I thought the Leica 16-18-21mm Wide Angle Tri-Elmar (WATE) was going to my landscape lens.  However, I didn't know how much fun a wide angle lens can be in a close quarter, capturing scenes that I never imagined before.  What a fun lens!

A father's day present that came early!  28'Cron has served as my wide angle lens for a while now.  While I'm able to make it work most of the time, I always had a wandering eye for something wider.  I've been hawking over the online forums and eBay for the 21'SEM and the WATE for a while now.  Finally, last week I was able to pick up a great condition WATE for a very reasonable price, I'm so happy my patience paid off.  My wife agreed with the purchase and said it'll be my father's day present :P

Here's a snapshot of my son while I tested the lens out:

The "Leica Q", just released yesterday, seems to have a lot of people excited.  It checked a lot of must-want boxes that people have talked endlessly for: full-frame, slimmer body than the M, better ISO performance, EVF, and very good autofocus.  Wait, what?  AUTOFOCUS?!  When did that become a big thing for Leica shooters?

The Q looks to be an effort for Leica to appeal to non-RF shooters who might come from DSLR or other Mirrorless offerings, but it doesn't interest me much.  To be honest, I was tempted at first, too.  I immediately thought that this would be a great backup to my M9 when the lights are low, but then I realized the flaw in that line of thinking... it will only be an second option for me.  What I wanted was a camera that's good enough to replace the M9 to be my first option.

Since I shot exclusively with the 28'Cron on Sunday in the San Diego County Fair, I thought about how it would have been if I had the Q instead?  I think it would have been just fine.  For the shots of my son on the rides, I would have relied on the autofocus and it probably would have gotten me more shots than I did with the RF-and-wait method.  It could also miss a few, like the shot above.  It wasn't mission critical for me to get every shot in the right focus, but I got enough keepers to make me and my family happy, and most importantly, I thoroughly enjoyed the photo-taking process because I was 100% involved.  If I had shot with the Q instead, I feel my own efforts or involvement would be greatly reduced to the level of using it as a point-and-shoot.  Obviously, that's not where I want to be.

I know one can turn off all the auto-ness and shoot manual, but focus-by-wire with focus-peaking and live view zoom doesn't appeal to me.  So... for now, I'll keep waiting.  I'll wait for the right M9 replacement, while enjoy every minute with the M9.

While we were down in San Diego for a birthday party, we stayed over night and went to the San Diego County Fair at the Del Mar Fairground the next day.  It's been a while since we've taken my son to a similar setting because he has been fairly skittish about going on the rides.  Well, it seems he has grown up a bit this time.  He was much more willing to get on the faster rides and overcome his fears.  I was so proud.

The fair had a reserved section that contained rides for younger kids and that was perfect for Aidan.  As for me, my wife and I just indulged in some not-so-healthy food :-)  It seemed the most healthy food there was fish tacos and it gets much worse from there, fried-everything.  I had my fill of fried zucchinis and fish tacos, which was what I missed about the Del Mar Fair.

For the full set of images, please check it out in my personal gallery [HERE].