France 2024

 A few months ago I travelled to Europe for a little over three weeks. Two of those weeks were spent in France. I had always been ambivalent regarding visiting France. Everyone I spoke with who had visited ooh'd and ahh'd about their visits. For whatever reason, I refused to believe them. Finally relenting, I visited. Turns out everyone was right. France is fantastic!

In addition to Paris, my travels took me through the Loire Valley, Brittany and Normandy. Highlights of the trip, in addition to Paris itself, were the many cathedrals I toured, Bourges, Amboise, a wonderful night on Mont St. Michael, crepes and cider in Brittany, those famous beaches of Normandy - including a visit to the American Cemetery, Giverny and Monet's Gardens. Such a beautiful country. Regarding Paris, pretty much everything was amazing. I was especially captivated by the "cafe culture." So many open air cafes with seating spilling nearly onto the streets, filled with people sipping coffee, or something stronger, while watching other people and engrossed in animated  conversation with table mates. All very French. 

It was a memorable visit and I look forward to returning in the next year or so. Many more wineries to visit!

A few of my favorite images follows.   

The Eiffel Tower in nightly lights. Beautiful.

Le Pouce by César Baldaccini. This one about 12 feet tall!

An evening stroll in a wet Amboise.

Shot through a cab as we drove by. I had no feel for how large was the Arc de Triomphe.

The Cathedral in Bourges

Dott electric assist bike in Paris. Watch out for them. There are millions on the roads!

A colorful subway stop. So easy to get around Paris.

It's not called the City of Love for no reason.

I was told there is a famous painting in the Louvre. Never got close enough to confirm.

I found the statue quite dramatic. Not everyone felt the same.

Another "rainy alley in Paris" image.

Sketch artist near Sacre Couer.

Golden hour double rainbow over Mont St. Michael.

Simple and portable

That is what I ask of my camera kit. 

My photography journey began in the mid-1960s. It was at that time my dad felt I was old enough to not drop his beloved Canon kit and he showed me how to capture properly exposed and in-focus moments (I'm still leaning the framing and composition part of the equation!). It was easy then. Focus ring and aperture ring on a relatively small prime lens (a 35mm, a 50mm or a 105mm), shutter speed and ASA on the top of the camera. Load film, set ASA, focus (split ring, still my favorite in the SLR world), play around with aperture and/or shutter speed to match the ball to the needle, press the shutter release. Easy peasy. Afterwards I waited a few weeks for film development to review the images and learn how well I had listened to dad's patient instruction. Sixty years on I am still outside with cameras shooting up a storm. Thank you dad for teaching photography to me!   

While in college in the mid-1970s, my dad gifted me my first camera. It was the same camera (Canon FTb-QL) he used and that I had used, so I knew it well. Manual everything. Match ball metering. Prime lenses. Easy. A great kit that I still own and that still shoots a few rolls every year.

In the late 1980s I started buying zoom lenses, and packed away in the closet those "old fashioned" prime lenses. Much better to carry around a wide zoom, normal zoom and a tele zoom. More capability! Bigger and heavier, they must be better, right? And best of all, I look like the pros! 

In early 1990s the auto-everything SLRs were mature and ubiquitous. By then my Canon was long in the tooth but the new Canon bodies employed a different lens mount with no compatibility with my older FD/FL lenses. I had no reason to stay with Canon and Nikon's advertising was very persuasive. I bought an N90, a few zoom lenses and a bigger camera bag. 

In the late 2000s I moved to Japan for a few years. By then, in addition to having the N90, I had been gifted a Nikon D100 (with the battery grip, just like the pros!). I had also added more lenses, flashes, cables, wires and my bag was larger and heavier than ever. 

It was on one of my first weekend photo walk-abouts in the Tokyo metropolitan area that I realized I had too much gear. That very next weekend I packed away the Nikon gear and bought a Canon PowerShot G10 15MP digital point-and-shoot. For three years I traveled all over Japan and Asia with that camera and it opened up a whole new world for me. And it continued to perform well for many years after I returned to the States. Still have it, still works well (traveled with me to Scotland earlier this year). Simple and portable. A theme that has resonated with me ever since.

In the waning months of 2019 I began looking at the current offerings of the camera industry. Gone was film, gone were the SLRs, and the DSLRs were being replaced by mirrorless cameras. No reflex mirrors flopping up and down with each image. Less moving parts, less to go wrong (although to be honest in my decades shooting SLRs I had never had a mirror or shutter failure). What's not to like about mirrorless cameras? They are computers with lenses. They even get software upgrades. Being computers, their software has a setting for every scenario a photographer would ever, in multiple lifetimes, come across. To support that increased functionality, manufacturers covered the cameras in customizable buttons, knobs and dials. Of course that required every possible feature in these auto-everything wonders to be accessible via ever expanding menu schemas. More features, more menu headings, and sub-menus and sub-sub menus. As one example, per Google, the full operating manual for the Nikon Z8 is 948 pages. The simplified User Guide is 239 pages. I'm not picking on Nikon. The Z8 is an amazing, pro-level camera deserving of all the buzz it receives in the camera media. And I am sure Canon's and Sony's manuals are just as long. 

However, the standard mirrorless camera of today is just too complicated for me. 

Don't misunderstand. I'm plenty smart enough to figure them out. I just don't want to have to figure them out. I want to feel the same joy, to experience the same simplicity of photography I felt back in the 1960s and 1970s. I'd like to look at the camera and know its settings. Aperture, shutter speed and ASA (I mean, ISO). While there are exceptions, that just isn't possible for the vast majority of mirrorless cameras on the market. 

To be fair, these are modern marvels. The image quality of a fairly straight forward sub-$1,000-ish digital mirrorless camera is superb. Better than ever in the history of photography. And the expensive end of each company's sensor / body offerings are even better, with even more features! As new models come to market the bar is raised even further. More resolution, faster processing, better video specs. Amazing cameras. But for me, it's too much. I feel less like I am taking a picture with a camera and more like I am taking a picture with a computer, or with an exceptionally large iPhone Pro Max. 

I feel no joy. 

Instead,

I want simple. 

I want portable. 

And that theme led me to the Fuji X100 series, then to the Fuji X-Pro series and finally to the Leica M series. 

About the Fujis I will state only that they are, like all mirrorless systems, superb cameras with an amazing lineup of lenses supporting them. Although my X-Pro3 was sold off to help fund a used Leica M10R, the X100V remains in my dry box. Yes, it's complicated. It is a modern mirrorless with buttons and dials. Yes, the menu system requires study, and every time I pick it up I have to refamiliarize myself with the operating system. But the optical portion of the hybrid viewfinder is a joy to look through. Clean and unobtrusive. Look through one, shoot with it for a day and you'll understand the buzz behind those cameras. 

It was the optical viewfinder of the X100/X-Pro that led me to buy a used Leica M10R. Optical viewfinder, manual rangefinder focusing, manual aperture ("Aperture priority"), prime lenses which don't talk to the camera body, a solid chunk of hand formed metal (there is no doubt you are holding a finely crafted piece of machinery), it is an amazingly versatile and rugged camera. And it is my go-to, daily carry. Every time I walk out of my house it is with me. In the past two and a half years, I've hauled it through Iceland, Scotland, France, Central Europe, London, several U.S. states and multiple National Parks. Snow, ice, rain, wind, dust. The camera just keeps on taking pictures. To be clear, it has been well used, but not abused. I protect it best I can and make sure it is clean and dry before tucking it in for the evening.

Regarding simplicity, while I have not completed any formal studies on this topic, based on having perused menu systems of a variety of camera systems, it seems to me none are simpler than Leica's. In fact, fully 99% of the time I enter the menu system it is to format an SD card or to select the correct lens upon mounting it to the body. I can look at the camera, see the ISO, shutter speed, aperture and the distance where the lens is focused. I'm ready to shoot. Simple.  

As for portability, when carried across body and under a jacket, no one knows I have a camera. Although stealthy carry may not be a driver for most folks, carrying around a lot of weight often is. My standard travel kit is the camera body and three small prime lenses - a 28mm f/2, a 50mm f/1.5 and a 90mm f/2.8.  The 28 is usually on the camera while the 50 and the 90 are carried in jacket pockets. A spare battery in my pants pocket along with a spare SD card and I am good to go. For daily walks locally, a 35mm f/2.8 is mounted and I'm out the door. Although I have many, I rarely use a camera bag these days. 

I love my M10R. However, the M system is not perfect. Far from it. The longest, native mount, rangefinder coupled focal length available is 135mm. I own one and it can be a challenge to focus. Through the optical view finder the 135mm focus box is quite small. When using that lens I usually attach the Leica Visoflex to the coupled hot shoe and look through it to focus and compose. Through the Visoflex I see a standard mirrorless electronic viewfinder. It is not the optical viewfinder, manual rangefinder experience I have come to love. Bottom line is the only way I can shoot longer than 135mm is to adapt a third party lens onto the M10R and shoot through the Visoflex. I'm not willing to do that and those images don't get made. Fortunately, with the 40MP sensor I can crop into a scene and still have resolution for a nice final image. For those cases, my 90mm and more rarely, my 135mm, work well.

If you want zoom lenses, the Leica M system is not for you. There are no zoom lenses available for the system. Leica does produce two lenses which each enable three different focal lengths. But that system is like three prime lenses housed in one lens body. They are not traditional zoom lenses. And they are big, heavy, f/4, and expensive. I am very happy shooting small, fast prime lenses. Zooms are convenient but I can't think of a scene I missed by not having a zoom. And the more I shoot primes, the more awkward I feel when I shoot zooms. 

Battery life is too short. However, that is overcome through the purchase of additional batteries. On a daily basis I  manage power such that I don't need to change batteries in dicey situations and I have never missed an image due to a dead battery. Regarding those additional batteries, there are no third party manufacturers of Leica M systems batteries. All of mine are Leica branded and all are quite expensive at $200 each!  

Finally, speaking of "expensive," it is no secret that Leica systems are very expensive. As of this post, through B&H, the cost of a new Leica M11 is more than the cost of a new Nikon Z8 body AND a new Nikon Z9 body together! Either of those camera bodies have so many more features and capabilities to offer and much more bang for the buck. However, neither of those cameras are simpler to use and both are far less portable than the M10R. 

Building out a camera kit gear involves tradeoffs in cost, features, capabilities, simplicity and portability. Every photographer needs to work through which combination of tradeoffs are most important to them. For me, at this point in my life, simplicity and portability are paramount. 

Cheers all!

52Frames and 2024

 We're beginning the last full week in 2024 and that completes my second consecutive year as a "52Framer." See my post from March 2023 regarding what 52Frames is and why I signed on to participate. In short, over the past two years I've posted an image to the site every week. Well, almost every week. This past March just after returning from Iceland I woke at 0230 on a Monday morning realizing I had not posted, by Sunday's 2359 due date, the previous week's (Week 11) image whose prompt was, "Roads." The unfortunate thing was that I had the image ready to go. It was an image I shot on our last full day in Iceland in nearly white out conditions. I added it to the comments section of that next week's post so I felt better about myself. However, the "52Framer" counter paused at Week 11 and started over for week 12. All good. That image below.

Other than that one glitch I'm 103 for 104 weeks so far. Not bad. The prime directive is to upload an image every week. While there is a topical prompt for each week's images, more important is to upload. Of course the kicker is that the image must be shot in that week. No rummaging through the back catalog for your amazing shots. Go out with the camera each and every week and take pictures. No issues with me, I love getting out and about in my little town, or the surrounds, for a bit of Jim and camera time. But, and I have to be honest, a number of this year's submissions were phoned in. At least I felt they were phoned in. It has been a busy year for me and I just wasn't feeling it for a lot of the prompts. Or, by the time I got around to shooting the prompt it was too late and I needed something to upload. Thank you iPhone for always being with me such that I have a supply of ready-to-upload images of stuff-I-see. It may sound like I'm beating myself up on this issue but I'm really not. I'm happy with 90% of the images I've uploaded over the past two years and that is all I ask of myself. If I'm able to hit the prompt as well, that's icing on the cake.

Going into 2025 my goal is to continue uploading every week. I will try to meet the literal intent, or at lease the general spirit, of each week's prompt, but if not, so be it. There are no 52Frames police. There is however a very large and supportive international community of extremely talented and creative photographers ready to provide feedback (if asked). I am very grateful for those who, in 2023/24, took the time to discuss, in one or two short sentences, their thoughts on my images. Their comments were always helpful for me. Talented and creative aside, I review images for each week's prompts and there are more than a few which appear to me to have been phoned in as well. Gotta' say, I am happy to see those, as it helps me realize I am not alone in living a busy, hectic life.

52Frames has improved my photography. For those weeks when I buckle down and really work the prompt, I learn about myself, my camera and my photography. That is the reason I keep participating. 

See the link, https://52frames.com/, for more information about this large international photography community. In the mean time, here are a few of my favorites from 2024.

Week 1 - Self Portrait

Week 5 - Shot from below

Week 7 - Unexplored

Week 10 - Symmetrical composition

Week 18 - Something I made

Week 26 - Negative space

Week 35 - Rule of thirds

Week 40 - A quiet moment

Week 47 - High key

Week 51 - Black and white minimalism

  

Pensacola, Florida

My mother was born and raised in Pensacola, Florida, my father in Kimball, Nebraska. They met and married in Pensacola in the early 1950s when dad was going through the Navy's flight training program. Twenty-eight years later they retired back to Pensacola along with my two younger sister and me. I had no idea in the late 1970s, when I left Pensacola, that I would also retire there. At least for a few years. Turned out to be a good move. 

Pensacola is (arguably) recognized as the first settlement by Europeans in what is now known as the United States. St. Augustine, Florida is the oldest, continuous settlement, however, Pensacola was, arguably, the first. It is also known as the City of Five Flags having existed under the rule of five different entities - Spain, France, England, the Confederacy (for about a year of the Civil War), and the United States. It is a wonderful city in the panhandle of northwest Florida. Home to the Navy's Blue Angels, all of the Navy's (and USMC's and USCG's) basic flight training, and of course the sugar white sands of Pensacola Beach. 

During the six years I lived there in retirement I enjoyed frequent photowalks along the Gulf of Mexico and in / around the downtown area. Below are a few of my favorite images.

 

Road warrior work flow

The past two years have involved quite a lot of travel and photography is a big part of those trips. The camera kit questions have been resolved and I feel good about the gear with which I travel. One body, three lenses, a few spare batteries and SD cards and I am good to go. However, until recently, that same satisfaction didn't exist with regard to the "processing workflow" portion of my trips. 

Early on I brought along my 12" MacBook, mainly for email but also for photo editing. Unfortunately, that computer was new in 2017 and in 2024 it is not up to the demands associated with moving hundreds of gigs of image files. Nor is its processor able to keep up with the computational needs of modern LR/PS releases. Plus, in addition to the laptop, I brought along an 11" iPad Pro Gen 4 purchased just after release in 2020. It is that platform on which I gamed, interacted with social media and surfed the internet. Increasingly it became apparent I needed to move photo editing and file management from the MacBook to the iPad Pro. After a few weeks of internet research (thank you YouTube!) I began experimenting with a few of the various ideas I came across. Trips to Olympic National Park and Iceland further informed my thinking and I coalesced around a process that seemed to fit my needs. Two follow-on trips, a two-week self-drive around Scotland and most recently, a three-week drive through Europe, further honed the process to the point where I am very satisfied. 

The kit I put together includes;

- Camera SD cards - although I have several makers, my go-to for the Leica M10R are SanDisk's Ultra or Extreme Pro in 32GB. I usually bring along at least 20 SD cards. More if I'm on a longer trip. In the big picture (e.g. in comparison to the cost of your camera / lens system) SD cards are inexpensive and easy to carry...don't fret the cost, buy more cards! Even with the 50MB files produced by the M10R's 40MP, a 32GB SD holds over 600 images. In my experience that is more than enough for me on a daily basis. The M system is slow and methodical and most definitely not a "spray and pray" platform.  

- UHS II capable SD card reader - Sony MRW-S1. This has worked for me perfectly for a few years. My only comment is that it is very small. I worry about losing it in my bag and often think about painting it bright yellow and attaching a lanyard. 

- USB hub - Anker 332 5-in-1 USB C + A. No complaints, no worries, works every time. Larger than the Sony kit above but not by much and it is very portable.

- External storage media - I keep four drives. SanDisk's Extreme Portable SSDs in 1TB (x2) and 2TB (x2). The two 1TB drives go on the trip with me and are used for daily backups. Prior to the trip I add an empty folder to those two drives that matches the file structure of my iCloud master backup. The two 2TB drives remain at home for use after the trip. More on them later.

- USB-C cables - 8" and a few longer - this process uses the 8".  The cables I use work for both data exchange and power delivery.

iOS software includes the Leica FOTOS app as well as LR, PS and PS Express. All four are loaded on my 11" iPad Pro Gen 4. My iPhone 15 Pro Max includes FOTOS, LR and PS Express.

The kit above enables me to easily transfer and back-up image files. Here's how I implement the plan.

Throughout the day's shooting I will, during down time, review images on the camera and mark those I'd like to edit that evening. While I can download to the iPhone on the road, I generally prefer to wait for the hotel so I can transfer to the iPad - bigger screen for easier editing. To transfer marked images directly from the M10R into the iPhone/iPad involves establishing comms between the camera and the iOS Leica FOTOS app. This is a very straightforward process that always works. I startup the local wifi net on the M10R, startup up the FOTOS app on the mobile device, and wait for the camera to connect with the app, usually just a few moments and I am reviewing images on the mobile device. Image files I select for download are added to the Apple Photos app on that device (and uploaded to iCloud in background). On any given day I transfer between five and ten images for evening, or next day, editing. The iOS LR app uses Adobe's Creative Cloud (CC) so when I open one of the images from Apple Photos, that image is also uploaded to CC. This enables me to edit an image with either of my mobile devices while on the road and, after I return home and synch LR with LR Classic, on my Mac Mini. Editing a few images on a daily basis during a trip lets me keep friends and family up to date on my adventures through social media (IG and Flickr) or directly through text/email. Easy peasy!

Back at the hotel, and after I've transferred images as discussed above, I remove that day's SD card then insert into the camera and format a new SD card. The Anker USB Hub is connected to the iPad's USB-C port and the Sony USB card reader is attached (that device uses a USB A connection). Into the Anker Hub is also attached the 8" USB-C cable. At this point there are no storage devices connected. On the iPad I open Apple's "Files" app then insert that day's SD card into the SD card reader and 8" cable is inserted into a one of the 1TB SSDs. After a few moments both devices appear in the iPad's Files app. Now it is a simple matter to drag the images from that day's SD card and drop them into file structure on the SSD. (Note: dragging/dropping and editing can be accomplished with a finger or with an Apple Pencil - I use both interchangeably.) Once that transfer is complete, I remove SSD #1, insert SSD #2 and repeat that transfer process onto the second drive. Transferring the SD card images to the two SSDs  usually takes between five and ten minutes depending on how many images I shot that day. When completed, there are three copies of the day's images. The used SD card, 1TB SSD #1 and 1TB SSD #2. The accumulating pile of SD cards and one of the SSDs are kept in my luggage and the other SSD is with me in the camera kit. Not foolproof, but as good as it's going to get while on the road. Final backups to the cloud happen back home.

Regarding the source from which to edit, I could leave one of the SSDs plugged into the iPad and edit in LR directly from and save back to that drive. However, that requires I keep the SSD and the hub plugged into the iPad and that feels constricting. Much more mobile to edit just the few images that were transferred wirelessly. The rest of the images can wait until I return home.

Once home, there are three copies of all photos - the pile of used SD cards and the two 1TB SSDs. My first step is to upload, from one of the 1TB SSDs - doesn't matter which - all the trip's images to Apple iCloud. This is a time consuming, internet-bandwidth-clogging process which takes a few days. Literally a few days. I returned recently from a three-week Europe trip with about 2,700 images totaling about 115GB. It took just at 48 hours for all of those files to upload to iCloud. To accomplish that task I attached one of the 1TB SSDs to my home computer (a 2020-era M1 Mac Mini) then dragged and dropped the trip folder into the image storage file structure that is established in iCloud. Again, this is a time consuming process. Don't plan on streaming your favorite shows while this upload is in progress.

When the dust settles on that process I check two things; that the beginning and end image file numbers my camera assigned are the same in both locations (SSD and iCloud) and that the total number of files transferred to iCloud is the same as are on the SSD. This is a quick no-brainer check that is intended to assure me I have all the photos safely in the cloud.

The final step, after all the files are uploaded to iCloud and before beginning at-home editing, is to back up iCloud images onto the two, 2TB SanDisk SSDs reserved for this purpose. For this transfer I utilize a program on my Mac Mini named Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC). It has been may go-to for quite a few years and has always worked as intended. On first use you will need to define a cloning task. For this example my task is "iCloud Pictures to 2TB SSD #1."  A second, defined task saves to 2TB SSD #2. Simply start-up CCC, plug in a 2TB SSD (whichever one, just choose the like named task else CCC will ask you to rethink what you are doing) and press "Start." The program reads the source folder then the destination folder and begins cloning. My defaults are set such that the 2TB SSD is an exact copy of iCloud. After the first 2TB SSD has cloned I eject it, plug in the second 2TB SSD, select the appropriate task, and press "Start" to begin the second round of cloning.  The iCloud back-up process takes a short bit of time but it leaves me with two in-hand copies of all of my iCloud images. For safety, one of the 2TB SSDs lives two blocks away at my daughter's home. 

After all the uploading and backing up, I am left with the two, 1TB SSDs and an accumulation of SD cards, all loaded with the trip's images. At this point, the camera SD cards are placed back into rotation. It is my normal process to format an SD card upon first insertion into a camera so I don't worry about formatting them at this point. As for the SSDs, there is still plenty of room on those drives for a few more trips. However, at some point they will be erased and reformatted for allow continued use. 

I hope this discussion helps anyone trying to figure out a similar process for their travels. While I am sure there are other methodologies, this one has worked for me. That said, tech is improving daily and I suspect the process I use in a year will be different, and most likely more streamlined, than I use today.  Cheers all!

Note: the gear listed was purchased at my own expense after a lot of research and a lot of trial and error (I have a box full of stuff that didn't do what I wanted). I'm sure there are similar types of kit that perform the same functions. Use what works best for you.