–Drove the BMW to the coast to drop off three Creminas for consignment at Great Infusions. Stopped at La Selva Beach, took pictures, ate an El Patio egg salad sandwich on the bluff. Bought a sweatshirt for Grace and a t-shirt for me. Checked in at the Holiday Inn in Watsonville. Went to Nob Hill for 2032 batteries: the battery in my key fob died. Fortunately, the car will start if you hold the (dead) key fob close to the start button. Walked to McDonald’s for dinner. Saw the standard table full of beautiful, big-breasted teen Latinas. Nice weather here: clear, 70’s. The humidity doesn’t seem to be helping my eyes at all. They are bad.
Month: July 2024
–Went to UPS and picked up Tekna regulator (crappy; will use for parts), Silca pump head, and elastomer insetrs (inserts seem harder than rubber, allow only one thread or so to be used when fitting them, and don’t work nearly as well as the rubber ones. May toss.
–Heard from Leica after emailing them yesterday. They can and will adjust the eye sensor sensitivity on my SL2-S–apparently to 30mm. Will send it out when I get back from the coast.
–Took a shower and shave (with Paradigm titanium: excellent).
–Moved the Bird of Paradise from a pot to the ground. It really needed it: the finger-sized roots had completed more than a full circle around the bottom of the pot. I hope it’ll be happier now.
–Took Grace shopping at the Folson Safeway. Expensive stuff, mostly, though they do have a setup like Raley’s where some prices are lower for members, and even lower if one activates a digital coupon.
–Played with cameras. Noticed again (and semi-quantified) that the SL2-S Reporter has MUCH better EVF eye sensitivity. The switching point from LCD to EVF is like 2.5″ for the Reporter, 0.5″ for the standard. The 0.5″ thing is a universal complaint, so I’m wondering if the Reporter owner sent the camera off to Leica to have it adjusted. Will look into it.
–Went to the Sunrise farmers market for tomatoes, sourdough, squash. Making another batch of tomato compote with some smaller cherry tomatoes. Used almost 3 pounds of tomatoes and cut the olive oil (in the two-pound recipe) in half to 1/4 cup. Still WAY too much liquid. Don’t know how to tame it.
–Played with lenses a little. Destroyed the Helios 81N. Tested the two other Helios against each other and the Biotar. Helios 44-2 won with greater contrast/sharpness. Will order another 81N, as that was a super lens.
–Running the deionizer in the BMW trunk, along with cologne-infused SL2-S Reporter. Seems to be working on the camera. [edit] Started to get more serious about deodorizing and noticed that the Kevlar is starting to fray in front where one’s fingers grip the camera. This camera has really been used, and still smells, so I put it back in the box and brought back my new one.
–Trimmed the abutilon and cleaned up the front patio. Giving up on the side tree; it looks awful.
–The guy who sold me the Leica SL2-S Reporter at Fred Miranda runs the Luxury Auto Haus off White Rock Road. Went there to pick up the camera from his assistant. Camera is fine, but smells of his cologne.
–Stopped at UPS for three Russian lenses. All are fine; the 81H (50/2) is mighty fine in terms of contrast and sharpness. Bokeh seemed similar for all; might just have been the picture I took.
–HD Lawn guy was going to come by today and fix the leak in front. He didn’t. And apparently I left the rear patio valve on for a couple days after adding an emitter for the Japanese maple. I really need to slow down, engage, think things through, and make sure all the t’s are crossed.
–Still hot. Last day, perhaps.
–Sent two Rolexes off to Rolliworks: 1680 for movement service and case refinish, Sea-Dweller for case work only.
–Stopped at the Rancho post office to inquire about the Helios lens that’s been traveling around the country. Should be coming soon, they said.
–Went to Bel Air for milk and cream Tried to make espresso on the lever Cremina and just got water, as has happened before. I really need to update the portafilter gaskets on both machines.
–Picked up the Zeiss 85/1.4 lens at UPS. Massive, as remembered. At f1.4 it was a little washed out compared to the 85/2.8 at f2.8. But when I tried the cottage cheese shot again at f2.8, it was gorgeous–contrasty and saturated. Unfortunately, it does have a slight flare using my desk light test, as does the 2.8, so I guess it will end up as a bokeh lens, which it is optimized for anyway. I’m just flabbergasted at the proportion of vintage multi-coated lenses that flare.
–Did a noise test between SL2 and SL2-S. SL2-S definitely shows less noise at ISO 3200.
–Fixed two more sprinkler gushers–one in back that Grace caused by inspecting the line, one on the side with no apparent cause (looked like two pieces of tubing that had been joined came unjoined at the same time, with the joining collar disappearing. Just not possible. Added an emitter to the Japanese maple in back.
–Picked up the Contax 50mm f1.4 lens at UPS. In addition to having lots of dings, it flared in my desk light test. Tossed.
–Picked up the Leica SL2-S at UPS. Seems fine, though took a while to set it up (same as SL2, but my memory is painfully short). Hard to believe I talked myself into a downgrade from 45 MP to 24 MP just to get some high ISO improvement. Will test tonight against SL2. Maybe it’ll blow my socks off. [edit] Well, it does take a nice picture. Minimal testing so far, but (1) noise at ISO 6400 might be comparable to SL2 at 3200; (2) colors seem rich and saturated; (3) best of all: white balance is perfect as pics come into Lightroom–I wasn’t remotely tempted to change it, unlike the SL2 where night shots come in red and really have to be tweaked. Promising. [edit 2] I discovered the “defringe” control panel in Lightroom. I haven’t quite figured out how to reliably do it manually. But when it works, it’s magic.
–Picked up replacement ebony grip extension for Canon R5. It fits, but didn’t include a screw, and the one on the previous extension is too short to work. Kee-rap! Might just ask the Chinese seller what to buy.
–Super hot again.
–Went to UPS to mail a package to Janet Cantelon and to Yellow Jersey, returning a pump head.
–Lunch at Subway.
–Back to UPS to pick up a proper Silca pump head.
–Bel Air for desert.
–Grace’s Insta-Pot dinner didn’t work out, so I made pizza.
–Hot again.
–Went to New York bagels for…..bagels.
–Stopped at UPS for syringe, Kroil, and Silca pump heads. Only one pump head was correct (small brass, he only had one); the other was large aluminum with lever (that didn’t work). Will be returning the aluminum one.
–Went to add water to fountain and abutilon, noticed a leak at the sprinkler control valve–beyond my fixing. Called and left a message for HD lawn, who replaced the valve 360 days ago. He hasn’t called back yet.
–Walked to Bel Air for potato salad and corn.
–Took a shave and shower. Worst ever: made a toe bleed while trimming toenails, got the worst nick of my shaving career, for no obvious reason, using a Charcoal Goods Level 2. It took several applications of stypticbar to stop the bleeding.
–Turkey burgers, corn, Thao Ranch tomatoes, potato/egg salad for dinner.
–Hot hot hot.
–Put gas in the Honda at the cheap Arco on Sunrise.
–Went to the Sunrise farmers market for mandarins and tomatoes.
–Played with cameras and lenses a bit. The SL continues to surprise in terms of how well it stacks up against the SL2. And it looks like the Voigtlander 50/1.2 Nokton will be the go-to lens for a while. Several Helios coming, plus I just ordered the legendary Contax 50mm/f1.4. Really hoping it doesn’t flare at night.
–Searched for saw some nice images from the SL2-S, so I bought one from Hong Kong. High ISO and IBIS are hard to resist, AND I’m hopeful that both wheels can be programmed (as on the SL2). It would be a great bonus if IBIS could be set to “always on,” but that’s unlikely.
–Another hot day. Watered plants and the dying tree in the side yard.
–Tested all my lenses for flare in the bedroom, by turning the desk light toward me and taking photos of the clock radio. Old ones all flare, even if multi-coated (Rokinon, Summicron, Biotar, Pancolar). Newer ones do not (Voigtlander, Zeiss 35 and 85, Hexanon 135). The 85 and 135 may be good because of their long focal length; I don’t know. What a revolting development. In a test between Voigtlander 50 and Zeiss 35, the V nosed out the Z. As I recall, though, the V gets weird at night with big hazy halos around the lights. We’ll test again. Now that I have all these daytime (only) bokeh lenses, I’d like something sharp and reliable for day AND night.
–Used some rodico to stop a rattle (I hope) where brake cable goes into main tube on the InnerLight.
–Watered dying tree in side yard and the abutilon.
–Picked up the second Rokinon 55/1.2 at UPS> It’s in beautiful condition, but I wasn’t blown away by a couple shots of the cottage cheese container at f1.2. We’ll see. [edit] Compared Rikenon to Biotar, and set the Rikenon same as Biotar: f2.0. Huge difference. Rikenon was gorgeous, with maybe a tiny edge over the biotar. Keeper. [edit] It’s always something. Took a night shot, discovered the Rokinon has bad orange flare. It changes shape a lot as I move the camera around, is minimal when pointing directly at a light, but seems always to be there. I can’t imagine what causes it, much less how to get rid of it. I vaguely recall seeing something similar on the Summisomething 35 that I tossed. Really annoying.
–Ball bearings came. In a mind-boggling session of skill and competence, I restored the aperture rings on two D-Lux 7’s. Neither would start up afterward. I have them both charging and hope that’s the only issue. [edit] After charging, they work.
–Took Grace shopping at Bel Air.
–Tried the Zeiss Pancolar 50/1.4 once more. Officially nominating it as the worst lens ever. Great ergonomics, glass is crystal clear, but it produces the haziest low-contrast images I’ve ever seen. I don’t even know how it’s possible. You can see it while trying to focus, like someone put hair spray on the front lens. So much for radioactive.
–Ran through the cameras again. Decided to keep (for now) the Q2 Hodinkee, SL, C-Lux and Canon R5. Q2 Hodinkee is markedly improved with one of these little Leica stickers from Etsy–as was the Reporter.
–Took a 12-mile bike ride on the ARP. Breezy and nice.
–Lunch at McDonald’s.
–Destroyed another lens last night: the Rokinon 55/1.2. Pictures were bizarre, so I took off the mount and found that the rear lens group was loose. Tightened it. Couldn’t get it back together intact, as there is a complex (to me) mechanism with spring to open and close the aperture. Ordered another. I really have to start taking pictures if I’m going to be disassembling a lens. There are 2 (TWO) C-Luxes sitting in a drawer waiting for ball bearings. 50-50 whether I can get them back together so they work.
–Kenny’s vaguely jade-like succulent is not looking good, dropping lots of buds (or whatever they’re called. I guess I’ll ask him about it. My guess is it needs much more light and/or less water.
–Used that tiny little Presta chuck on the InnerLight this morning and it worked beautifully. So I looked it up via Google image search, found it’s likely a Silca (though unmarked), and ordered about six of them from various sources. Like other Silca stuff, there’s a newer version (aluminum, not brass), and the vintage ones are a tough find.
–Picked up a couple of lens adapters at UPS. Took a couple of pics with the Rikenon. Looks like a keeper.
–Stopped at Bel Air for turkey burgers, milk, corn.
–Took a shower and shave.
–Barbecue for dinner. Good stuff.
–Put the last nail in the coffin for the Leica SL: took a picture of the cottage cheese container in back at 1/10 second with the Contax 85 lens; total blur from shaking. A second picture of the rain cricket was great, so it wasn’t just some global thing with the lens. Sometimes I shake, sometimes I don’t. Was tempted for a moment to re-consider the SL2-S, which does have IBIS, but quickly realized that’s just dropping from 45 MP to 24, without gaining any of the great design features of the SL. Crap. Between SL2 and Canon R5—who knows? I’ll know more after the Canon grip extenders come in. Tough choice: same resolution, both cameras SEEM to be working the way I like, etc.
–Cooler today, cloudy, some breeze.
–Went to the Folsom farmers market for cherry tomatoes, melon, squash.
–Made tomato compote in the Insta-Pot. Yum!
–Went to Panera for lunch. Not bad.
–Got a hose and nozzle for the side yard at Home Depot. It’s a grow/shrink hose, “as seen on TV.” Trying to keep the big tree out there alive. May already be too late.
–Another really hot day.
–Picked up Petri lens at UPS; kinda crappy, tossed.
–Picked up Rikenon 50/1.2 lens UPS. Super nice, can’t wait to get adapter and try it out.
–Went to Bel Air and got ice cream, cream cheese, and FOUR BOXES OF ZONE PERFECT BARS. Thought they had stopped making those. Will look into it again.
–Red Baron pizza for dinner while watching Biden’s press conference. His performance was 180 degrees from the debate. Don’t know which was the real Biden.
–Took the BMW to Hooverville Orchards for jam, sourdough bread, marionberry pie.
–Picked up my Rolex 1680 at Ivanov’s Watch Repair. They couldn’t fix it.
–Picked up a couple of esoteric (Petri) lens adapters at UPS. Going to be interesting getting that lens on a camera when it comes in.
–Went through my Tekna regulators. The exhaust port cover (plastic? nylon?) on one of the brass models just separated from its threads when I picked it up. This was one of the NOS ones, so it’s not like Teknas were so popular and used so much that they sat in the sun for hours and deteriorated. More like they were built with untested and/or cheap materials. Black nylon bodies crack a lot, needle seats turn to goo, plastic rings that hold hose to reg break, etc. Whereas most other regulators I worked with seemed like they’d go forever with a new poppet seat.
–Took Grace to Smart & Final for fairly major shopping.
–Took the pool chlorine test strips over to Kenny and showed him how to use them. His fountain is seriously over-chlorinated.
–Played with cameras. The SL2 seemed to randomly go wacky again, so I reset everything and set it up. It seems okay, but I’m not totally confident. So I went back to the Canon R5. I noted that (a) image stabilization is always on, whether it recognizes the lens or not; (b) the shutter speed and ISO dials I set up always work; (c) exposure simulation works and (after a shutter half-press) so does the exposure meter; (d) the viewfinder has higher magnification and SEEMS clearer–though that could just be daytime and/or magnification. So I’ll drop the SL2 for now, after ordering three adapters for new (old) lenses for it. I guess I’ll try the lenses on the SL2, and if they’re good, get adapters for the Canon. I really like the look and feel of the SL2, but the Canon’s consistency and viewfinder are big deals to me. Finally: I put the ebony grip extension on the R5 that I got from China a while back, and it is ludicrously wrong–not just slightly off. I wrote the seller, and I sincerely hope he sent the wrong base and will swap it out.
–Still hot; a little Delta breeze came up though.
–Dropped Grace off at KP Market while I picked up a dozen bagels at New York Bagel Cfe.
–Went to Bel Air for pine nuts, lunch cheese, cream. They are dead out of the store brand cream cheese. Seems ominous.
–Made pesto. Pretty much destroyed my favorite wooden spoon in the blender.
–Took a shower and shave.
–Hot again. Cut off some dead branches from the tree in our side yard. More to go. Might have to increase its water supply.
–Some years later, i finally figured out why some photos seem to suffer from camera shake while others don’t. Turns out the SL2’s IBIS only works when it “knows” the lens. The Summicron 50 adapter has contacts, so the camera recognizes it. None of my other adapted lenses is recognized by the camera. It took some setting up, but I eventually programmed a button to bring up “Lens Profiles.” All you have to do (all you can do) is tell the camera the lens focal length, then IBIS works. Unbelievable. Now I have to re-evaluate all my uncoded lenses. I don’t think this will make the Zeiss 35 (say) a compelling proposition, but at least it will get a fair shake (heh heh).
–Hottest day yet.
–Went to the Sunrise farmers market for tomatoes, squash, basil; Bel Air for milk, pizza, dessert.
–Put gas in the BMW and turned off (with difficulty) the “oil service” warning.
–The red elastomer inserts came in for the Silca push-on pump heads. Not at all clear to me that they’re any more flexible than or superior to the original black rubber ones. We’ll see.
–Motor City pizza for dinner.
–Spent a long time making pizza for the annual DV party at the clubhouse. Spent less time at the party than making pizza: I had totally forgotten how bad the acoustics are there. It’s a madhouse–even people who can ehar had trouble hearing.
–Konica 135 lens came in. Looks good, works fine.
–Tekna regulator came in, along with a whole bunch of other SCUBA stuff that I tossed. The regulator (nylon) looked new, but was really hard-breathing; the needle seat had gone soft as they do. BUT I tried a couple other needles I had (not sure if they were original or ones I made) and one of them worked great. Got three each nice brass and nice nylon Tekna regs. Time to start selling.
–Nice grip extension for the Canon came in, now that I’ve given up on it and boxed it. Did another test last night trying to revive the SL, but it just can’t compete with the SL2–now that I finally have it customized (in a way that simply can’t be replicated on the SL). Frustrating to have the exact same dials on the SL and yet be completely unable to get one of them to do ANYTHING. (I guess it does something in auto-focus mode, which I don’t use.)
–Super hot today. At one point the AC couldn’t keep up: set at 78, the temp was 81.
–Looked at Leica SL2-Ss; found a mint one and a new one. Did considerable reading up on them: just don’t see it. The down side of the SL2 (high ISO noise) is easily corrected, especially with the newer AI denoise stuff. The downside of the SL2-S (24 megapixels vs. 47) cannot really be overcome. I took photos of Kenny’s cottage cheese container in back with SL and SL2, using the auto-focus 23mm lens. Pretty stark differences in sharpness. [FWIW, I took the same photo with the Q2 Reporter: stunning results. That lens is incredible.]
–Red Baron for dinner.
–Brought the Sony A7R IV out and (more or less) set it up after reading about then buying a Petri lens. The camera is just too well supported to not use.
Hot hot hot.
–Put three Silca pumps together. They are very, very nice.
–Picked up the compass-like lens ring tool at UPS. Piece of crap. Ground it down for 15 minutes, it still wouldn’t fit the Biotar. Tossed it.
–Also picked up a gaffed deck of cards. Nicely done, but I don’t really see myself using it without hours of practice.
–Went to Bel Air for cream corn, mandarins.
–Barbecued chicken burgers for dinner at 106 degrees. It’s miserable alright.
–Happy 77 to me!
–Kenny got his fountain filter replaced; no more leaks. The guy from Leslie’s Pools doing the install gave Kenny some incredible BS about how too much chlorine would ravage his system: “It has cyanuric acid in it. I put some in my toilet and it just dissolved all the metal.” Right. I ordered some pool test strips so we can check Kenny’s chlorine AND cyanuric acid levels.
–Played with pumps.
–Went to Il Forno Classico at the Town Centre for birthday dinner. I had sea bass on “potato salad.” It was great.
–Played with pumps a little. Discovered the big reversible chuck is a screw-on. Not quite the quick wonder-tool I had thought.