Month: August 2011

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Thursday August 18, 2011

Post author By Woody
Post date Wednesday August 24, 2011

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – I’m writing a page on my equipment which I will illustrate with my photos. My pictures of my Alpa TC and Alpa Max, posted on August 9 and August 17, should do for those cameras. I decided to shoot my Leica M9 today, Here it is photographed with my Panasonic GH2 – I’ll be using these images in the the description of my equipment that I’m presently working on. The lens on the camera, by the way, is the pre-asph 35mm Summicron – called the “bokeh king” because of the creamy quality of the out of focus portions of images taken with it. It’s also really compact.

I’be put a Thumbs Up faux rewind lever on the camera – it balances much bette if there is something to catch your thumb on as you hold it. Note also the wear on the edge of the end of the camera. The finish is black paint over brass – “bronzing” on the edges of the camera are considered a mark of honor in the Leica world.

By the way as I was working on the description of the long list of cameras that I’ve owned it seemed to me that it’s odd that I don’t have a film Leica, so I bid on a two-strokr M3 on ebay today. I’ve got some film in the freezer in Connecticut and know a guy here in New York who develops it, and I have a couple of scanners. We’ll se what happens.

On this day last year: Nairobi This is the start of last year’s Africa trip – for the next two weeks “on this day last year” is actually of interest.

Tags Cameras

Landscape Urban

Wednesday August 17, 2011

Post author By Woody
Post date Tuesday August 23, 2011

NEW YORK NEW YORK – So what’s so technical about a “technical camera”. Here’s a link to last week’s post on my Alpa TC but it just looks unwieldy and it lacks a lot of things (autos focus and automatic exposure) that we take for granted on a pocket point and shoot.

First, what’s so technical about these things? Well last week’s Alpa TC is actually the little brother of the Alpa Max, a camera that permits the back and lens to be shifted relative to each other, and permits the lens to be titled relative to the plane of the sensor with longer focal length lenses. The ability to shift the lens upward to look up while keeping the camera level permits great flexibility in composition while keeping vertical lines properly parallel (if you tilt the camera up they appear to converge). Of course once you move into shifts you are committed to working on a tripod. In my setup composition is done through live view on the IQ 180’s lcd panel (live view is common in consumer cameras but for technical reasons is hard to implement in medium format digital backs). Working with the Alpa Max is fully the digital equivalent of working with a view camera and 4 x 5 film (the debate on the “quality” of film vs. digital ended a long time ago – on a resolution basis the IQ 180 is fully comparable to r=legacy 8 x 10 film, but the look is different).

Here’s the Max with the lens shifted upward relative to the back:

This setup (the tripod and the need to fiddle with a complex camera) forces one to work slowly. It leads to consciously “composed” work. Some of my best work is actually shot off-hand and intuitively. The challenge for me in working with a large camera is to keep the images interesting (getting them to be perfect is not that hard). The following capture with the Max has the character of thousands of other images captured with similar equipment. This bothers me a bit, but I suppose it shouldn’t – it’s really no different that the millions of “mom and pop at the beach” snapshots that all look the same except for who mom and pop are.

I’ve included a grayscale conversion of this image that further emphasizes how this method of capturing images nudges you in the direction of traditional landscape.

On this day last year: A travel day. A travel day last year, on our way to Nairobi and a date with some wildlife.

Tags Cameras, Central Park, Manhattan, New York

Home Interior Landscape Urban

Tuesday August 16, 2011

Post author By Woody
Post date Monday August 22, 2011

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – I spent the day with my Leica with my 12mm Voigtlander lens attached. That’s right, 12mm on a full frame camera. This lens is really, really wide. Int’s a miracle that it even forms an image. You don’t need a viewfinder – just assume that it gets everything. What’s in focus? Everything, because of the extreme depth of field. I put a small level on the camera when I use this lens – if it’s only slightly off level vertical lines converge wildly because of the extreme wide angle perspective. This lens has a serious issue on a digital camera: there are wild color casts across the frame, and there are two plus stops of “cosine vignetting”, light fall off toward the edge of the frame. I’ve learned how to solve this problem with my Alpa – that’w why I reached for this lens.

Anyway, here you go:

On this day last year: Landscape

Tags 1185 Park Avenue, Flatiron Building

Landscape Urban

Monday August 15, 2011

Post author By Woody
Post date Sunday August 21, 2011

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – We had violent thunderstorms today. As it was starting to clear I took my AlpA TC, a 72mm Schneider XL and a light tripod to the roof of our building, and then to the Central Park Reservoir. The lurid colors are real. The fact that the landscape is soaking wet enhances colors in the brilliant light that followed the storm. The first color images is stitched from two separate images; the second color imagefrom five separate images.

On this day last year: Starbuck’s.

Tags Central Park, Storm

Landscape Urban

Sunday August 14, 2011

Post author By Woody
Post date Saturday August 20, 2011

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – It poured rain all day. Given the weather we had decided to stay in New York for the weekend. I didn’t get out except to walk the dog. There was no one on the streets of Cargegie Hill, our neighborhood. What do you do on a rainy Sunday? Well I spent the better part of the day updating my website with a slightly new look and much better and more flexible software.

I took my Leica out while walking the dog. The camera is a 1954 design and weather sealed cameras weren’t in the picture then (modern high end designs from Nikon and Canon are completely weather proof – I’ve taken them into the shower to clean them off after they were splashed with ocean spray). But the machining tolerances on the Leica are very tight so it’s sort of weather resistant, but you have to use common sense.

A shot a bunch of rainswept streets and a few pedestrians with umbrellas. The best of a fairly poor lot was of the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. Here’w what I said about it on November 24, 2010:

This building was originally built as a residence for George F. Baker Jr. by Delano & Aldrich, the firm that became the ‘society architects” in New York after Stanford White’s murder in 1906. The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia is a splinter of the Russian Orthodox Church formed after the Bolshevik Revolution – it is now reconciled with the main body of the Russian Church.

Taken with my Leica M9 and a 50mm Summilux lens. Two frames stitched in Photoshop.

On this day one year ago: Water skiing on Lake Waramaug.

Tags Carnegie Hill, Manhattan, New York, Rain

Landscape Street Urban

Saturday August 13, 2011

Post author By Woody
Post date Friday August 19, 2011

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Alexander’s fiance had her wedding shower today, so he and his future father in law and I went to lunch together. We went to The Red Rooster, Marcus Samuelsson’s restaurant in Harlem. Here’s what The Red Rooster’s website says about itself:

We named our restaurant after the legendary Harlem speakeasy that was located at 138th Street and 7th Avenue, where neighborhood folk, jazz greats, authors, politicians and some of the most noteworthy figures of the 20th Century – such as Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Nat King Cole and James Baldwin – would converge . . .

After lunch we walked down Lenox Avenue to Central Park, me carrying my Alpa TC, Phase One IQ 180 back and a 47mm Schneider XL lens.

This is not 1975:

The self-same Lenox Lounge referred to on the Red Rooster’s site. Note the patched bullet holes in the facade.

And finally, a Mostly Mozart concert in Avery Fisher Hall. Take with my Blackberry.

On this day one year ago: A boring out my window. The photo-a-day guy was under real pressure here.

Tags Harlem, Manhattan, New York

Landscape Urban

Friday August 12, 2011

Post author By Woody
Post date Thursday August 18, 2011

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – A busy day at the office. A carried my Leica around with the 24mm Summilux strapped on it. Here’s some light and shadow on Park Avenue near my office:

On this day one year ago: Another not very good image

Tags Manhattan, New York, Park Avenue