NEW YORK, NEW YORK – You’re probably wondering what this camera, this Alpa TC thing, is. The Alpa is a modular Swiss “technical camera” designed to work with a medium format digital back. Here’s link to the Alpa website. This is exotic stuff – you won’t find it in the B&H cataloque. The digital back that I use is a Phase One IQ 180. Ditto on not finding it at B&H. Using myself a a model I photographed the Alpa to show you what it looks like. It weighs about four pounds. The concept was to assemble an updated digital camera with functionality similar to the Hasselblad Superwide C – one of my all time favorite film cameras.
Today’s images were take with my Panasonic GH2. It’s the Alpa TC with the Phase One IQ 180 back and a 35mm Schneider Digitar XL lens.
Alpa TCAlpa TC
On this day last year: Mocoto, a fabulous local restaurant in the outlying suburbs of Sao Paolo.
MARBLE DALE, CONNECTICUT – A friend just bought a 1956 Austin Healey that had major surgery in 1967: the Ford racing division replaced the engine with a 400 hp 302 cubic inch Ford racing engine. Of course adjustments were made in the transmission and rear end and the steering as suspension parts. Hear’s the car: Austin-Healey BN2. The sound this thing makes can’t be believed. The upgrades evidently didn’t include brakes. It’s a wild drive. Here’s my picture of the day, taken with my Alpa TC.
Doug and Marty have some fun
On this day one year ago: Paraty. One of the many lovely 18th Century colonial buildings in Paraty, Brazil.
WESTHAMPTON, NEW YORK – More with the Leica and the 50mm Summilux. I’ve been shooting a lot in the past month with Alpa and a 35mm Schneider which for a number of reasons facilitates images with a lot of depth of field and corner to corner sharpness. The Leica lets me rebel from that a bit. today (and yesterday) I generally shot with this lens wide open at f 1.4, producing large far out of focus regions. Steve’s house seemed to call out for this treatment.
Like most modern Leica lenses the 50 mm Summilux has optimum sharpness at its widest aperture, f 1.4 (lenses from other manufactures often need to be stopped down two stops for maximum clarity), this is one of the reasons why these lenses are so expensive. The out of focus portions of the of 50mm Summilux images have a lovely, creamy character, a quality that is referred to as “good bokeh”. I also like the way it renders colors. I don’t often write effusive praise for lenses. I guess I just got carried away by this one.
By the way, sorry about the dog. You know how I feel about pictures of dogs and cute kids.
WESTHAMPTON, NEW YORK – I carried my Leica M9 with a 50 mm Summilux lens around all day. I’m often surprised and delighted by the images that this combination produces – I think that if I were to limit myself to a single camera and lens this would be it.
Still lifePartyMore party
WESTHAMPTON, NEW YORK – We spent the weekend visiting our friend Steve Rubin in Westhampton. This was unusual for us, but Steve is a very good friend. We spend weekends in Litchfield County, Connecticut, which bills itself as the “unhamtpons”. We haven’t been to the Hamptons in 15 years but as I said Steve is a really good friend. It was a great weekend; Westhampton is the Hampton that is closest to New York City so the drive there was much less fearsome than I expected. I actually made the drive back to our apartment on Sunday in an hour and 20 minutes.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – A long day in the office. I caught this out the window in a moment of lovely light with my Leica M9 and 24mm Summilux lens.
Bloomberg Building
On this day one year ago: Porto Seguro, Brazil. This isn’t bad for a travel day. Maybe I should just stop whining about travel days make the most of them.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – While I was in Africa Phase One released a firmware update to the IQ 180 back that enables “live view”, the ability to view on the back’s lcd screen what the camera is seeing in real time. Live view is commonplace in consumer cameras, which use CMOS technology, but is difficult to implement in medium format cameras which use CCD technology. I downloaded the update and installed it and voila it worked. Live view is a boon to technical camera users because it permits composition on the back’s lcd monitor while using shifts. I set the back up on my Alpa Max with my 72mm Schneider Digitar and took the following out my window (with the back shifted up 15mm and to the right 17mm),
New York Rooftop
