15 hours ago, blessingx said:

I really wish there was a new Leica WATE/MATE-ish lens made by someone. 

^This!

Counterpoint to my paean of primes: Modern zooms can be really good.  Last fall I bought a stack of lenses from an MV photographer who had gone mirrorless.

The least interesting but most useful of the bunch was the 24-70mm F/2.8L II.  It's the perfect "walk around" focal range and a vast improvement of the original model (which was more than a bit of a dog.)  Also pictured is the 100-400mm  F/4.5-5.6L IS II which is an impressive and massive beast, but also a great way to blow copious amount of dust into one's camera body.  I took all of the following with the 24-70.

It's been so long since I've posted photos in this thread that we're going all the way back to last Christmas.  I'll win no awards for framing on this one (especially on a stationary object) but in spite of my snapshotesque abilities with the viewfinder, I really like the the look of this shot.

 

30 seconds at F/22, ISO200.  I really needed to do shots significantly longer than 30 seconds, and I was too stubborn to raise the ISO.  At this point I had not been able to locate my remote cable.  Blissfully, the remote I bought for my 30D in 2006 works with the 5D IV.  This coming Christmas I can do multi-minute exposures.

 

This is the house my father grew up in.  It has a big Cyrano De Bergerac portico that juts out into an already narrow sidewalk.  For something like 150 years it has served as an inconvenience to all passers-by.  I love it.  Cool Story Bro: My grandparents were the last private family to live in the house.  After they moved out in 1940s, it became a law office and of course it's been a retail shop for decades at this point.

 

Right next to the Vineyard Haven ferry slip.  Not pictured: the December wind ripping across the harbor and through my jacket.

 

I will cheerfully take the same picture over and over again, in different weather an lighting conditions.

 

Happy sledders enjoying the first snow of the season.

 

Later afternoon sun on Sweetened Water Farm.

 

There's that patch of woods again.

 

The calm before the blizzard.

 

The aftermath.

 

Ideal lighting conditions at the Oak Bluffs harbor.

 

Still shooting that 1980s car commercial.

 

All good things must come to an end.

 

I'm going to try my hand at timelapse photography next week for work.  So. 40000mAH external and a dummy internal are on the way for the A7IV for the 6000 or so images I'll need to capture across the 36hr exercise.  Here's to hoping it's not a bunch of wasted effort.

Suggestions/hints/tips are welcome.

Margined leatherwing beetle from this morning. 

Last night I was able to pick up the 70-200mm lens... I couldn't go out for a training session today (my Great Dane is in the hospital with a growth-related fever), so I suppose I'll have some time today to try it out.

The only thing I don't quite like is that the shoe gets in the way when using the zoom ring, so I've had to move it to the side.

Looks like Capture One will be sold again.
https://petapixel.com/2026/05/28/capture-ones-private-equity-owner-is-trying-to-sell-it-report/  

I really don’t want to go back to an Adobe subscription, Exposure (aka Alien Skin) hasn’t been updated in a few years, PhotoLab doesn’t seem to have any interest in demosaicing old or unusual sensors, and my experiences with Luminar and ON1 have not been positive. Maybe time to give Darktable a try, unless others have a different recommendation? 

Affinity by Canva? It's free.

37 minutes ago, HiWire said:

Affinity by Canva? It's free.

Thanks, yeah it’s a strong app and I use occasionally. This is where we get to the apples to apples question. [Switching to Adobe-speak] Affinity, is a great Photoshop replacement, not so much Lightroom. Trick is Capture One covered what I needed for both. The Photoshop-Lightroom division has always felt abnormal from a photography perspective (though PS is obviously used by non-photographers too). PhotoLab is close as tries a similar approach, but because its focus is camera and lens corrections, it won’t even import (or fall back to OS processing) any non-supported combos. You’re dead in the water with many cameras, including several I use. Anyway, first world problems, but all ears for suggestions and thanks for this one.  

Edited May 30May 30 by blessingx

Bunch of discounted Zeiss glass - https://www.amazon.com/stores/ZEISS/page/FE9712AB-21B2-4EAB-A6E1-DADF7BEED40F?lp_asin=B00WII52ZU&ref_=cm_sw_r_apin_ast_store_N60325Q0BS5SPKDEXZPW&store_ref=bl_ast_dp_brandlogo_sto 

Had breakfast with this little dude at the University of Minnesota this morning. 
 

I had forgotten how nice it was to travel with a little gh5 with an even tinier 42.5mm lens. My back is thanking me for not carrying the a7 and the heavy Zeiss glass. 

I'm heading in to work tomorrow at 3am to trigger the time lapse camera that I setup this afternoon using my A7IV.  If all goes to plan it'll take at least 3000 still frames over a 24 hour period and not fall from the sky (it's mounted ~100' in the air).  It's on a smallrig mount with multiple tethers so it shouldn't be capable of flight and should be rigid enough to be stable/consistent throughout.  If I get the video cleared for public release I'll post it.  

 

On 6/4/2026 at 7:21 PM, n_maher said:

I'm heading in to work tomorrow at 3am to trigger the time lapse camera that I setup this afternoon using my A7IV.  If all goes to plan it'll take at least 3000 still frames over a 24 hour period and not fall from the sky (it's mounted ~100' in the air).  It's on a smallrig mount with multiple tethers so it shouldn't be capable of flight and should be rigid enough to be stable/consistent throughout.  If I get the video cleared for public release I'll post it.  

How did it go? 

Initial viewing confirms I managed to NOT screw it up. Looks pretty cool. 

Kicked off the summer this weekend with the San Mateo County Fair. A few not terribly inspiring shots below. Leica SL2-S during the day with the softer Light Lens Lab 35mm f/1.4 Double Aspherical "11873" and during night the more modern Voigtlander 28mm f/2 Ultron. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 14Jun 14 by blessingx

Super nice colors. I am either using an 85mm or a 135mm almost always. Looking at some of the images, my mind immediately went to how far I'd need to walk to get the same perspective, if at all. Compression is nice but sometimes nice to be close and capture a wider fov. 

15 hours ago, crappyjones123 said:

Super nice colors. I am either using an 85mm or a 135mm almost always. Looking at some of the images, my mind immediately went to how far I'd need to walk to get the same perspective, if at all. Compression is nice but sometimes nice to be close and capture a wider fov. 

Yeah, I'm a 40-50mm shooter generally. Rarely go tighter, except some portraits (75, 105mm). Have been attempting to go wider (24-35mm) more over the last six or so months. Again these are nothing special, but I'm trying to "see wide". 

I think I was being reminded of something I had previously been told. Repeatedly. 

I went on a deep dive through Jacob's photos on FB.  These are some shots he took over the years that AFAIK he did not post here:

The opposite focal point of this shot (where the gate is in focus and the house is OOF) would be interesting.

 

I think the slight vignetting here is an artifact of the lens, not a software filter.

Remapping the aspect ratio switch to MATE-like focal lengths is cool. 

 

Edited June 14Jun 14 by blessingx

Although I'm short on time (I've started renovating my second home), I'm doing some tests with the 70-200mm lens and I photographed this blackbird in my garden.

PD. I'm quite bad, I keep trying to improve my technique.

Edited June 15Jun 15 by jose

I snapped this photo without tripod. It has a fairly high ISO, but nothing the R6II can´t handle. 

It being Father's Day a nearby hotel celebrated with $38 burgers, whiskey tastings, and a local Jaquar club showing off a few cars (mostly non-Jaquars). Thus more testing to try to figure out this confusing Light Lens Lab 50mm f/1.5 Z21 (Angenieux S21 clone). Paired with the SL (typ 601). Makes one more appreciative of modern flat field lenses. Still old lenses for old cars.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 22Jun 22 by blessingx

Rick's wide angle images made me want to look at some older images. Here's one with a 21mm Zeiss distagon from 2015. 

I’m still testing the R6 Mark II against the 90D by taking photos of the moon.

Last night I used 90D + 2x extender + 100-400 f4.5/5.6L. ISO 800, 1/800, F11 

What do you think?

Edited June 24Jun 24 by jose