Thursday August 11, 2016

NEW YORK NEW YORK – I’m shooting with different equipment for the next week. I’ve become very concerned about Leica service, particularly through their New Jersey service center. In April I sent Leica: my 50mm Summicron Asph. lens for cleaning, lubrication and adjustment (after three years of hard, daily service – this why I’m shooting with different 50mm lenses now); my 135mm for “six bit coding” (a routine Leica service); and my new second Monochrom body to have the frame lever replaced because it had fallen off. Here we are in mid-August and these items still haven’t been returned. Only pro-forma communications. They don’t return email. You can’t leave a voicemail message because their voice mailbox is full. This is frustrating enough that I’m considering alternatives to Leica.

Starting today for a week I’ll be shooting a Sony a7rii, the current leader among mirrorless “SLRs”. The terrific thing about it is that adapters exist for almost every type of lens ever made, so it opens a broad range of legacy glass. It has a good 42 meg sensor that delivers resolution comparable to the Leica Monochrom. I own this camera for the occasions when I absolutely need to shoot color, when I really need autofocus, for odd legacy lenses (like my rangefinder Carl Zeiss lenses from the ’30s and ’40s) and when I need a backup. I’ll converting images to black and white.

Here is my first day’s effort with the Sony, starting in the kitchen as I defamiliarize myself with the Sony’s overly complex controls.

Day 2492 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.