After twice failing to bond with a 90mm APO-Summicron-M, I added a 90mm Summicron-SL to the arsenal. Image quality and sharpness were to my liking, but the weight was not. So it got trundled off. More recently I tried another copy of the M lens. The short, stiff focus throw made it hard for me…

Selecting gear for travel with regard to both weight and versatility is a two-sided coin. First, there’s the “on paper” stage, which gets revised several times prior to departure so that travel will be ideal. Then there’s the reality stage, when one realizes that some aspects of the “ideal” paper version don’t necessarily work so…

. . . were calling me for a while there. Almost irresistably. But—for once—sanity prevailed. In every practical way imaginable the SL2 is a more useful choice for the kind of shooting I do. That doesn’t mean things aren’t changing, though. In recent weeks I’ve discovered the joy of walking about various places and finding…

Having ordered a few lenses over the years from Leica Classic store in Vienna, I decided to visit there yesterday. While there, I asked about a 135mm Tele-Elmar. The salesman excused himself to the stockroom and momentarily returned with one that appeared to be in remarkable optical and cosmetic condition. It was not within my…

It’s no secret that Americans are viewed with negativity by some among certain other demographics. Nowhere has it been more evident to me than it is where I am now, Germany. However, when one steps off a Wetzlar sidewalk and onto the Leitz Park campus, it all changes. The air immediately seems more international and…

Back in the ant farm, where light goes from too dark to too harsh in minutes, where critters are elusive, and where getting good shots is difficult, the SL 100-400mm first flunked the target test—badly—and then just couldn’t capture raw images that left me with enough shadows/highlights latitude to make decent pictures. On the bright…

After going semi-crazy making gear changes in Bangkok, I wasted no time upon arriving in the ant farm for a short stay. Within a day, I’d found a decent CL at a reasonable price, the least one could hope for in a tiny camera already seven years old. While in Bangkok I made so many…

Historically, I’ve been quick to post first impressions of any significant gear acquisition, only to find later that I was probably too optimistic in my early assessment. So after deciding to do round two with a 100-400mm SL zoom a few weeks ago, I kept quiet while I got familiar with how it performs on…

. . . the current level of tech in digital photography is about as advanced as I plan to get. No, it’s not because I’m too old to learn new things. It’s because of what I’ve learned about emerging tech that I’ve decided to apply the brakes. With computational photography already giving way to generative…

As a huge fan of the work, accomplishments, and life story of photographer Nick Ut, I have been following the media’s coverage of a counter-claim that someone else was actually the photographer of his Pulitzer-winning photo, “The Terror of War.” Recently the AP released a report on the result of their investigation of the matter,…