WASHINGTON CONNECTICUT – Today we went to a service at the Washington Congregational Church – our daughter and her fiance were with us. They are planning on getting married here next year. After the service I photographed the interior. I’ve done many exterior images of this building on these pages: Under the portico. Washington Congregational Church exterior. Washington Congregational Church detail. Taken with my Alpha Max and a 36mm Schneider lens. Two frames stitched.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Today I had breakfast with a friend near Columbia so I used the opportunity to continue my explorations of the Episcopal Cathedral St. John the Devine – the massive unfinished structure at Amsterdam Avenue and 112th Street. For more information on this massive undertaking see St. John the Divine. Shot with my Leica M9 and a 12mm Voigtlander lens. The frontal composition obviously has a lot in common with my December 7, 2010 entry.
WASHINGTON CONNECTICUT – Here’s another angle on the Washington Congregational Church, first presented on these pages here: follow this link for information on Washington CT. This is with my new Leica 35mm Summilux FLE lens – I’m experimenting with the out of focus rendering.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – So today’s post is a tale of a lens. I’m a gear head, perhaps even a gear whore, but I don’t often talk about cameras and lenses here because it’s politically correct to downplay the gear one uses – after all a great photographer can take great pictures with anything. The later statement isn’t actually true – many luminaries in the photo world have selected their gear with great care – often finding the best technical solution for the types of images they take: Ansel Adams and his 8×10 Deardorff, Cartier-Bresson and his Leica and Lee Friedlander (in his later years) and the Hasselblad Superwide. I’ve proven on these pages that I can’t take a decent picture with an iPhone.
Leica has issued a new version of it’s 35mm f1.4 Summilux. It replaces a lens that I owned but sold when the rumor of a replacement circulated – essentially to raise cash to pay for the new lens, which is bizarrely expensive. The lens it replaces is famous for being bitingly sharp and having remarkable contrast corner to corner at all apertures. The former Summicron had “bokeh”, the character of it’s out of focus image, that made it unique. Unfortunately it also had a tendency for the focus point to shift as it was stopped down, resulting in very slightly out of focus images in the range f4.0 to f5.6 or so. This trait, which was not visible with film but is visible in the more demanding digital realm, drove me nuts. The new lens retains the character of the original but has solved to focus shift issue. Here are some links to reviews: Irwin Puts reviews the 35mm Summicron.Steve Huff on focus shift. The new 35mm Summilux has been back ordered for about a year. My copy finally arrived today.
Today I’m posting a picture of a pair of Venini vases (I collect Venini) drying in our kitchen, together with a close up crop to illustrate the character of the out of focus image. This was shot at f1.4. I’m also including a picture of the building that houses the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia and a crop, to demonstrate the biting sharpness and contrast. 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.
The vases:
A crop from the vases illustrating the characteristic “bokeh” of this lens (note the circular highlights):
Here’s the Synod:
A crop of the Synod – again illustrating this lens’s special character, but also the Leica’s tendency to blow saturated yellow highlights:
WASHINGTON CONNECTICUT – I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to photograph the Washington Connecticut Congregational Church. There is a large tree in front of it – very close, actually – so it’s hard to get an angle on it even with a very wide lens and a shift capability. I decided to shoot it through the tree once the leaves were off. I did some details of it last year – here’s my entry from November 29, 2010 which includes some historical narrative about the structure. Anyway, this is with my Hasselblad H3d-39:
November 14, 2010
This is the image from last year: Congregational Meeting House, Washington CT
On this day one year ago: Construction site. In terms of star ratings this is the least popular image ever on this site.
SOUTH BRITAIN, CONNECTICUT – This is the Methodist Church in South Britain, Connecticut. The center of this village has been designated a historic site, which may explain why this derelict structure hasn’t been torn down.
NEW MILFORD CONNECTICUT – This is the First Congregational Church in New Milford. It was founded in 1716; construction on the first meeting house was started in 1719 and was finished in 1731 (construction delays were evidently as common then as they are now); Construction of the present building commenced in 1831, and was completed in 1833. The lovely Greek revival facade was typical of the era. Taken with a Hasselblad H3d-39 and a 35-90mm zoom lens.
