last few months there has been the occasional rumour about a new digital Leica rangefinder but with no rear screen.

With Photokina starting on the 16th September the rumour has come back and briefly a new Leica Rangefinder appeared on Leica’s website.

The M-A was a special addition film camera and is likely to be released now as a replacement for the film MP not to be confused with the new digital M-P.  On that list is the a new Leica M Edition 60, this according the latest rumours will be a digital M with no rear LCD screen.

Its an odd concept but worlds first digital rangefinder the Epson RD1 had some great concepts.  It looked all analogue, with dials and the rear LCD screen was reversible so with it folded away it looked like an old film camera, I hope the new Leica is in this style.

Well it looks like the Nikon D750 is real and will be announced 11th or 12th September.  I am really hoping its a little D4, with the D4 sensor and focusing system, plus a proper metal chassis not like the D600/D610 which can warp its lens mount if you try and use big heavy pro long glass.

This would be a great camera for me if I don’t succumb to a second hand D3s.

Another rumour that was of interest to me was the Panasonic LX8 which will also be released with minor tweaks as the Leica D-Lux Type 109.  Some rumour sites are saying that it will have a larger then standard sensor.  Some say MicroFourThirds which I doubt others say the 1 inch sensor like my Nikon V1 which would be fantastic in a small body.  The rumours also state it will have a built in EVF so it could be a rival to the Sony RX100III.  If so it would be an ideal solution for a carry everywhere camera.

Back in my early days as a photographer I bought books on technique and equipment, now I tend to purchase books of photographs by the great photographers of the past and present.

It was while catching up on my blog reading this evening I spotted a post about inspirational books, and the “The Decisive Moment“ by Henri Cartier-Bresson was mentioned.

Its now back in print and as an occasional street photographer i’ll be adding it to my Christmas list.