NEW YORK NEW YORK – A family moving into a Fifth Avenue building. Taken with my Leica 50mm APO-Summicron lens and my Leica Monochrom.
Day 2,742 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
On this day last year (day 2377): WTC underground
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I’ve been shooting off and on with a Leica lens made in 1962: a 50mm “rigid” Summicron. Mechanically and as an aesthetic object it may be the most beautiful lens every made. It was the staple for photojournalists in the 1950s and 1960s. I’ve generally been using it in daylight stopped down to f5.6 or so and have been pleased with its performance and rendering.
My untested bias this that this uncomplicated design from the 1950s has excellent “bokeh”. In other words the out of focus portions of an image are creamy and transitions from focused to unfocused are smooth. I decided to test this hypothesis today so I mounted the lens and fitted a neutral density filter so it could shoot wide open (with thin depth of field) in daylight and retraced yesterday’s path through Central Park (which I shot yesterday with my Luxocron lens with pretty good results, bokeh-wise)>
I shot a hundred or so images with disappointing results. Say goodbye to nostalgia. The 1962 lens produced harsh, jarring bokeh. In fact at f2.0 the rendering of in-focus portions of the image was harsh. There were very few images that I found useable on these pages – see the twigs and daffodils below. This lens is going into retirement.
I’ll be continuing bokeh testing for the next few days.
Day 2,737 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
On this day two years ago (day 2007): Boston
NEW YORK NEW YORK – My one-photograph-every-day project is heavily weighted toward landscape and cityscape. Each season presents challenges to the landscape photographer. The problem with Spring in New York is that after the dirty snow drift month of February and March, the lavishly flowering parks here have an irresistible attraction. But as I review the work of other photographers I know that pictures of flowers generate little or no interest. I should add an “no flowers” rule to my “no pets” and “no cute kids” rules.
I shoot some floral duds in the Spring. This year I’m trying to circumvent the problem by shooting wide open with neutral density filter to at least separate out backgrounds. I’m cycling though all of the 50mm lenses that I own to sort out (again) what their out of focus images look like (the quality that is referred to as “bokeh”), Today the 50mm APO-Summicron is up – the lens that I refer to as the Luxocron.
Day 2,736 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
On this day two years ago (day 2,006): Connecticut backlit.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Out with my Leica Monochrom and 50mm APO Summicron lens. Lovely Spring light today so I shot with pretty good effect.
Day 2,735 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
On this day three years ago (day 1639): Alley
WARREN CONNECTICUT – I had an extremely productive day with my Leica Monochrom and a 10mm Voigtlander lens. 10mm is as wide as it gets. I mean it’s really wide. It basically takes in everything that you see. It’s rectilinear (ass opposed to a fish-eye) which means that straight lines appear straight, but the size and shape of objects near the edge of the frame are distorted. It’s a handful to handle because it has to be absolutely level and orthogonal – otherwise the wide angle distortion produces weird images.
Day 2,727 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
On this day three years ago (day 1,631): Park Avenue
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I’m shooting with my Leica Monochrom and 1955 vintage 28mm lens. I love the way that this lens draws.
Day 2,723 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
On this day three years ago (day 1,627): Amsterdam
NEW YORK NEW YORK – A grid and a construction site.
Day 2,721 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
On this day last year (day 2,356): Mill Reef
