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.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Another sick day – something that I’m not very good at. This is our bedroom window on a really hot July day. I did have to get out of bed to put my Leica on a tripod.
Out my window
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Another session trying to optimize the performa of my Hasselblad digital back on my Alpa TC technical camera. I shot the fireplace in our living room fussing with varius settings. I’ve included a crop to give an idea of what the image looks like printed large. The glass is mostly Venini
HomeAt home crop
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.
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.
1185 Pak Avenue
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 – St. Patricks Day. Why am I not out photographing the parade? After all that’s what I did on St. Patricks Day last year. Well there are couple of reasons. For me a parade is interesting if you have a privileged point of view. For example as a participant or from a high vantage point. I haven’t arranged for either this year. Absent that sometimes the most compelling images can be found by looking in the opposite direction from the parade and focus on the spectators – ground that I covered last year. But the truth is I was too busy to get out.
I did find an hour to experiment further with exploring the limitations of my Hasselblad 60 meg back on an Alpa 12 Max technical camera. Today’s assignment was to see how this combination works with focus stacking – a technique of combining images taken at various focus distances into one image, all parts of which are in focus. There is a software tool, called Helicon Focus, that makes this possible. The following image, taken in our living room, was made by combining six images with focus points from the close edge of the table to the burned out area in the room on the upper right. I used a laser distometer to measure the distances. Technical cameras like the Alpa 12 Max don’t come with focusing aids or light meters. The detail, depth and pliability of the images from this combination are remarkable. I’ll be doing more of these.
