NEW YORK, NEW YORK – A busy day in New York catching up on my day job and getting ready for a quick trip to Portland Oregon. This with my Leica M9 out a window in our apartment.
On this date one year ago: My best “Hello Kitty”. I think that this is one of my best “Hello Kitty” images of the past year but it wasn’t highly rate by the star system.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Out on the street at last, but still with a technical camera. Alpa makes a tiny technical camera, the Alpa TC, that lets me use my Hasselblad 60 meg back and 36mm Schneider lens in a compact, hand-holdable package. Mine looks just like the following image downloaded from the Alpa website.
It’s basically the same form factor, functionality and focal length as the legendary Hasselblad Superwide C (one of my all time favorite cameras), but digital. Very cool. How often have I raved about gear on this blog?
I’m posting two images today from the post office building on Lexington Avenue and 54th Street on an afternoon with brilliant early spring light and the attendant reflections. The first is my image of the day. Again we see how well the files from the Hasselblad back convert to black and white.
I’m posting this one just to show what is possible. I shot this pointing way up with the 36mm lens, which resulted in wildly converging vertical lines. I then corrected the perspective in Lightroom. Extreme perspective corrections are often problematic because they “stretch” pixels resulting in poor resolution. But when you start with a file captured at 60 meg resolution this really isn’t a problem, at least not at web resolution.
On this day last year: Citicorp Center
NEW YORK NEW YORK – You’ve seen this before – it’s the view out of my dining room window – and I guaranty that you’ll see it again. Hasselblad has finally released a production version of the firmware for its 60 meg back that permits it to be used on a technical camera. (I had previously been using a beta version of the firmware.) I attached the 60 meg Hasselblad back to my Alpa 12 Max camera and a Schneider 36mm digital lens and spent a couple of hours exploring the limits of this combination out of the window of my dining room. Here’s a typical image. This good landscape test image for me because there is a wealth of fine detail and the streets are orthogonal (eliminating focus as an issue). The Alpa Max permits the camera back to be shifted. Here I’ve used this feature to move the horizon down – to emphasize the sky. This could have been accomplished by pointing the camera up, but then the vertical lines would have converged. Technical cameras like the Alpa are often used to photograph architectural subjects because the facilitate composing while maintaining horizontal and vertical lines in the buildings parallel.
On this day one year ago: Cash for your Warhol in Beantown.
BOSTON MASSACHUSETTS – I had meetings in Boston on this bright, clear early spring day. Again not much time. This is a conventional image taken with my GH2. I don’t have a very wide lens for it so this is stitched from three frames.
On this day one year ago: Pacing at Citicorp Center. Not a very popular image but on reflection I rather like its claustrophobic feeling.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – This is a busy week for me so I’m tucking my daily photos into odds and ends of time. I spent the day in my office but kept an eye out for good or interesting light in the Manhattan cityscape outside of my windows. I’m shooting with my Panasonic GH2 because it’s the lightest and most compact camera that I have and the selectivity of the very long telephotos effectively let me cheat, not having the time or space to actually get close to an interesting subject. Here’s the Bloomberg Building out my office window:
On this day one year ago: A dismal image of the mud season in Connecticut.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I’m continuing to experiment with my new Panasonic GH2. I walked down Lexington Avenue with it (an errand to pick up our dog from a haircut), taking images that I might have done with my Leica M9. Here’s a sample. The images are fine at web resolution, but don’t have the impact that the Leica files have when viewed close up or printed large.
On this day one year ago: Another errand – this one to Jean Silversmith.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I met a colleague for lunch at Ze Cafe, my new favorite lunch spot near my office. Shot with my Panasonic GH2.
On this day one year ago: Times Square at sunset.
