Letter from Leica

..otherwise known as "My priceless little Red Dot".

Once in a while you can spoil yourself rotten. Today, I received a letter bearing a Milton Keynes postmark on it, and yes, for those 'in the know', its where the headquarters of Leica UK is located. You see, a few weeks back, I picked up my 50mm Summicron lens from inside my camera bag and ..eh..I did not recognise this piece of lens, it was like a familiar friend had suddenly become unfamiliar, and for the life me, I just cannot see what has changed but change there was.

I couldn't put my finger on it! Literally speaking! Got it!

The little raised plastic red dot on the lens barrel was missing! Shock horrors! Its a Summicron first and a Leica M lens second, or was it the other way round. How can this be. The Red Dot is a signature piece, just like the flying lady in front of Rolls Royces, or the Three Pointed Star in a Merc. Its the the little halved lime you squeeze into a bowl of Sarawkian Laksa. Its the icing on the cake..ok enough, you get what I mean. Without it would mean, utter shame and a let down. A Leica lens would merely be 'another' branded lens.

I searched every crevice and fold deep in my bags, tipped everything out, (found other things unmentionable though) and basically had a clear out but nada. No little red dot. I was depressed for days. My lens was naked like a turtle without its shell.

Beware : Naked Summicron

Then I read in some online forum that if I wrote nicely to Leica AG, they would gladly send me a little red dot replacement. I took the chance of shooting an email off from their website a two days ago, telling them how much I missed my dot. promptly forgetting the whole episode once the send button struck. How silly I told myself. Grow up. A lens is a lens with or without the red dot.

Now those of you that use M or R lenses would understand. Its just not the about the plastic raised dot. Its about execution and finesse. Ah..these German designers long ago were clever engineers. You see, there is a purpose to the little plastic hump on the barrel, as any one who has changed lenses in near darkness or in candle light would testify. Leica's Ms are known for their compact dimensions, solid build, quiet stealth shutters with no mirror slap, and its brilliant fast lenses. All Leica lenses are designed to be shot wide open, as wide as F1.0 with maximum resolution and little flare.

My letter from Leica

The red pimple acts as a guide for your thumb to align the lens to the red release button on the body. (Before any Canon user would jump in now, yes, Canon EF lenses also have a tiny red dots on their lenses, but somehow, I never noticed it, maybe because its smaller, and the barrels are larger, and I have a zoom lens so I hardly change lenses. I can't vouch for Nikon and other makes, contributions please?)




Today, my red dot arrived and my lens is happy, and so am I.

No more nakedness

On the Leica M, all it takes is a one handed, slight (1 cm perhaps, 1/16th ) turn to secure the lens, unlike most makes which make take a 1/4 turn). In fast changing low light situations, this can be a God send in camera handling. Most cameras would require a separate finger to depress the release button and another hand to twist off, and a third hand to hold the camera body steady. I don't have three hands. With my left hand holding the body, my right hand thumb can depress the release button whilst grabbing and twisting the lens off in one swift action. Its really quick.

Micro FourThirds : A New Standard in camera design

Once in a while, a new camera announcement catches my eye to make it worthy of a mention here. Photokina 2008 is around the corner, and manufacturers are releasing 'teasers' to photography websites and interested parties including the tech press of their latest and greatest. Usually, new releases are merely upgrades of what is existing,..higher pixel count, new functions, new colour schemes, throw in some slightly better performance and a few new lenses. Like cars, a brand new model seldom comes around, and most new models are just improved and face-lifted old ones.

However, recently, Panasonic announced their joint venture with Olympus to produce and commit to a 'new' standard of camera design, based around the FourThirds sensor which currently drives their DSLRs like the Lumix L10, Olympus E3, E420 and E520, and also the Leica Digilux 3.

Lumix announced the released of their new G1 digital camera with a FourThirds sensor and interchangeable lens. So what's fancy about this, you may ask.

Firstly, it is NOT a DSLR in terms. From the outside it looks like a compact DSLR. It shares the same size sensor as their FourThird counterparts, and has 12.1 MPs and is the first Electronic Viewfinder interchangeable lens digital camera. Unlike a DSLR, it does not have a viewfinder prism and therefore, does not have a mirror assembly unit between the lens and the sensor plane. This shaves a cool 20mm of the thickness of the body unit, and hence, smaller camera, voila!

A smaller camera means smaller lenses, and a lighter and smaller system, without sacrificing DSLR-like quality of a large sensor.

Regular FourThirds lenses can also be used on the G1 with an adaptor. For more information, visit the Panasonic website here. Best of all, it also comes in Red and Blue. Now that is cool..



Photos courtesy : http://www.lesnumeriques.com

MUSEO is released

I am pleased to announce the release of MUSEO, published by explorenation.net, and represents my first fine art photography book comprising 94 photographs in black & white. I have been working on and off on this series over the last 7 to 8 years, and since discovering blurb.com, a self-design, print-on-demand online bookmaking website earlier this year, I decided to give it a try.

The entire process is rather straightforward, with little or no experience needed in layout and design. There are many templates available in the design programme which is downloaded onto your computer. One thing to bear in mind, is that you will need a fairly fast computer with plenty of working memory as it tends to get sluggish as you add on the images to the pages.

The final product took longer than expected to arrive but I understand that blurb uses several printing presses in various parts of the world and I think MUSEO was printed in Switzerland, so it may be delayed by other circumstances.

I am well pleased with the final outcome, and the paper stock is particularly good. Please visit the sidebar link to view sample pages or to order. So impressed with the entire design and print process, I have designed a client's recent wedding album with blurb.com and I can't wait for that to arrive.