NEW YORK NEW YORK – You may remember that a couple of weeks back I suffered a monumental toothache, which caused me to reconsider my photo equipment for days when I’m sick or otherwise out of it. This blog project requires that I take at least one credible photograph every day for the rest of my life, even when I don’t feel like it. The Leica M style camera that i shoot with most of the time is too demanding in terms of concentration and being in the visual moment for those really bad days. So I’m spending the week with my Sony RX 100 Mk II. It has the advantage in a social or professional setting of being more conventional looking – less geeky and eccentric – than my Leica gear. It’s very, very good in terms of image quality, focus speed and accuracy and high ISO performance. It may even have a little bit of mojo. I’ve set it up as a “dummy camera” – fully automatic. I’m going to shoot with it all week to see what happens.
Fully automatic this camera’s default shutter speed settings in low light situations are a stop or two too low for me, giving me a bit of camera movement when shooting very quickly or offhand. Using this thing is actually going to take some practice. It raises the question of how I feel about interesting images that aren’t technically perfect. There may be a few of these, starting with the image below taken in Grand Central Terminal.