Manchester Street Photography

Earlier in the week I spent a few days in Berlin for work and, of course, my trusty camera made it with me. If you haven’t been to Berlin before, it’s a city I really recommend you visiting. There’s many things to see and do, both historic and new, so it’s definitely a worthwhile visit.

I could spend days there taking pictures but unfortunately only ended up having around two free hours in total for photography. The crop below is a mix of what I came across.

As always, click on the pictures to enlarge and drop any comments or questions in the comments box at the end of the post.

I don’t blog much about camera specs, news or rumours but I just couldn’t resist writing this little article after reading Steve Huff’s latest post: “What is to come on May 10th from Leica”.

See, I’ve connected a few dots together and think you might be interested in even more rumours and gossip on what is to come from Leica, specifically the Leica M. Admit it, you do. Who doesn’t?

Even though Steve lost his crystal ball this time round, I’m confident he is on to something with the monochrome digital M. Admittedly, today was the first time I’ve read a rumour of the monochrome M materialising, but it certainly was not the first time I’ve heard about the idea.

I will refrain from mentioning names, but many months ago, a photographer was telling me his wishlist on “The Perfect Digital Leica M”. Not silly pixel-peeper demands like more mega pixels and lower noise levels at high ISO. Simply, his many years of experience with film Leicas transposed to form the perfect digital M.

“The M9 is only missing two things: One, an option of a monochrome sensor and two, a winding lever.”

He’s lost the plot I thought. What’s the point of a monochrome sensor when you can already convert colour images to monochrome with the touch of a button? I queried it and the response could not be any further that what I expected it to be. “When I use a film camera, I have a choice of sensors. Colour sensor, or B/W sensor. Each designed perfectly for it’s application. So the question is: Why not have a digital B/W sensor when I want to shoot B/W images?”

Alright, fair argument, but what about the winding lever? How can you possibly justify that? “Think about it, it makes sense. Saves heaps of battery because you get rid of the winding motor and the camera will be much, much quieter. So again, the question is, why not have a winding lever on the digital M?” Then I thought, damn, he’s right. Not only that, it would look good, feel good and finally have some counter grip when you’re holding the M with one hand. Well ok, I’m sold on the winding lever.

Now what if I told you this exact same conversation also took place between the certain individual and someone who has a huge say in Leica AG? Let’s say, around 10 months ago, at Leica Camera & Magnum event “The decisive moment” in Paris? The Leica boss asks in conversation, “How would you modify the Leica M9 if you had absolutely no restrictions?”. Hears the man,  likes the ideas, and takes them back to the engineers. Will we be seeing a B/W sensor? Will we be seeing a digital M with a winding lever? Is this even true?

All I know for sure is that a few months ago a German who works for Leica told me: “We have a few good things in the pipeline, things that have never been done before.” That’s all he said. He masterfully kept it cryptic and vague.

So here we are, months later and rumours of a monochrome Leica M sensor start to surface, first on the Leica rumour website, then by Steve Huff. Experience tells me that Steve does not need a crystal ball to get things right, so a B/W sensor is imminent. Could it all be a just a massive coincidence?

Will we actually ever see a winding lever on a digital M? I have a sneaky suspicion we will. But not on the monochrome M, that’s too much fun to handle in one go. As an option on the M10 however or maybe a special edition M10? I don’t know, but I have a good vibe about these two.

Well, that’s all from me. I’m curious to hear your thoughts on dedicated B/W digital sensors. Also, how would you like to see a winding lever on the M10? Cast your thoughts in the comments box below please!

Fuji Xperia 400, Rolleiflex 2.8F

So one gets caught up with a thing or two and whooosh, a month goes by without blogging, just like that! I must admit with a year’s work coming together in the last few weeks, photography was pretty low on the agenda lately. I know that does not warrant utter radio silence on the blog front, so I decided it was about time I blogged something.

Whilst looking thought my archive, I found this picture and it struck me how the contents of pictures change/develop over time, even in a period of only one month.

The obvious one was the snow. First, there was snow; then, just cold. After that came Spring but decided to spring back in it’s box and we reverted yet to more bone chilling cold for a week or two. Then, the sunshine started appearing once again, until one Saturday morning BOOM! Sunshine in all it’s glory! With the promise of a brilliantly warm day, I headed out of the house but as soon as I got out of the door… frostbite! I can swear I heard the sun shouting “I LIEEED” followed by an evil vilain laugh. Perhaps it was the symptoms of a brain freeze. That experience aside, the temperature has now moved to double digits and it is slowly, but surely, increasing slightly every day, much like the length of day.

Speaking of longer days, what a better excuse to go out for some photography after work! I must admit I’ve yet to put it in practice but feel this week is very promising.

Going back to the picture, the second element was obviously the advertisement of The Iron Lady on the bus. When I shot this, The Iron Lady was still at the cinemas, competing against many other very good films. Amongst them, my personal favourite, The Artist. Whilst box office sales is utterly important, the real competition on films of these calibre comes at the award ceremonies. I remember standing there in snow, framing the picture and right before pressing the shutter button thinking: “I wonder if Meryl will manage to get that illusive Oscar she’s been nominated so many times for. I do hope she does, she deserves it.” Flash forward a month and an Oscar award ceremony later, voila! The ever deserving Meryl Streep has won the Oscar! Now I like this picture this little bit more.

That’s all for now. I know, it’s not much but I’m hoping to have something interesting to blog about soon. Until then…

I can’t say I wasn’t a little jealous of their high vantage point. On the bright side, at least I got a picture out of it!

Fuji Xperia 400, Rolleiflex 2.8F

True story.

Fuji Xperia 400, Rolleiflex 2.8F

So, my negatives just came back from the lab, exciting stuff :-) Unfortunately my scanner doesn’t  seem to like them as it adds a colour cast to every scan. I know it’s not the negatives fault (I tried the old, put the negatives against the light trick) so I need to figure out how to sort it. I think I found a solution for now but it’s a bit of a cheat :-) Until then, I suppose it shall suffice… (Click on picture to enlarge)

Fuji Xperia 400, Rolleiflex 2.8F

Welcome, welcome! If you’re reading this and also looking at a picture below, the transfer to the new server has gone according to plan “A”. Whilst I feel “like a boss” for managing to make the transfer with no apparent glitches, there’s always a possibility something was missed. Do give me a shout if you find something you don’t think it’s right (Speed, broken links, error messages etc). Don’t be afraid to report anything bad, really! When I say “I feel like a boss”, I don’t mean a mafia boss. :-)

 35mm at f/6.7, 1/250, ISO500 (Leica M9)

No, don’t worry, not from Manchester! What I meant was, I’m currently in the process of moving the blog to a new server and whilst I’m fairly confident I know what I’m doing, I can’t help but have a little voice at the back of my head whispering: “You WILL mess it up!”. Let’s hope that’s not the case :-) If all goes to plan, the transition should be seamless, but thought I’d give you a heads up in case the worst should happen (blog: kaput).

35mm at f/6.7, 1/1000, ISO320 (Leica M9)

I can’t really say I’m dissatisfied from my old server, so the image above is probably a tad unfair to it. It wasn’t a stinky, unreliable server like the horror stories one hears when they research the drama that is website hosting. It has served me well but when the opportunity of moving to a dedicated server came up, I jumped to it with a smile on my face and didn’t let go. The new server should be a significant step up. Faster, more reliable and able to handle more visitors than I could ever dream of. I think I’ll stop here before I jinx it. Wish me luck!