I haven't been shooting very much lately, and when I do, I tend to stick with just a couple of lenses.  The 35'Lux, which I've long lusted after and acquired last year, has been sitting in the cabinet feeling lonely.  Also, the 28'Cron hasn't been used ever since I got the WATE.  I'm starting to think that maybe it's time to pare down a couple of lenses and just stick with what I use.  But, then I mounted the 35'Lux and caught this shot of my son, now throwing all those thoughts out the window.  It's my own fault for not using those lenses, so I should get to it!

My M9 just received a CLA (clean, lube, and adjustment) from Steve's Camera in Culver City.  This is the first time I've sent it in for a service of any kind, so it's been quite trouble-free.  The only reason I did drop it off was because I was noticing some rangefinder alignment problems at infinity and I had some close focus problem with the 35'Lux.  Steve was able to perform the CLA in just a few days and now all's well.  Lately, I've been lagging photographically, so I hope this can give me a boost to go out and shoot something this weekend.

Saw an interesting discussion in a photography forum tonight.... a guy was describing how he has an active child and he want a camera that has killer autofocus that can keep up with his son.  Any modern DSLR camera would have been an easy answer, except they are rejected because he wanted something that is smaller so he can always carry it around and keep it handy.  So the conversation revolved around which mirrorless camera had the fastest autofocus and how people tried various cameras under various situations and various camera failed to nail focus.  It got me thinking... who's taking the picture?

It seems the camera took a lot of blames for missing the focus, so the logical next step is to find a better camera that won't fail.  I think differently... I think they are relying too much on the camera to take the photo, and since we don't yet have artificial intelligence running in our cameras, they are bound to fail sometimes.  They don't know exactly who you want in focus, what part of their body you want in focus and not in focus, and they're not tracking the subject you want to anticipate their movements.  This is exactly what I learned after shooting with a manual focus camera like the M9 after a few months.  You learn to relax the depth of field, you learn to move the camera with the moving subject, and you learn to anticipate their movement forward and backward with your focus so you can nail the shot even as they run toward you.

Of course, I don't nail the shot 100% of the time.  However, when I fail to nail the focus, I knew it was my fault.  No need to get another camera, I just need to practice more, or try a few extra exposures to be sure.  Now looking back, I've been shooting the M9 for almost 3 years and the camera itself is over 5 years old, and to me, it's just as awesome of a camera as it was when I got it.

I heard a great quote by Craig Semetko in a Leica ad: 
"For me, the Leica M is the path of least resistance between what I see on the street and a final print in my hand."


Amen.

Still jet-lagged, all three of us woke up early this morning while it was still dark.  My wife suggested that we go somewhere to watch the sunrise.  She found a place near us, Signal Hill in Long Beach.  We barely got there in time and I was able to catch a few shots of the different palettes.

We spent the weekend in Silver Saddle Ranch, in California City, which is about 2.5 hours drive away from Los Angeles.  It's a man-made oasis in the middle of the desert, lots of good'ol outdoor fun.  We get to spend the weekend there for free, in exchange for listening to an hour long investment opportunity pitch.  Even though the place is probably 30 years old, it's still kept in pretty good shape, and very friendly staffs.

I brought only the 35'Lux with me because I actually wanted to shoot more film.  Since my light meter glassware was just recently approved for Google Glass, I was itching to apply it to some real film shooting to see how it'll work.  I will have to post the results in another post, since the film just got sent out to be developed today.

To see the full set, please click [HERE].

SoCal living... What to do when you're bored?  There's always the beach!  Today was a hot day... but we got bored hiding in air conditioned home all day, so we decided to head to the beach... at around 6pm!  We still got a good hour of sun and some fun chasing (or being chased by?) the waves.

The 35'Lux ASPH FLE is really a wonderful lens.  When I reviewed some of the shots at home on the retina screen, I'm just wow'd by its color and super sharpness.  The out of focus area is smooth when shooting wide open and really make things pop.  I also have the 35'Cron which I thought was enough for my needs, but I just can't seem to let this go.

For 4th of July, we went to a friend's house for BBQ.  At night, all the kids got some fireworks to play with.  I thought to myself, if only I had the Sony A7S...  Since I didn't, I tried to do what I can with the M9.  I set the ISO at 1250, and just let the fireworks provide the light for me.

We have this dangerously tall pine tree in our backyard.  I suspect it's been there for 40+ years, planted by the first owner of our house.  We enjoyed its look and shades, but it's starting to cause concerns.  Its roots are lifting the ground causing cracks in the brick planter walls and the block walls between us and our neighbor in the back.  Also, it's naturally leaning toward the house, so whenever there are strong winds, we're afraid that it will one day crash into the house.  Yesterday, a landscape company came and removed it for us.  One guy start off by trimming all the branches as he climbs higher and higher, then he finally start chopping the main trunk from the top in pieces.  Finally, they bring in the root grinder, a heavy machinery, to grind out the bottom trunk and roots about a foot into the ground.  Our yard looks bigger and brighter now, but I do miss the tree.

My wife brought this home today from Costco... We're hoping to find a good place for it in our backyard so it can thrive and grow to be the beautiful tree that we know it can.  The crimson leaves should also bring a nice variation to the almost all green trees we have

We went on a road trip for the kids' spring break, visiting the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico.  This time I had three cameras with me: the M9, the SL66, and Google Glass.  I was reserving the SL66 for visiting the White Sands National Monument, but we couldn't get there in time so it stayed unused.  The Glass was really just an experiment to see how comfortable I can get with it, and see what pictures I would take as results.

I think the lesson learned here is that the Glass is not a camera replacement.  While it was nice to have a camera at the ready all the time, it was unreliable in terms of the image quality and ease of framing.  I liked it as a wide-angle substitute that I don't have with the M9, but when I reviewed the shots I took with it, I didn't like most of them.  The caverns wasn't the best place for the M9 either... I cranked the ISO up to 1000, manually selected the shutters around 1/15 second, and was able to get a few acceptable photos.  However, no photos can do the stadium-sized halls and rooms any justice, you simply have to see it with your own eyes.  Below are a few shots from the caverns, and you can see the full set of our trip [HERE].