NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Back to New York – that was a genuinely quick trip to attend a wedding. Still a bit under the weather. Francesca noticed a quite cruddy looking rash on my legs and had nagged me to see a doctor, which I’ll do tomorrow morning.
I installed new firmware in my Hasselblad back. I did an out-my-window test, stitching two frames shifted to the left and the right on my Alpa Max, to see if the firmware cures the “centerfolding” issue that’s apparent when this back is used shifted on a technical camera. It didn’t – note the vertical line in the sky on the right side of the image:
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Out my window, taken with my Panasonic GR2 and 14 – 140 zoom lens. Two exposures, one for the skyline and one for the moon. I hand tipped the correct moon exposure in Photoshop. Still feeling poorly so I’m resorting to out my window stuff to meet my one photo every day objectiive.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – It poured all day. These are actually pretty good conditions for intimate details of the Northeastern landscape. I captured this in our garden with my Alpa TC and a 35mm Schneider Digitar lens. That’s Basil, our Norwich Terrier, putting his nose in the picture.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – I’m spending a lot of time trying to get my Hasselblad back to produce acceptable images in my Alpa Max. Hasselblad claims, accurately, that their “closed” system creates a high level of integration between the camera, lenses, the digital back and software. The system produces sensational images but Hasselblad is evidently not committed to doing the work to make their digital back work on a “technical” camera, like the Alpa Max. Most Hasselblad shooters don’t care about this – technical cameras are of primary interest to landscape and architectural shooters, people who want the highest performance wide angle lenses and those want to create immense high resolution images with a technique called “planar stitching”. It turns out that a technical camera like the Alpa Max (and its little brother the Alpa TC) fit my style and interests perfectly.
Putting a digital back on a tech camera general results in undesirable color shifts across the frame, which within limits can be corrected by software. The Hasselblad files also show a line down the center of the image ( a phenomenon called “centerfolding”) when the lens is shifted relative to the back on the tech camera. I spent most of the day shooting out my window trying to find the limits to this issue and looking for a solution. Here’s the view from my dining room window – it’s a two frame planar stitch. I’ve cropped the sky out because that’s where the centerfolding issue is most evident. Not a distinguished photograph but this view out my window is very useful for testing lenses, backs and techniques.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I’m writing this about a week after I took the picture for May 16. The one week delay in posting gives me a chance to sort through images hopefully making an non-rushed decision on what to post. The scene out my window was the same as it was then and has been unchanged all month. We’ve had the rainiest May in memory. It’s as if the weather system has its coasts mixed up – you might expect this in Seattle but not here. This is three frames stitched with my Leica M9 and 135mm APO Telyt.
PRINCETON NEW JERSEY and NEW YORK – I started the day with a series of meetings; moved back to my office where I caught a window washer out of my window; then on to Princeton where I spoke at the Princeton Photography Club – a serious group of people and a lot of fun.
This is from the Princeton campus. Not much going on here creatively (I was rushed) but at least is shows off my Alpa TC, 36mm Schneider lens and 60 meg Hasselblad back.
Princeton
As noted above here’s a window washer and the Chrysler building captured with my Leica M9 and a 28 mm Summicron lens.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I have better days and worse days. This was one of the better. Sometimes it is enough just to go through your routine day with a camera in hand. It helps that it’s Spring. I met Francesca (our daughter) at J. McLaughlin where she was picking up a birthday present for her fiance, and for a coffee.
the way regular visitors (thanks to all of you) may notice that I’ve changed the galleries to the right. I’ve added a collection pulled together from the Litchfield County Connecticut churches that I’ve been exploring for the last 16 months, and a series of timed exposures taken out of the window of a high speed train in China. Let me know what you think.
These were taken with my Panasonic GH2 and the wonderful 14mm pancake lens
J McLaughlin
Same setup. I’m using a crop of this as my blog header.
